Pope Leo XIV renewed his condemnation of capital punishment on Saturday, calling it an assault on the sanctity of life that denies sinners the chance at redemption.
His remarks came as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s unprecedented plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of a federal death row inmate drew outrage from religious leaders, lawmakers in both parties and international human rights officials.
The pope, the first American-born pontiff, wrote on X on the World Day Against the Death Penalty that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
He added that effective imprisonment can protect citizens without stripping the guilty of the possibility of redemption.
“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,” wrote Pope Leo.
The pope did not name the Pentagon plan directly, but senior Vatican officials were more blunt. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, told reporters that turning a death into a “spectacle” is “unacceptable” and asked, “To what end?”
Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, urged the Pentagon to reconsider, calling the decision a “barbaric exaltation of a culture of death.”
The scheme
Hegseth announced Thursday that the military will execute Nidal Hasan by firing squad at Fort Hood, Texas, on Dec. 3, and will allow the public to watch. Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death by a military court in 2013 for killing 13 people and wounding 32 in a 2009 shooting rampage at the base. It would be the U.S. military’s first firing-squad execution since 1945 and the first livestreamed execution in American history.
Speaking on the conservative outlet Real America’s Voice, Hegseth argued, “People need to understand there are severe consequences for these kinds of things.”
Opposition from across the spectrum
Objections have come from every direction. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina wrote on X: “Hasan deserves the death penalty, but a public livestreamed execution? Deeply revolting. Public executions are what oppressive, authoritarian regimes like Iran and Afghanistan do. This should not happen in America.”
Republican Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia, who also supports the death sentence, said “livestreaming an execution is what jihadists do. America is better than this.”
Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah invoked the Roman philosopher Seneca, warning that bloody spectacles corrupt the viewer. “When a civilization cultivates an appetite for executions as entertainment, it erodes itself,” Curtis wrote.
Democratic criticism was sharper. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, called the plan “a gift to anti-American terrorist recruiters.” Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said, “The U.S. government can deliver justice without producing a snuff film.”
Joe Kent, a former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned earlier this year over the Iran war, warned the broadcast would backfire: “Livestreaming his execution is not only a stain on our morals, it hands terrorists free propaganda they will use to radicalize and recruit more of them.”
Doubts inside the administration
Vice President JD Vance told reporters Friday he was unsure the plan would actually go forward. “I don’t know if that’s actually going to happen,” Vance said. Asked whether he would watch if it were broadcast, he said, “I would not.” Vance, a Catholic, wrote a book this year about his faith journey.
President Donald Trump, asked at the White House on Friday whether he approved of the broadcast, said, “Totally approved it. I really don’t care how he goes, as long as he goes.” He later said the final decision had not been made, adding as he left the White House on Saturday that “I’ll make the final determination.”
International and religious reaction
The U.N. human rights office said public executions constitute “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” and “violate the absolute prohibition of torture.”
Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said a livestreamed firing squad “risks turning one of the state’s most solemn duties into a public spectacle, promoting a culture of death rather than a culture that upholds the dignity of every person.”
The U.S. military last carried out an execution in 1961, when John Bennett was hanged for rape and attempted murder. The last public execution in the United States was in 1936.
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