(ZENIT News / Washington, 12.12.2025).- The Catholic Church’s moral opposition to the death penalty is among its clearest contemporary teachings. Yet among Catholic voters in the United States, that position continues to meet significant resistance, revealing a persistent gap between official doctrine and the moral instincts of the faithful.
A recent nationwide survey conducted by EWTN News in partnership with RealClear Opinion Research illustrates this tension with unusual clarity. Interviewing 1,000 Catholic voters in mid-November, the poll found that a majority—55 percent—support the use of capital punishment for individuals convicted of murder. Only one in five respondents rejected the practice outright, while a striking 25 percent expressed uncertainty, suggesting a constituency divided not only from Church teaching but also within itself.
The findings are particularly noteworthy in light of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, revised in 2018 under Pope Francis, which now states unequivocally that the death penalty is “inadmissible” because it violates the inviolable dignity of the human person. The Church, the text adds, works “with determination” for its abolition worldwide. This language marked a decisive break from earlier formulations, which allowed for capital punishment in rare cases where it was deemed the only way to protect society.
Patterns within the data complicate the picture. Catholics who attend Mass weekly—often assumed to be more closely aligned with Church teaching—are somewhat more likely to oppose the death penalty than those who attend less frequently. Even so, support among regular Mass-goers remains high: just over half favor capital punishment for convicted murderers, while roughly a quarter oppose it and the rest remain undecided. Among less frequent attendees, support climbs further and opposition drops sharply.
These numbers point to a deeper moral paradox within American Catholicism. While the Church has steadily developed a consistent ethic of life that extends from abortion to end-of-life care and criminal justice, many Catholics appear to apply the “pro-life” label selectively. Sister Helen Prejean, whose decades-long ministry to death row inmates has shaped public debate and inspired the film Dead Man Walking, argues that this inconsistency is deeply rooted.
In her view, many believers instinctively defend innocent life but struggle to extend the same moral concern to those guilty of grave crimes. Once a person is labeled a murderer, she observes, the moral imagination often shuts down. The revised catechetical language, she says, challenges precisely this reflex by insisting that dignity is not something earned through innocence but something intrinsic to every human being.
Prejean also points to an important nuance often missed in public polling. Support for the death penalty tends to erode when respondents are offered concrete alternatives, such as life imprisonment without parole. Jurors, she notes, are increasingly reluctant to impose death sentences, suggesting that attitudes soften when people confront real choices rather than abstract categories of crime and punishment.
That shift matters, especially given the large segment of Catholics who say they are unsure where they stand. For Prejean, this uncertainty is not a failure but an opening. It reflects a moral tension still in motion, one that can be shaped by encounter, education, and pastoral formation. Moral convictions, she argues, often mature not through arguments alone but through personal contact with those affected by the system.
Catholic advocates working at the policy level echo this assessment. Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, who leads the Catholic Mobilizing Network, emphasizes that the Church’s opposition to capital punishment is not a recent innovation but the culmination of decades of reflection by successive popes, from John Paul II to Benedict XVI and now Leo XIV. In the United States, the bishops have repeatedly called for abolition, framing the issue squarely within the Church’s broader defense of human life.
For Murphy, the persistence of pro-death-penalty sentiment among Catholics signals a need for deeper catechesis rather than doctrinal retreat. Church teaching, she insists, is clear; what remains uneven is its reception. Bridging that gap requires sustained moral formation capable of translating abstract principles into concrete convictions.
The survey’s results, then, do not simply measure opinion. They expose a fault line within American Catholic life, where deeply ingrained cultural attitudes toward crime and punishment collide with a Gospel-centered vision of mercy and human dignity. Whether that tension narrows or widens in the coming years may depend less on polling numbers than on the Church’s ability to engage consciences where they are—particularly among those who, for now, are still undecided.
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