Catholics and capital punishment: Do Pope Francis’s teachings matter in policy preferences?
| Author | Francis T Cullen,Amanda Graham,Kellie R Hannan,Alexander L Burton,Leah C Butler,Velmer S Burton |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1462474521998879 |
| Published date | 01 October 2022 |
| Date | 01 October 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Catholics and capital
punishment: Do Pope
Francis’s teachings
matter in policy
preferences?
Francis T Cullen
University of Cincinnati, USA
Amanda Graham
Georgia Southern University, USA
Kellie R Hannan and
Alexander L Burton
University of Cincinnati, USA
Leah C Butler
University of Nebraska Omaha, USA
Velmer S Burton, Jr.
University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA
Abstract
In the United States, Catholics make up more than 50 million members of the adult
population, or about one in five Americans. It is unclear whether their religious affil-
iation shapes Catholics’ views on public policy issues, ranging from the legality of abor-
tion to criminal justice practices. Capital punishment is especially salient, given that
Pope Francis announced in 2018—as official Catholic Church teaching—that the death
penalty is “inadmissible” under all circumstances. Based on two national surveys, the
current project explores Catholics’ support for state executions before (2017) and
Corresponding author:
Francis T Cullen, School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA.
Email: cullenft@ucmail.uc.edu
Punishment & Society
!The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474521998879
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2022, Vol. 24(4) 592–621
after (2019) the Pope’s momentous change in the church’s Catechism. At present, little
evidence exists that Pope Francis’s doctrinal reform has impacted Catholics, a majority
of whom—like Americans generally—continue to favor the death penalty for murder-
ers. Data from our additional 2020 MTurk survey show that only 17.0% of Catholic
respondents could correctly identify the Church’s position on capital punishment.
Despite these results, Pope Francis’s teachings provide Catholic leaders and activists
with a compelling rationale for opposing the death penalty and holding Catholic public
officials accountable for espousing offenders’ execution. Further, for the next genera-
tion of Catholics, instruction in the inadmissibility of capital punishment, as part of the
Church’s consistent ethic of life, will be integral to their religious training.
Keywords
capital punishment, Catholics, Pope Francis, public opinion, religion
Introduction
Catholics are an important group within the United States, numbering more than
50 million or about one in five adult Americans (Chua-Eoan and Dias, 2013; Masci
and Smith, 2018). Masci and Smith (2018) note that the “Catholic Church is larger
than any other single religious institution in the United States, with over 17,000
parishes that serve a large and diverse population.” Politically, they are split
evenly, with 47% identifying themselves as Democrats and 46% as Republicans
(Lipka and Smith, 2019). Catholics also occupy positions of political influence.
Of the nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices—the body that decides on the constitu-
tionality of the death penalty—six are practicing Catholics (Chief Justice Roberts
and Justices Alito, Barrett, Cavanaugh, Sotomayor, and Thomas), and one
(Gorsuch) was raised Catholic but now reportedly is Episcopalian (Escobar,
2018). Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr (2019) and President Joe
Biden have been outspoken about how their Catholic faith informs their public
policy stances, including about capital punishment.
What Catholic citizens and elected officials believe about the death penalty thus
has potential consequences. Notably, for decades, the Catholic Church’s embrace
of a consistent life ethic had led to its increasing disapproval of state executions—a
position advocated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (Barrett
and Garvey, 1998). On 2 August 2018, Pope Francis made the Church’s opposition
to capital punishment complete with the momentous announcement that the death
penalty was now “inadmissible” in all circumstances (Ladaria, 2018). At issue is
whether the Pope’s teaching will affect American Catholics’ views on capital
punishment. A collateral concern is how faithful Catholic public officials can
advocate for the death penalty when morally precluded from doing so (Barrett
and Garvey, 1998).
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