Come Biden’s inauguration on January 20th, the federal death penalty may cease.
Which American minority group has been the most successful in politics and policy-making? Come January 20th, hands down it’s Roman Catholics. On that date, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. will become the nation’s second Catholic president, following John F. Kennedy. About 30 percent of Congress is Catholic, and a majority of the Supreme Court is too.
And capital punishment at the federal and state level might become the one area where the combination of a Biden presidency, Catholics in Congress, and the justice system will trigger a tipping point in which executions are banned first at the federal level, and then perhaps in states across the nation.
In the fourth and final year of the Trump administration, there have been more federal death-penalty executions than at the state level for the first time in US history. The executions resumed this summer after a 17-year hiatus. “Donald Trump is on a killing spree: as his time in power comes to an end the president seems intent on executing as many people as possible,” asserts Arwa Mahdawi, a New York-based columnist for The Guardian. In 2020, there were 17 executions (the lowest total since 1991) with 10 by the federal government. Right now, three more federal executions may occur before Biden’s inauguration. A federal court halted plans of the Trump Justice Department to execute the only woman on death row just before Biden takes office.
Right now, there is a growing disconnect between public opinion and public policy on the death penalty. Public opinion has been trending against the death penalty for decades despite the reality that 28 states and the federal government still assert the legal authority to execute criminals, especially in cases of murder.
In 2019, the Gallup poll found that for the first time more Americans favored lifetime imprisonment without parole over the death penalty for murder. Although among Catholics support for the death penalty for murder bumped up to 53 percent, according to a 2018 Pew Research survey, another survey from 2010 showed that 58 percent of Catholics, when given a choice, favored some form of lifetime imprisonment without parole over the death penalty.
There is a strong current of opinion in the Catholic church that if one is consistently pro-life then the death penalty has to go. Since the reforms of Vatican II, it has opposed the death penalty. In 2001, the Vatican said, “The death penalty is a sign of desperation.” In 2018, Pope Francis revised Section 2267 of the official teaching in the church’s catechism to condemn capital punishment in all cases. This catechism is now used to teach new and old Catholics a fresh view of the death penalty.
Other Christian groups are also trending against the death penalty. For example, among evangelicals, the issue has moved toward an optional status. In 2015, National Association of Evangelicals affirmed the legitimacy of either support for or against capital punishment. Latino Evangelical leaders have called for an outright ban. Among older, more liberal denominations, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church oppose capital punishment.
So, there is a rare moment of alignment between the public opinion at large and many faith leaders. The political powers are also becoming aligned in a once in a lifetime event.
The government of Capital Punishment
The Democrats, officially against capital punishment in their party platform, will hold the House of Representatives and the White House as of January 2021. On January 5th, runoff elections in Georgia will determine which party will control the U.S. Senate.
Evoking images of a war out of control, Representative Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote a letter on behalf of about 40 members of Congress asking Biden to abolish the federal death penalty on his first day in office. According to CNN, the mid-December letter decried Trump’s use of the death penalty, saying, “The current administration has weaponized capital punishment with callous disregard for human life … With a stroke of your pen, you can stop all federal executions.” Lisa Montgomery could be scheduled for execution the day after Biden is inaugurated, so his first presidential decision could be a postponement or cancellation of the execution.
State enthusiasm for the death penalty has waned and almost collapsed under the stresses of the pandemic. This year has seen a historic low in executions, the Death Penalty Information Center notes. State executions were at a 37-year low, and Colorado became the 22nd state to abolish the death penalty. In 2007, the New York Court of Appeals ruled the state’s reinstated death penalty was unconstitutional, and New Jersey’s state government abolished the death penalty. In 2011, Illinois repealed the death penalty.
The Center reports that thirty-four states have either abolished the death penalty (22%) or not executed someone in at least ten years (12%). In recent years, states with greater Catholic populations have tended to abolish the death penalty, including Illinois (30%), New Jersey (41%), and New York (32%).
Voters in urban centers and college towns tend to reject harsh punishments and the death penalty, according the Center’s interpretation of Gallup Poll surveys. As a result, these voters have been electing anti-death penalty district attorneys for areas that have provided 12% of the current U.S. death-row population.
With 570 executions, Texas remains an outlier, though there has been a steady decline in new death penalty sentences since the late 1990s. Religious reasons may be playing a role in preserving the death penalty in Texas. The state is home to about 3.7 million Southern Baptists whose leadership has been generally supportive of the death penalty as an option. In 2000, messengers (delegates) to the Southern Baptist Convention voted to “support the fair and equitable use of capital punishment by civil magistrates as a legitimate form of punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts that result in death.” In light of the declining use of the death penalty, a change of heart by a few significant Texas Southern Baptist leaders could play an important role in the national debate.
Cross-currents in Catholicism
It’s still too early to say how the nation’s second Catholic president might shape the overall American experience. However, the next four years seems sure to draw some American cultural values closer to those of American Catholics. Capital punishment is just one key area to watch. Other areas of American life may also be influenced by the posture of Catholics as people of faith who are pro-life, pro-immigration, pro-labor, pro-private education, and pro-religious freedom.
But there are many cross-currents right now. Politically, American Catholics are pretty evenly split politically (48 percent identify Republican, 47 percent Democrat). However, White American Catholics were pretty pro-Trump. The even political division of Catholics means that the fault lines with the church will be front and center, warts and all. The cold war in Catholicism between progressive supporters of Pope Francis and traditionalists is likely to get hotter in the next four years during the Biden presidency. Right now with Francis in the Holy See, Biden president and Democratic control of the House of Representatives, the anti-death penalty Catholics have the upper hand.
The perplexing reality is that Catholicism as a percentage of the population is declining just as Catholic influence in policy-making is growing. In 2014, Pew Research found that 21 percent of Americans are Catholic, a decline from 24 percent in 2007. Pew also found that 13 percent of all American adults are formerly Catholic.
The growth of Hispanic Catholics in the South and West is one demographic uptick. They represent more than 30 percent of all US Catholics today.
Certain Catholic divisions will affect debates over the death penalty: over the role of women in the church; who should be denied communion; the marriage of priests; the use of artificial birth control; the response to systemic racism; sexual abuse scandals; and LGBT rights. Biden is likely to favor the progressive side in these debates.
One political skirmish to anticipate in 2021 is whether Congress will overturn the Hyde amendment (named after Henry Hyde, the Illinois Catholic congressman). It bans federal funding through Medicare for abortion. Biden favors abolishing this amendment.
Both Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have said consistently that their policy-making is rooted in their Catholic faith. “I actually agree with the pope on more issues than many Catholics who agree with him on one issue,” Pelosi told The New York Times in 2015.
One thing is clear that Catholic leaders in government, the media, and culture will have greater influence, for good or ill, over the course of the American experience for at least the next four years.
Tim Morgan is a board member of A Journey through NYC religions. He is director of the Journalism Certificate Program at Wheaton College (Illinois) and has been a journalist since 1980. An award-winning journalist, Morgan has served as editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper, deputy managing editor of a national magazine (Christianity Today), and as a correspondent for national and international news services. For most of his career, he has trained students, peers, and educators in the essentials of journalism as well as the use of digital and online technology. In 2012, he launched www.MillennialInflux.com, a website designed to showcase the journalism of early-career Millennials. He is a member of the Evangelical Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.
