Catholics challenge moral, legal grounds of ‘barbaric’ US plan to livestream execution
Catholic leaders across the United States condemned plans to livestream the execution of former Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 at Fort Hood in 2009. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on Dec. 3 and that the execution would be livestreamed; President Donald Trump later expressed uncertainty about the broadcast. U.S. bishops and other Catholic leaders called the livestream barbaric and contrary to the Gospel, raising concerns about human dignity, Church teaching, law, morality and the effects of making an execution a public spectacle. Archbishop Timothy Broglio said Catholics assigned to the firing squad should seek to be excused from participating.
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Catholic bishops, theologians and legal experts have condemned a Pentagon plan to livestream the scheduled firing-squad execution of former Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, raising objections grounded in Church teaching, human dignity, law and the effects of broadcasting violence. Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, is scheduled to be executed Dec. 3; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the livestream, though President Donald Trump later expressed uncertainty about the plan.
Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, called the broadcast a public spectacle of killing and said Catholics assigned to the firing squad should seek to be excused. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, described it as a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death,” while Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak called the proposal contrary to the Gospel.
The article places the objections within Catholic teaching that capital punishment is morally inadmissible in modern circumstances because it attacks the inviolability and dignity of the person. That teaching, incorporated into the Catechism by Pope Francis in 2018, draws on St. John Paul II’s view that authorities should use non-lethal means when those can protect society; Pope Leo XIV reiterated the teaching in an Oct. 10 post.
Theologian Charles Camosy said livestreaming evokes earlier public executions in the United States. The last two occurred in 1936 and 1937; after the 1936 hanging of Rainey Bethea drew nearly 20,000 spectators and was described as having a carnival atmosphere, state lawmakers moved to ban public executions.
Camosy characterized the plan as evidence of a failure to uphold the dignity of all human life. Annie Phoenix of Loyola University New Orleans said publicizing violence depends on dehumanizing the person subjected to it, and reported that students had connected the proposal to the history of lynching, while noting the comparison was not one-to-one in terms of race.
Mary Graw Leary, a former federal prosecutor and law professor, questioned both the legality and purpose of the broadcast. She said the livestream appeared unlikely to serve the main theories of punishment and argued that exposure to violence could traumatize viewers.
Retired Army lieutenant colonel and law professor Daniel Maurer concluded in an analysis for Georgetown Law’s Center on National Security that livestreaming the execution would likely violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The article reports that experts have also raised broader questions under military and federal law.
Catholic teaching on human dignity, capital punishment, and state justice
Catholic teaching holds together three claims: every person has God-given dignity, including the offender; the state has a duty to protect people and uphold justice; and punishment should serve justice without abandoning mercy or respect for life. In present circumstances, the U.S. bishops teach that society should end the death penalty because it can protect itself by non-lethal means that better respect human life.
Human dignity is not a reward for good conduct. It belongs to every person and is not erased by even grave wrongdoing. That does not make crimes less serious or eliminate responsibility: Catholic teaching also recognizes victims’ dignity and the need to support them and their families.
Punishment can therefore be just and necessary. St. John Paul II described its purposes as repairing the disorder caused by crime, defending public safety, and helping the offender reform. A just response should take the harm seriously while remaining consistent with human dignity.
The Church’s historical tradition allowed the state to impose capital punishment in grave cases, particularly when it was considered necessary to protect society. The present emphasis, reflected in St. John Paul II and the U.S. bishops, is that this resort is justified only where no other means can protect people—and that such cases are now exceedingly rare or, in practice, nonexistent. The bishops conclude that the United States’ continued reliance on the death penalty cannot be justified when other means of protection are available.
So the Catholic argument is not that offenders have no responsibility, or that the state must leave society undefended. It is that justice does not require execution when secure, non-lethal punishment can protect the public. Choosing that alternative respects the offender’s continuing dignity and bears witness that society can oppose violence without taking another life.
A Catholic approach to state justice must also attend to victims, public safety, and the conditions of punishment. The bishops call for compassion and practical support for victims’ families, while Pope Francis has condemned extrajudicial killings and called for prison conditions that respect the dignity of people deprived of liberty.
In short: the state must protect the innocent and hold offenders accountable, but it must do so in a way that honors the dignity of every human person. In current circumstances, Catholic teaching points toward ending capital punishment and using effective non-lethal means instead.