The California Catholic bishops are urging voters to support a November ballot initiative that would outlaw the death penalty.

Proposition 62 would replace the maximum punishment for murder with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"It is time for us to end the death penalty - not only in California but throughout the United States and throughout the world," said Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H Gomez said in a commentary in Angelus, the online news outlet of the Los Angeles Archdiocese.