One of the main reasons that they decided to launch the campaign, according to the bishops, was because of a recent poll conducted by Zogby International specifically for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The results of this November 2004 poll show that 47 percent of Catholic Americans now oppose the death penalty. This number varies significantly from a June 2001 CBS News poll in which only 27 percent of Catholics opposed the death penalty-a change of 20 percent. However, the recent Zogby poll shows 48 percent of Catholics still support capital punishment and of those who say they only attend Mass occasionally, 62 percent support it. Overall, despite more opposition to the death penalty, half of all Catholics-or slightly more-are still in favor of the death penalty. It is very possible this 50-50 split in opinion may cause difficulties for the U.S. bishops and the Catholic Church worldwide.
The campaign is also controversial because of the lack of power U.S. bishops have. Although no one questions the importance of the bishops, their position on the death penalty is not necessarily binding for Catholics. According to Karl Keating, founder of the San Diego-based association Catholic Answers, "the opposition of the majority of the American bishops to the use of capital punishment is not binding on the faithful, since national bishops' conferences, as such, are not part of the magisterium [the teaching authority of the church]." Although the Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty does have some weight, the campaign may not make as much of a difference as the bishops would hope.
Traditionally, the most common reasons Catholics have opposed the death penalty is because of a "respect for life" and because of the Bible's 6th Commandment of "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13). Yet, official church doctrine does not explicitly lay out objections to capital punishment, but rather supports it in extreme cases. The most recent Catechism of the Catholic Church (1995) addresses the issue of the death penalty directly: "The Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties...not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty." Even Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who is spearheading the campaign, admits as much. "The Catholic church has long acknowledged the right of the state to use the death penalty in order to protect society," he said at the news conference that kicked off the initiative.
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