Cities for Life

Bud Welch recently returned from Spain, where he was speaking to high school and university audiences about his daugher Julie, who was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and his opposition to the execution of Timothy McVeigh and to the death penalty in general. This speaking tour was part of the Cities for Life events organized in several countries by the Community of Sant Egidio and other anti-death penalty organizations each year. 741 cities in 55 countries participate in Cities for Life.

They worked Bud hard; he sometimes spoke to as many as four groups in one day, and he said it felt like a productive trip with interested and welcoming audiences. He observed, “The people in Europe of course aren’t as aware of the death penalty as the people in the U.S., because they haven’t had to deal with it, so when you tell them about how it’s used in this country, they’re kind of stunned by it. But they’re also stunned by the amount of murders that we have in the U.S."

Just before going to Spain, Bud traveled with Toshi Kazama to Japan and Taiwan, Province of China for a variety of events and activities, and Toshi went to mainland China, which was an enormously powerful experience. We'll report on this trip in the next few posts.