IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/yv86c.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Catholics and Capital Punishment: Do Pope Francis's Teachings Matter in Policy Preferences?

Author

Listed:
  • Cullen, Francis T.
  • Graham, Amanda

    (Georgia Southern University)

  • Hannan, Kellie
  • Burton, Alexander L.
  • Butler, Leah C.
  • Burton, Velmer S. Jr.

Abstract

In the United States, Catholics make up more than 50 million members of the adult population, or about 1 in 5 Americans. It is unclear whether their religious affiliation shapes Catholics' views on public policy issues, ranging from the legality of abortion to criminal justice practices. Capital punishment is especially salient, given that Pope Francis announced in 2018—as official Catholic Church doctrine—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 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 murders. Data from our 2020 MTurk survey shows that only 12.7% 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 generation of Catholics, instruction in the impermissibility of capital punishment, as part of the Church's consistent ethic of life, will be integral to their religious training.

Suggested Citation

  • Cullen, Francis T. & Graham, Amanda & Hannan, Kellie & Burton, Alexander L. & Butler, Leah C. & Burton, Velmer S. Jr., 2020. "Catholics and Capital Punishment: Do Pope Francis's Teachings Matter in Policy Preferences?," SocArXiv yv86c, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:yv86c
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/yv86c
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5f020f6abee6650198f9a626/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/yv86c?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kevin B. Smith & John R. Alford & John R. Hibbing & Nicholas G. Martin & Peter K. Hatemi, 2017. "Intuitive Ethics and Political Orientations: Testing Moral Foundations as a Theory of Political Ideology," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(2), pages 424-437, April.
    2. Rafi M. M. I. Chowdhury, 2019. "The Moral Foundations of Consumer Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 585-601, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jin Ho Yun & Yaeri Kim & Eun-Ju Lee, 2022. "ERP Study of Liberals’ and Conservatives’ Moral Reasoning Processes: Evidence from South Korea," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 176(4), pages 723-739, April.
    2. Van Loo, Ellen J. & Caputo, Vincenzina & Lusk, Jayson L., 2020. "Consumer preferences for farm-raised meat, lab-grown meat, and plant-based meat alternatives: Does information or brand matter?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    3. M. G. Ceravolo & V. Farina & L. Fattobene & L. Leonelli & G. Raggetti, 2021. "Gender-Related Variability in Information Processing of Disclosure Documents," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 217-233, June.
    4. Raymond Tatalovich & Dane G. Wendell, 2018. "Expanding the scope and content of morality policy research: lessons from Moral Foundations Theory," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 51(4), pages 565-579, December.
    5. Gazi Islam, 2020. "Psychology and Business Ethics: A Multi-level Research Agenda," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-13, August.
    6. Elodie Gentina & Carole Daniel & Thomas Li-Ping Tang, 2021. "Mindfulness Reduces Avaricious Monetary Attitudes and Enhances Ethical Consumer Beliefs: Mindfulness Training, Timing, and Practicing Matter," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 173(2), pages 301-323, October.
    7. Shalini Sarin Jain & Shailendra Pratap Jain & Yexin Jessica Li, 2023. "Sustaining Livelihoods or Saving Lives? Economic System Justification in the Time of COVID-19," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(1), pages 71-104, February.
    8. Arnaud Wolff, 2022. "The Signaling Value of Social Identity," Working Papers of BETA 2022-15, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    9. Stahl, B.C. & Andreou, A. & Brey, P. & Hatzakis, T. & Kirichenko, A. & Macnish, K. & Laulhé Shaelou, S. & Patel, A. & Ryan, M. & Wright, D., 2021. "Artificial intelligence for human flourishing – Beyond principles for machine learning," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 374-388.
    10. Rossen, Isabel & Hurlstone, Mark J. & Dunlop, Patrick D. & Lawrence, Carmen, 2019. "Accepters, fence sitters, or rejecters: Moral profiles of vaccination attitudes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 23-27.
    11. Raphaela Schlicht-Schmälzle & Volha Chykina & Ralf Schmälzle, 2018. "An attitude network analysis of post-national citizenship identities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-19, December.
    12. Michael Zakharin & Timothy C Bates, 2021. "Remapping the foundations of morality: Well-fitting structural model of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(10), pages 1-26, October.
    13. Denni Arli & Felix Septianto & Rafi M. M. I. Chowdhury, 2021. "Religious But Not Ethical: The Effects of Extrinsic Religiosity, Ethnocentrism and Self-righteousness on Consumers’ Ethical Judgments," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 171(2), pages 295-316, June.
    14. Pasirayi, Simbarashe & Fennell, Patrick B. & Sen, Argha, 2023. "The effect of third-party delivery partnerships on firm value," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    15. Neugart, Michael & Yildirim, Selen, 2020. "What determines perceived income justice? Evidence from the German TwinLife study," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    16. Alrababah, Ala & Casalis, Marine & Masterson, Daniel & Hangartner, Dominik & Wehrli, & Weinstein, Jeremy, 2023. "Reducing Attrition in Phone-based Panel Surveys: A Web Application to Facilitate Best Practices and Semi-Automate Survey Workflow," OSF Preprints gyz3h, Center for Open Science.
    17. Toti, Jean-François & Diallo, Mbaye Fall & Huaman-Ramirez, Richard, 2021. "Ethical sensitivity in consumers’ decision-making: The mediating and moderating role of internal locus of control," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 168-182.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:yv86c. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.