Nearly three out of four Americans support capital punishment.
Even though Roman Catholic Church teaching opposes the death penalty,
the same percentage of support holds true among U.S. Catholics.
In a recent paper using data from the Notre Dame Study of Catholic
Parish Life, sociologists Michael Welch of Notre Dame and Thoroddur
Bjarnason of the University at Albany-SUNY, sort out the demographics
of U.S. Catholics who oppose the death penalty.
Welch, chairman of the Department of Sociology, and Bjarnason
found that black, female and unmarried Catholics are more likely
to oppose the death penalty than white, male and married parishioners.
White Catholics in traditional black parishes also are more likely
to oppose capital punishment. The sociologists speculate that
these white Catholics may be more influenced by black arguments
about racial bias in imposition of the death penalty. They also
found that support for capital punishment decreases with advancing
age and higher education.
Significantly, their analysis revealed that Catholics are less
likely to support the death penalty when their parish priest strongly
opposes it. The sociologists found that parishioners who were
devout and active in parish life - providing them more frequent
contact with the parish priest - were more likely to oppose the
death penalty.
(July 2003)
