The Catholic "Consistent Life Ethic" and Attitudes Toward Capital Punishment and Welfare Reform

Sociology of Religion, Fall, 2001 by Paul Perl, Jamie S. McClintock

Many elites of the left, typified by leaders of the Democratic party and most pro-choice activists, argue that abortion rights and a government welfare safety net should be understood as complimentary parts of a larger project to protect the well-being and autonomy of women in society. Many elites of the right argue that restrictions on abortion and limits on government intervention in the economy are equally necessary to protect individual rights, both the right to life and freedom in the marketplace. And yet, economic attitudes are simply not strong predictors of American's attitudes on abortion. The relationship between demographic/background traits and attitudes on the two dimensions provides further indication of their distinct nature. Cultural ideology, including abortion attitudes, is strongly related to education and religious commitment (Knoke 1979; Pollock 1983; Davis and Robinson 1996; Olson 1997). Economic ideology is most strongly predicted by income and other indicators of economic class positio n (Knoke 1979; Kluegel and Smith 1986; Olson 1997). These differences suggest that economic issues are first and foremost matters of material interest while cultural issues involve conflict over fundamental social values, particularly values tied to traditionalist versus modernist worldviews.

Thus, in advocating "consistency" between abortion and economic issues, the Bishops are seeking to succeed where other political elites appear to have made limited progress. Some policy issues, of course, lie outside the realm of both the cultural and economic dimensions and are seen by most members of the public as relevant to neither. Our empirical analyses explore the relationship between abortion and two types of issues: economic (welfare reform) and an issue that is neither cultural not economic (capital punishment).

Capital Punishment and Welfare Reform as Life Issues

In recent years, some of the issues of original concern to Bernardin have received less attention. In particular, nuclear deterrence is less emphasized by the Bishops, perhaps due to the demise of the Soviet Union and consequent arms and testing reductions. Our analyses focus on two issues that received growing attention from Catholic leaders during the 1990s: capital punishment and welfare reform. We now discuss these two issues in turn.

In recent years, the rhetoric of Catholic leaders in opposing abortion has often made direct reference to capital punishment as a closely related "life" issue. The rhetoric has not been limited to abstract pronouncements; bishops have frequently opposed specific instances of capital punishment. During the 1990s, bishops in states including Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio pleaded for clemency for individual death row inmates (Rice 1995; Freedberg 1999; Brown 1999; Eiserer 1998; Martelle and Schrader 1998; Courier-Journal 1996; Albert 1994; Herrmann and Seibel 1994). Usually, such appeals have made explicit reference to the broader sanctity of human life. Typical is the following statement of the Bishops of Indiana in a clemency plea for a convicted murderer: "Because we believe in the sacredness and dignity of all human life, we must speak Out strongly against the violence and death which now permeates all aspects of our society" (quoted in Albert 1994). In speaking ou t more strongly on this issue in recent years, the Bishops may have been spurred partly by the pontiff, who has also become increasingly critical of the death penalty. In 1995, Pope John Paul II issued the encyclical Evangelium vitae, or "The Gospel of Life," which condemned capital punishment more strenuously than his previous statements on the issue. Opposition to abortion was a central theme of the encyclical, and it paralleled the U.S. Bishops in making connections among abortion, capital punishment, and other issues conceptualized as falling under the "life" theme. In 1997, the Vatican revised the Church's official catechism to reflect the Pope's stronger opposition to the death penalty.