When explosive television ads called new attention to Democrat Tim Kaine's position on the death penalty last week, Kaine's response once again brought religion to the doorstep of the heated Virginia governor's race.

Republican nominee Jerry Kilgore sparked a firestorm with television ads that feature relatives of murder victims criticizing Kaine for representing a death row inmate and for once supporting a moratorium on executions in the state. Kaine responded by insisting he would carry out executions as governor, despite his moral objection to the death penalty.

But even before the latest ads hit the airwaves, Kilgore had persistently argued that Kaine's legal representation of three death row inmates and his public statements against capital punishment make him unfit to serve as governor. The former attorney general uses the hot-button issue of capital punishment to paint Kaine as a liberal who is out of step with the state's largely conservative electorate. And he insists his differences with Kaine are purely a matter of public policy.

Kaine, a Roman Catholic, said he has a faith-based objection to the death penalty but would carry out executions unless an inmate can demonstrate his innocence. Kaine has sometimes responded to Kilgore's attacks by accusing the Republican of criticizing his religious beliefs.

"My faith teaches me life is sacred," Kaine says in a television ad that responds to Kilgore's spots. "I personally oppose the death penalty. But I take my oath of office seriously and I'll enforce the death penalty."

While there is no church dogma that directly opposes the death penalty, there has been a long-standing divide between liberal and conservative Catholics on the issue.

Stephen Neill, a spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, said the U.S. Conference of Bishops has opposed the death penalty for more than 25 years.

"There is debate among Catholics,'' Neill said. "The official church teaching is we believe in the sanctity of life from womb to tomb."

The Rev. Robert Drinan, a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, said Kaine's response is valid from a Catholic perspective.

"It is legitimate for him to say that he is opposed to it personally, but he will uphold the law,'' he said. "That's what any Catholic would do.''

Drinan said politicians are exploiting the death penalty controversy to show they are tough on crime. "This has been around since [Thomas] Jefferson: His opponents said he isn't religious enough -- but he won.''

Kilgore attends Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Glen Allen. While there is a diversity of opinions on the death penalty in his congregation, the Rev. Donald Runion said his view is that capital punishment is an acceptable part of the justice system.

"The death penalty is biblically permissible as a part of the state's role in keeping order in society,'' he said. "We take the idea of taking life very seriously and it requires a good bit of probity and judgment when it is applied. I think it is a legitimate remedy by the state, and that is probably the majority view of the church. But each member can follow their conscience.''

Last spring, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops launched a new campaign against the death penalty.

"We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. We cannot defend life by taking life," said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, D.C.

Pope John Paul II persistently issued pleas to protect the sanctity of life. Other leaders echoed his views, saying that the church needs to be a voice to protect life, preserve an orderly society and achieve justice through the law.

But Dudley Sharp, a member of Justice Matters -- a group that supports the death penalty -- takes issue with the Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is not Rome," Sharp said. "The position in their writings and their claims are strictly anti-death penalty."

That Catholics do not speak with one voice on the death penalty is clear to anyone following this year's statewide elections. Republican attorney general candidate Bob McDonnell, also a Roman Catholic, has a very different view of the death penalty than Kaine.

"I've been a practicing Catholic for 51 years and over the years different folks have had different views on that," McDonnell said during a Thursday press conference.

"The current position of the Catholic Church is not an outright ban on the death penalty," McDonnell said. "It is one that is a very limited and narrow use of the death penalty, only for the most vile criminals and only under the most limited of circumstances. And I, perhaps on a policy basis, reach different conclusions. But I have no moral or philosophical opposition to the death penalty, which is why I'm going to be an advocate for it."

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops released a poll this spring, touted as the most comprehensive study of Catholic attitudes on capital punishment, and found that 48 percent of more than 1,700 Catholics surveyed support the death penalty -- a drop from 2001 when another survey reported Catholic support for capital punishment at 68 percent.

Catholics cited as reasons for their changed views the rise in DNA testing, the possibility of mistakes and the Bible commandment "Thou shalt not kill.''

But some Christian leaders who support the death penalty say its justification can be found in Genesis, in which God said to Noah and his family, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.''

Kaine offered his own interpretation during a conference call with reporters Thursday.

"My church teaches, and I believe, that the death penalty is wrong in almost all circumstances," Kaine said. "The church does make exceptions for just war, for acts of war, times of war -- which would include terrorism."

Kaine repeated that he still would carry out executions.

"But I don't feel like I need to apologize for my religious beliefs," he said.