Questions of life and death, virtue and iniquity, mercy and justice are raised in this Sunday’s readings. The case of Troy Davis has done the same. The condemned inmate, who convinced hundreds of thousands of people but not the justice system of his innocence, filed an 11th-hour plea Wednesday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Georgia authorities from executing him for the 1989 murder of off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail, but the high court declined to do so and Davis was executed late Wednesday night.

From the Book of Ezekiel we hear the argument: “When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die. But if he turns from the wickedness he has committed, he does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life.” Though Davis' attorneys said seven of nine key witnesses against him disputed all or parts of their testimony, state and federal judges repeatedly ruled against granting him a new trial.

“Remember your mercies,” urges the psalmist of the Lord this Sunday. Amnesty International says nearly 1 million people signed a petition on Davis' behalf. Supporters of a stay included Pope Benedict XVI, former President Jimmy Carter, a former FBI director, the NAACP, several conservative figures, and many celebrities.

Davis' supporters staged vigils in the U.S. and Europe Wednesday, declaring "I am Troy Davis" on signs, T-shirts, and the Internet. "Troy Davis has impacted the world," his sister Martina Correia said at a news conference. "They say, 'I am Troy Davis,' in languages he can't speak."

"He has had ample time to prove his innocence," said MacPhail's widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris. "And he is not innocent."

Davis was not the only U.S. inmate scheduled to die Wednesday evening. In Texas white supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer headed to the death chamber for the 1998 dragging death of a black man, James Byrd, Jr., one of the most notorious hate-crime murders in recent U.S. history.

In his encyclical The Gospel of Life Pope John Paul II said that “the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform.” In 2005 the Catholic bishops of the United States issued the document "A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death" in which they called for an end to the use of the death penalty in the United States, stating “it is time for our nation to abandon the illusion that we can protect life by taking life.”

Sources: Articles by Matthew Bigg for Reuters, Greg Bluestein for the
Associated Press, and “Backgrounder on the Death Penalty” at usccb.org