Faith leaders call on Biden to abolish federal death penalty once and for all

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

49% : For Catholics, opposition to the death penalty is more consolidated.
44% : Last weekend, Zoosman led protesters in front of the Supreme Court in prayer against the death penalty during Starvin' For Justice, an annual fast and vigil.
43% : The president pledged on the campaign trail to eliminate the death penalty.
43% : And there's been a long tradition of opposition to the death penalty among Christians, though beliefs differ drastically across denominations and racial lines.
43% : More than three-quarters of White Protestants view capital punishment as morally justified.
42% : Buddhist monk Tashi Nyima, a member of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, told The American Independent Foundation.
42% : Jews Against the Death Penalty, told The American Independent Foundation.
42% : "Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government's example," his 2020 campaign website reads.
42% : That compares to just 60% of American adults who favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder.
41% : Advocates also say the death penalty is another tool of racial discrimination.
39% : In Congress, legislators reintroduced this year the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act of 2021, which would ban capital punishment at the federal level, though it hasn't been brought to a vote.
39% : While supporters say the death penalty helps prevent crime, studies have failed to produce any evidence of deterrence.
39% : "The death penalty is an act of revenge and it has no place in civil society."
38% : In Pittsburgh, Dor Hadash, one of the congregations targeted during the Tree of Life shooting, which left 11 worshipers dead in 2018, has staked out its opposition of the death penalty for alleged shooter Robert Bowers.
38% : While capital punishment crops up often in the Torah, Judaism's scripture of law and ethics, rabbis later revised Jewish teaching to make it nearly impossible to carry out.
38% : He recited Kol Nidre, a sacred text chanted on Judaism's solemnest day, Yom Kippur, to "atone for the national sin of the death penalty."
38% : Two years later, he reiterated his opposition, stating, "The death penalty is inadmissible, and Catholics should work for its abolition."
37% : Beyond religion, death penalty abolitionists cite myriad other reasons to do away with capital punishment.
35% : Now, faith leaders are pushing President Joe Biden to fulfill his campaign promise and end capital punishment at the federal level once and for all.
32% : Last month, the Biden administration requested that the Supreme Court reinstate the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, after a federal appeals court overturned his death sentence last year.
29% : While lauding Biden for reinstating a pause, clergy said they hope for the total abolition of the death penalty, which makes the United States an outlier among its closest allies and more than 70% of the world's nations, which don't use the punishment.
29% : Clergy are confounded by the moratorium, considering Biden is the first president in the nation's history to oppose capital punishment.

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