According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
The plea for a presidential freeze on the extreme penalty now awaiting 22 prisoners on federal death row was made Thursday by Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, spiritual leader of the Galveston-Houston diocese in Texas and president of the conference of all Catholic bishops in this country.
"If he would agree, it would be one last gesture, a noble gesture, as he ends his presidency," said the archbishop.
Fiorenza's appeal came in the final day of the 66th general meeting in Washington of the 290 Roman Catholic bishops, who have repeatedly stressed their opposition to the death penalty.
Although there have been no federal executions since the 1960s, a Texan, Juan Garza, is scheduled to die by injection Dec. 12 in the only federal death chamber, at Terre Haute, Ind.
Garza was convicted of three 1993 drug-related murders.
Clinton had postponed his July 10 execution to allow time for examination of questions about whether a few federal prosecutors were responsible for a disproportionate number of death penalties.
The White House had no comment on the archbishop's request.
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