In an ornate hall of the Apostolic Palace, framed in marble and decorated with Renaissance frescoes, Gov. Gavin Newsom waited among a procession of governors, mayors and scientists to greet the pope. Francis’ opportunity.
The queue was not the ideal setup envisioned by the governor’s advisers. Newsom traveled more than 6,000 miles from California to the Vatican to speak before the pope and hoped to talk to the pope about climate change.
However, Pope Francis has other topics to talk about besides global warming.
“I was shocked that he immediately raised the issue of the death penalty and how proud he was of the work we’re doing in California,” Newsom later said. “I was shocked by that because I didn’t expect this to happen. situation, especially in the context of this meeting.”
The conversation was brief and informal. But the politically savvy leader of the Roman Catholic Church still used the moment to back one of Newsom’s most controversial actions as governor.
Two months after taking office, Newsom issued a temporary moratorium on executions through an executive order and ordered the dismantling of the state execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison. Families of murder victims criticized the decision, and legal scholars called it an abuse of power.
Refusing the death penalty could hurt Newsom politically if he runs for president.
However, as a Catholic, the Governor’s decrees are consistent with the teachings of the Church and the Pope.
In an interview with The Times after leaving the Vatican, Newsom said he has not yet introduced a statewide ballot measure to abolish the death penalty because he is not confident it will pass. California voters rejected measures banning executions in 2012 and 2016.
Newsom said recent polls conducted by his political advisers show low support for the ban.
“We keep incorporating it into the investigations that I do,” Newsom told The Times in an interview. “It’s on the fringe. But beyond that I think about it a lot because we’re reimagining Death Row. .I’m wondering when I’m going to leave; I mean, I’m being very honest about it and I’m trying to figure out what else I can do in this space.
When Newsom took office, there were more than 730 people on death row. San Quentin Death Row is the largest prison in the Western Hemisphere. Newsom said California could be on track to completely empty its death row in just weeks under a plan to reform prisons to emphasize rehabilitation.
The governor said he was outspoken against the death penalty during his 2018 campaign.
“As lieutenant governor, as governor, I campaigned very openly. I specifically said, ‘If you elect me, this is what I’m going to do,'” Newsom said. “And I have the legal authority. So I’m not challenging that.
Currently, 21 of the 50 states impose the death penalty. The remaining 29 either did not receive the death penalty or had executions suspended due to executive action — including in California, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Newsom’s moratorium may not be popular with some battleground state voters in a potential presidential race, fueling perceptions that left-wing California and its Democratic governor are soft on crime and out of step with the rest of the country. The governor has repeatedly denied speculation that he is interested in seeking the White House and is actively campaigning for President Joe Biden’s re-election.
Kevin Acree, a political consultant who has worked with the Catholic Church in California, said the death penalty will not be a decisive factor in the election.
“Nationally, the frequency of executions over the past 50 years has been so low that I don’t see people voting based on where you stand on the death penalty. [the] Death penalty,” Eckery said. “They’re going to vote on the wallet issue. They’re going to vote on other things, but not that issue.
The Catholic Church has long said the death penalty should only be imposed in rare circumstances. Francis updated church teaching in 2018, saying “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the human person.”
In a speech at the Vatican, Newsom accused former President Trump of being “openly corrupt” by soliciting campaign donations from oil executives, before enjoying lunch in a vaulted courtyard filled with jasmine flowers at the American College in Rome.
Sitting on a weathered wooden chair under the shade of a tree, the governor explained how his Catholic background and inequities in the criminal justice system influenced his refusal to sign off on executions as governor.
He said his grandparents were devout Catholics and his late father, William Newsom, a former state appeals court judge, attended church every day growing up.
In his later years, Newsom’s father considered himself a “distant Catholic” and “somewhat ostracized” because of the church’s politics, the governor said.
Newsom said the Jesuit teachings he attended at Santa Clara University spoke a language of “faith and works” that he admired. His own religious beliefs, he said, have always been exercised “around a civic framework.”
“The Bible teaches many parts, one body,” Newsom said, referring to a phrase he often quotes. “Some people suffer, we all suffer, and there’s this notion of communitarianism.
“You can’t leave Santa Clara University without the necessary learning and religious baseline: God and a common framework of thought types,” he said.
A Catholic and San Francisco native, Newsom said his faith follows the “spirit of St. Francis” and the idea of treating others well, but not necessarily strict religious teachings.
The governor said he briefly attended Our Lady of Victory School, a private Catholic school in San Francisco, during his early elementary school years. He said his family regularly attends Glade Memorial Church, a non-denominational church in San Francisco. The governor said he went to church with his family on Easter.
Newsom referenced religion at other points during his visit, telling reporters outside the hall where he spoke at the Vatican about the importance of building bridges between science and the pope’s moral authority on climate change.
“As we know from the church, it’s faith and works,” Newsom said. “So when we pray, we move our feet. This is our passionate action.
Daniel Philpott, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, said it would be wise for politicians of both parties to talk about faith.
“What we’ve learned over the past 30 years is that presidential candidates often benefit if they show piety or practice their religious beliefs,” Philpott said.
Newsom said he did not want to overemphasize the role of religion in his stance on the death penalty, something his father also opposed.
His father and grandfather were involved in the case of Pete Pianezzi, a friend who was mistakenly killed in the 1937 shooting death of a gambler and waiter in Los Angeles. Convicted of first degree murder.
Pianezzi escaped execution by one vote and spent 13 years in prison. He was later acquitted.
Newsom said he still opposes the death penalty even if it’s possible to limit inequities and miscarriages of justice in the criminal justice system.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me that we kill people to send a message to the public that killing people is wrong,” he said. “I will never understand that. I would never approve of this.
