Pope Calls Death Penalty "Inadmissible" as Pentagon Plans Livestreamed Execution
Pope Leo XIV posted on World Day Against the Death Penalty, two days after the Pentagon said the Dec. 3 firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan will be livestreamed. Catholic bishops have objected. Polling shows most U.S. Catholics support capital punishment.
By Lynn Matthews - October 12, 2026
Graphic: WECU News
On Oct. 10, World Day Against the Death Penalty, Pope Leo XIV posted on X: "The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment: effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption. #NoDeathPenalty." The post does not name any execution.
X post from Pope Leo XIV
It came two days after the Pentagon confirmed that the firing-squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, set for Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, Texas, will be livestreamed. Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 in the 2009 shooting at the base and was sentenced to death in 2013. President Trump approved the execution on Oct. 2. In a television interview, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, "We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public." Asked whether Hasan had made final requests, he said, "Don't care. We'll see him on Dec. 3." Hegseth described it as the first military firing-squad execution since World War II.
Bishops object to the broadcast
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the plan a barbaric promotion of a culture of death that must be reconsidered, and said his reaction was "shock and great sorrow." Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services has said Hasan should not have received the death penalty, adding that "the church teaches that unjustified killing is wrong in all circumstances." Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, told journalists on the evening of Oct. 9 in Rome, "It is truly incomprehensible that anyone would want to use this method in this day and age. I do not know for what purpose. It is certainly unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle. However guilty the person may be, there are other ways." He added that the Church's position "is one of total opposition to the death penalty."
The objections have not come only from church leaders. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, called the plan "beyond disgusting" on X, and Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat, said public viewing "is disturbing and makes a mockery of our legal system." Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, said he doubts the Pentagon will go ahead with the livestream and, if it does, "I'm not going to be watching it." The Pentagon has confirmed its plans, and legal challenges could still delay the execution.
Some legal scholars quoted in coverage of the announcement saw it differently. Deborah Denno of Fordham Law School said a livestream could make the process more transparent and better inform the public. Elisabeth Semel of UC Berkeley Law raised concerns about the dignity of the condemned, the government's motives and the spectacle, and said she could not recall a government-initiated televised execution.
What the Church teaches
The Pope's wording closely tracks the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In 2018, Pope Francis approved a new text of paragraph 2267 in a May 11 audience with the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and ordered it inserted into all editions. The revision states that "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person," and says detention systems can protect citizens without "definitively" closing off the guilty person's chance at redemption. The earlier text had not ruled the penalty out. It allowed it when it was the only way to defend lives against an unjust aggressor, and said such cases were "very rare, if not practically nonexistent."
Where U.S. Catholics stand
American opinion on the penalty is lopsided. A Pew Research Center survey of 3,554 adults conducted July 6 to 12 found 66 percent in favor of the death penalty for people convicted of murder and 32 percent opposed. Support was 84 percent among Republicans and those who lean Republican, and 51 percent among Democrats and Democratic leaners. EWTN News, in its account of the Pew report, puts Catholic support at 65 percent, with 34 percent opposed. The Pew pages reviewed for this story do not list Catholics as a separate group.
The Pope's post does not mention Hasan. The Pentagon said more details about the Dec. 3 livestream will follow.
