Pope condemns death penalty amid US execution livestream backlash
Pope Leo has condemned capital punishment as an attack on human dignity amid growing criticism of the US military’s plans to livestream the execution of the convicted Fort Hood shooter.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced last week that Nidal Malik Hasan would face a military firing squad on December 3. President Donald Trump has confirmed that he personally authorized the broadcast.
Writing on X on Saturday on the international World Day Against the Death Penalty, Leo criticized capital punishment as a concept, but did not name Hasan or directly address the livestream.
“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” the pontiff wrote, adding that “the common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment.” Leo argued that effective detention protects citizens without denying offenders the possibility of redemption.
His remarks reflect the Catholic Church’s established opposition to executions. The previous pope, Francis, revised the Vatican’s official teaching in 2018 to declare capital punishment inadmissible.
Senior Catholic officials also explicitly condemned the planned broadcast on Friday. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin called it “unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle,” adding that “however guilty the person may be, there are other ways.”
Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, also described the decision as “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death” and urged Washington to reconsider.
Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood in November 2009. A military court sentenced him to death in 2013.
Hegseth has defended public viewing of the execution, arguing that “people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Capital punishment remains in use in the US, with methods varying by jurisdiction. Firing squads are permitted in Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah, although the method is rarely used.
If carried out, Hasan’s execution would be the US military’s first since 1961 and its first by firing squad since 1945. Broadcasting it live to the public would be unprecedented.
The controversy also follows a botched lethal-injection attempt in Tennessee, where death-row inmate Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital and was hospitalized last month. She had been sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer.
