FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Catholic Conference in Kentucky (CCK) called for an end to capital punishment in Kentucky at a hearing last week on how executions are carried out in the state.

Noting that New Jersey and New Mexico have abolished the death penalty in recent years, Robert Castagna, CCK executive director, said states “increasingly are withdrawing from the practice of capital punishment.” Kentucky’s Catholic bishops have urged that Kentucky do the same and that the governor commute the sentences to those on death row to life in prison without parole, he said.

Castagna was one of more than a dozen people who testified at the Jan. 29 hearing held by the state Department of Justice and Public Service Cabinet. The hearing was on proposed regulations for carrying out executions in Kentucky.

The proposed administrative regulations being considered “take us in the opposite direction from the national trends” of abolishing capital punishment, placing moratoriums on executions and conducting cost studies of the death penalty, Castagna said.

He asked the state cabinet to withdraw the proposed rules on executions pending an American Bar Association study of the death-penalty system in Kentucky and a review of that study’s report.

Castagna said the CCK, public policy arm of the state’s bishops, also urges “an independent, professional and thorough study” of the cost of administering the death penalty in Kentucky.

“Cost is a significant factor in implementing the death penalty,” Castagna said in his testimony. He noted that studies in some states have shown that the cost of an execution exceeds $1 million and that the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy reported in 2009 that it spends about $3 million a year on representing death-penalty cases.

“A period of time for a moratorium on the death penalty in Kentucky may result in the realization that Kentuckians are better off using scarce fiscal resources in a severe economic downturn for life-giving, life-affirming purposes such as schools, health care and the care and housing of the poor, elderly and vulnerable in our communities,” he said.

Castagna also called for changes in some of the proposed death-penalty regulations.

He urged the adoption of a conscience clause — similar to one in Oregon — to protect corrections officials and state employees who object to participating in an execution.

Castagna also criticized limits that regulations place on ministers who visit inmates on death row. Regulations limit these visits to daily on weekdays, he said, but “the minister of record should be able to seek daily visits.”

On the day of execution, the minister should have the opportunity “to call for an appointment for a visit or a phone call, just as the opportunity is provided to the attorney of record” for the inmate, Castagna said.

He added that the proposed regulations now “prohibit the minister of record from having personal contact with the inmate to administer the religious sacraments of the inmate’s faith and to anoint the inmate in the preparation for death.”