INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A recent legislative effort to abolish the death penalty in Indiana has gained bipartisan support in this year’s legislative session and has the full support of the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Indiana.

Archbishop Charles C. Thompson of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis said Monday, ““The longstanding position for the Catholic Church, dignity of life from conception to natural death, and this is one piece of that we believe, that the death penalty denies the ability for someone to have a reformation, or conversion of heart or to be transformed in that in a period of time that lifelong prison might be able to provide.”

House Bill 1030 was assigned to the House Committee on Courts and Criminal Code, but the panel has not scheduled a hearing on the measure.

The House bill was introduced after the December execution of Joseph Corcoran, who had been sentenced to death for the 1997 murders of four people, including his own brother, in Fort Wayne. Corcoran was the states’ first execution in 15 years.

“The research basically shows that in places where the death penalty has been abolished that they actually have a less lesser murder rate than places that continue the death penalty,” Thompson said.

Indiana is one of the 24 U.S. states that uses the death penalty. Seven men on Indiana’s death row, and four defendants have open death penalty cases in Indiana courts.