Last Sunday, forty protesters gathered outside of St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church in Omaha, Nebraska, where Governor Pete Ricketts attends services. Protesters held signs and banners that challenged the governor’s faith and waved a photo of Pope Francis, echoing the Vatican’s announcement last Thursday that the death penalty is “inadmissible” because it is an attack on the dignity of a person.

It was unclear if Governor Ricketts, a devout Catholic, attended the Sunday service.

Nebraska is no stranger to the impact of religion in its politics. In 2015, a coalition of civil rights advocates and religious conservatives passed a historic death penalty repeal against governor Ricketts’ warnings.

Since then, the governor has personally put $300,000 of his own family fortune into the ballot to reinstate the death penalty after state lawmakers voted over his governor veto, NPR reported in May, 2015.

Last week, Ricketts said he valued “the Pope’s perspective” on capital punishment but added it “remains the will of the people and the law of the State of Nebraska.”

“The state continues to carry out the sentences ordered by the court,” Ricketts stated.

On August 14th, Nebraska is scheduled to have its first execution in 21 years. The last execution in the state occurred by electric chair in 1997.

Inmate Carey Dean Moore has been on death row for 38 years, and after the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled he be put to death, he will be the first in the state to die by lethal injection.

Moore is Nebraska’s longest incarcerated death-row inmate. He has waived his right to a jury, has given no evidence in his own defense, fired his appointed counsel, and even asked to be executed.

ACLU of Nebraska’s Executive Director, Danielle Conrad, stated because of Moore’s own resignation “our institutions bear extra responsibility to check themselves” by making sure the law is followed and that an illegal “cruel and unusual execution does not take place.”

It comes as Nebraska faces an August expiration date for two drugs in its experimental execution protocol, featuring the opioid, Fentanyl, and sedative, Valium. Moore’s execution will also be the first-time fentanyl has been used to execute an inmate.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a number of unsuccessful challenges to the death penalty, including a case accusing Ricketts and others of improper use of power concerning his funding and organization of the ballot campaign to reinstate the death penalty.

The ACLU currently has a challenge on appeal with Nebraska’s Supreme Court concerning pharmaceutical maker Pfizer’s recall of its drugs from correction officials, which Nebraska has refused.

The ACLU has sued the state, and a judge ordered officials to reveal the sources of the drug, but the state has appealed the ruling.

Conrad has also said, “It is incredibly troubling because the appeal won’t be heard for some time. This won’t be resolved before the execution date.”

Making matters more challenging, Pope Francis has called for the abolition of the death penalty before.

In his declaration on Thursday, the Pope said, “The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” and that the church “works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”

Soon after the Pope’s announcement, the three catholic bishops in Nebraska issued a statement opposing the execution, and called on citizens to call into their state officials to halt the execution.

Republican Governor Ricketts will face Democratic nominee and current state senator Bob Krist, in the Nebraska gubernatorial general election this November. Bob Krist, who switched parties in 2017, voted for the legislative repeal of the death penalty opposed by the Governor in 2015.

“I am a Republican enough,” Krist said at the time, “I’m conservative enough. And I am strong enough to follow through with my life convictions, which is life from conception to natural death.”