I would like to first thank many of you here for your welcoming me a few years ago and especially to Heidi for allowing me to start a section devoted to organized crime. I returned from a hiatus from this forum and I perceived a change, that, while not immediately detrimental to the forum, could in future do so.

It seems to me that capital punishment should be based upon justice, but, not revenge. Yet I read troubling posts from some members here filled with such hate even after the offender has been executed. To quote the Green Mile, "he's paid his debt and is square with the house." I have read statements from some members - admittedly a minority of members - who desire to continue executing the offender. While they make arguments that the victim's families have to endure life without their loved one, they simultaneously argue that capital punishment brings closure. I suppose no one told Bud Welch or other families that they should feel such closure. True, some families do and some do not. But that is not what is at issue for me. My issue as an Orthodox Christian and as a human being is that we tread dangerously into becoming that which is professed to be evil.

I have read such violent statements coming from members saying that they would pull the trigger, flip the switch, or apply the needle. Ask Jerry Givens about that and learn HIS answer. And what of the toll of the guards, wardens - I am thinking here of Don Cabana - may his memory be eternal - and chaplains in this "process." I must say that your bravado if it can be called that - and charitably so - is nothing but sound and fury signifying nothing.

I grew up in a violent household that most of you cannot imagine. I am a survivor and additionally, my so-called father is serving two consecutive life terms plus 66 years for two murders and a string of other first degree felonies. I think of the evil he caused, I think of Sammy Gravano who served only five years for 19 murders. Did you know that only ONE high ranking Mafia figure was ever executed? And he wasn't even a made member of La Cosa Nostra. On the other side of the coin, there are a few executions that have truly come to worry me. Florida, which has the HIGHEST number of exonerations, now wants to shorten the appeals process. Perhaps here I am a minority of one in these thoughts. But God have mercy if indeed we have or will execute an innocent. God Incarnate - Jesus Christ - both stopped a judicial execution and He Himself was executed. Would you who boast have stoned the woman or hammered those three nails? You see, justice should never base itself upon revenge, but, upon what is just.

So many are quick to incorrectly interpret the lex talionis while possessing NO Judaic or formal Christian training in Mosaic Law yet ignore Christ's admonition to NOT hate wrongdoers. Christ told us that He came to make a new covenant for all. And Christ was so soft hippie as evidenced by his anger at the money changers in the temple AND his anger at St. Peter. Yet, the thief who confessed Christ as God was with Christ in Paradise when he died.

I do not advocate being soft on crime. In fact, I do not advocate these same Mafia plea deals that spare the worst killers. But, I must refocus: I have lived through unspeakable violence and I cannot pretend anymore to smile at those in the minority of this community who advocate executions that carry extreme pain. Violence NEVER cures violence.

The Orthodox Church has always stood against the death penalty. The Roman Catholic Church has now joined the majority of western mainline Protestant churches in calling for abolition. As such, as a Christian, I can no longer advocate violence, judicial or otherwise. I desire that all be protected from evil doers but I can no longer allow myself to be a murderer by proxy. Life in prison without parole accomplishes much more and does not bring out our inhumanity.

I shall close by wishing all of you well for we are related in the mage and Likeness of the Living God.

May He favor you all the days of your lives. May He forgive all of us.

With love,

Vlad