US bishops' president condemns Pentagon plan to livestream execution as «barbaric»
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, denounced the Pentagon's plan to livestream the December firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, calling it a «barbaric promotion of a culture of death» that must be reconsidered.
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has condemned as «barbaric» a Pentagon plan to livestream the execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former U.S. Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.
In a statement issued Oct. 9, Archbishop Coakley said he learned of the plans «with shock and great sorrow.» He acknowledged the gravity of Hasan's crimes but insisted that a public execution would deepen the moral damage to the nation. «In no way can Hassan's actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered,» he said. Quoting the Letter to the Romans — «do not repay anyone evil for evil» — the archbishop warned that the public execution «even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people.»
The dispute follows confirmation by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the execution is scheduled for Dec. 3 at Fort Hood and will be made public. In an Oct. 8 interview with the pro-Trump outlet Real America's Voice News, Hegseth said, «We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public.» He later confirmed the remarks on X. President Donald Trump recently approved the firing-squad execution, and Hegseth has used the moniker «secretary of war» since Trump signed an executive order adding «Department of War» as a secondary, ceremonial title for the Department of Defense.
If carried out, Hasan's execution would be the first time U.S. officials have livestreamed an execution to the public. The last public execution in the United States took place in Missouri in 1937, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Some legal analysts have noted that appeals and other legal processes could delay the execution beyond Dec. 3.
The bishops' intervention reflects the Catholic Church's formal opposition to capital punishment as a violation of the inherent sanctity of human life. The late Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to clarify that the death penalty is morally «inadmissible» in the modern world «because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.» In his 2020 encyclical «Fratelli Tutti,» Francis cited St. John Paul II, who taught that the death penalty is «inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice.» Earlier this year, Pope Leo XIV delivered a video message to Catholic death penalty abolitionists marking 15 years since Illinois abolished the practice.
Archbishop Coakley closed his statement with a prayer for the nation. «I pray for the intercession of Our Lady of Good Counsel that we as a nation may always choose life even in the most trying times and circumstances,» he said.
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