Troy Davis was executed by the State of Georgia on Wednesday night, still proclaiming his innocence in the murder of a police officer 22 years ago.

“All I can ask…is that you look deeper into this case so that you really can finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends to continue to fight this fight,” Davis said as he was strapped to a gurney and a lethal dose of chemicals was injected into his bloodstream.

Davis’ case drew international attention and protests, and leads some to wonder whether questions about his conviction will begin to turn American public opinion against the death penalty.

Another convicted murderer was executed Wednesday evening, in Texas. But there was little coverage and few protests over the death sentence for Lawrence Russell Brewer, a white supremacist behind the infamous dragging death of James Byrd Jr., a black man.

“I have no final statement,” were Brewer’s last words before he was killed by lethal injection.

The Holy Father arrived in the Fatherland on Thursday, and Benedict XVI – the first German pope in 1,000 years – urged Catholics not to abandon the church because of the clergy sex abuse scandals.

German Catholics and others in Europe are upset about the scandal but also much more, though few went as far over the top as Benedict’s longtime “frenemy,” Swiss theologian Hans Keung, who accused his former pal of carrying out the “Putinization” of the Catholic Church.

A Catholic university in western Pennsylvania has disinvited the popular columnist and author Ellen Goodman from speaking at the school because they suddenly discovered the well-known liberal champion is pro-choice. Goodman had been scheduled to talk about the issue of civility.

President Obama’s speech at United Nations supporting Israel is unlikely to slow the Palestinian campaign for statehood and it is receiving mixed reactions in the Jewish community, though with most criticism coming from the Jewish left.

The Park51 Center, aka the “Ground Zero Mosque,” opened with a children’s art exhibit and little fanfare – and none of the protests and bitter denunciations that had marked its prospective arrival last year.

“We made incredible mistakes,” said Sharif El-Gamal, the center’s main developer. “The biggest mistake we made was not to include 9/11 families.”

A judge in Texas ruled that a gay father can’t leave his children alone with his partner, to whom he is legally married.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, meanwhile, turns out to have a “bromance” with bad boy actor Russell Crowe.

“I like [Perry] very much as a bloke,” Crowe has said, adding that he can walk into bars in Texas “then ride my motorbike up to the governor’s mansion and get let in.”

Whether that will help Perry in tonight’s GOP presidential debate remains to be seen, as they say in TV.

Meanwhile, Ted Haggard continues to lead with his already jutting chin. The megachurch pastor from Colorado Springs who fell from grace in a gay sex scandal will appear on an upcoming edition of ABC’s “Celebrity Wife SwapâÂ?Â?.”

Haggard and his wife Gayle will swap spouses with actor Gary BuseyâÂ?Â? and his wife. Write your own punch line.

— David Gibson