Mardi Baron

Born and raised in the mountain west, I was vaguely aware of the death penalty, but it was never headline news in Montana. I knew, however, from an early age that my Catholic faith called for mercy and that Thou Shalt Not Kill was the 6th commandment, to be applied universally.

After marrying, I lived in Idaho for 30 years and again was aware that my state still had the death penalty, that there were prisoners on death row (eight), but believe not one was executed in the time I lived there.

We moved to Texas 20 years ago and suddenly executions were in the news monthly, if not weekly! This was during Governor Perry’s terms of office, and more prisoners were executed during his administration than any other Governor since the reinstitution of the death penalty in the late 1970’s! Now I could no longer let this abhorrent practice lie dormant in my own conscience! I joined the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP) and have been acting at the San Antonio coordinator of that organization for almost a decade. More recently I learned of CMN and was invited to join their Grassroots Advisory Committee. This group has given me so much inspiration and help in bringing death penalty abolition to our Archdiocese’s attention and helping to shine a light on this Respect Life issue to the wider Catholic community.