statement<\/a> obliging \u201cany Catholics assigned to the firing squad\u201d for the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan \u201cto request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the Church.\u201d<\/p>\nMr. Hasan was condemned to death by a military court for the premeditated murder of 13 people and the attempted premeditated murder of 32 more in a mass shooting at Fort Hood in the US state of Texas.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump approved his execution by firing squad. Subsequently, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the execution would be livestreamed.<\/p>\n
Widespread condemnation <\/p>\n
The decision to broadcast the execution prompted widespread condemnation. In response to the announcement, the President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Paul Coakley, expressed the Bishops\u2019 \u201cshock and great sorrow\u201d at the news. While insisting that Mr. Hasan\u2019s actions can \u201cin no way\u2026 be condoned,\u201d Archbishop Coakley said, \u201cthis decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin also denounced the plan to livestream Mr. Hasan\u2019s execution, saying, \u201cIt is certainly unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle. However guilty the person may be, there are other ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pope Leo has often condemned the use of the death penalty, a position he reiterated in a post on X a day after the US government\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,\u201d the Pope wrote on the World Day Against the Death Penalty. \u201cThe 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\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The dignity of the human person is at stake\u2019 <\/p>\n
In a statement issued on October 12, Archbishop Broglio said, \u201cit is my duty to express my disapproval of what is proposed regarding the execution of the terrorist Hasan in the Archdiocese entrusted to my spiritual care to be done by those for whose salvation I have been constituted as the Archbishop for the Military Services, USA\u201d.<\/p>\n
Describing Mr. Hasan\u2019s crimes as \u201can attack on the dignity of the human person,\u201d Archbishop Broglio expressed once again his sympathy for the family and friends of the victims.<\/p>\n
He went on to repeat the Catholic Church\u2019s opposition to the death penalty, arguing that here, too, \u201cthe dignity of the human person is at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking directly to the US government\u2019s intention to livestream the execution, the Archbishop asked, \u201cDo we really want to imitate the terrorists of this world and make a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries?\u201d<\/p>\n
He questioned whether a public execution would serve any purpose, and expressed concern for the \u201cpotential moral injury\u201d to those charged with carrying out the sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, he asked whether the decision reflects \u201cthe dignity of human persons.\u201d<\/p>\n
An obligation for Catholic soldiers <\/p>\n
The Archbishop called on \u201call men and women of good will to ask that this decision be reconsidered and, at the very least, do what is possible to keep the exposure to the live-streaming of the proposed execution from the vision of the young and impressionable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, Archbishop Broglio addressed Catholic soldiers directly, saying, \u201cAs I would in the case of a procured abortion, I oblige any Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the Archbishop for the United States Military Services, issues a statement on the planned execution…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,57341,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-880806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-death-penalty","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}