The archbishop responsible for Catholics in the US military asked them not to participate in the livestream execution planned for December 3.
“As 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,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio wrote in a statement released on October 12.
Asked whether it would excuse Catholics assigned to the firing squad, the Department of Defense declined to comment.
The archdiocese’s statement adds to the list of faith leaders who have condemned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plans to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, a former army major who killed 13 service members and injured another 32 people in a mass shooting at Fort Hood in 2009. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it. That it’s public,” Hegseth announced in an interview October 8.
Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, called on the Pentagon to reconsider the decision, which he called “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death.” Meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV, on World Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10, a few days after Hegseth’s announcement, reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s opposition to the death penalty.
The US hasn’t conducted public executions since the 1936 public hanging of Rainy Bethea, a Black man convicted of murder and rape in Kentucky.
In his statement, Broglio repeated the Catholic Church’s opposition to the death penalty and warned about the “potential moral injury” to members of the firing squad and the effects on “young and impressionable” audiences. The archbishop also warned that conducting the public execution would make the US government akin to terrorist groups.
“The U.S. military generally enjoys a good reputation in the world. Is there really a value to throwing them in the same boat with terrorists by broadcasting the image of the execution of a man in a wheelchair to the whole world?” he wrote.
As the archbishop of the nearly 2 million Catholics serving in the army, according to the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, website, Broglio said it was his duty to condemn the decision in respect to “those for whose salvation I have been constituted as the Archbishop for the Military Services, USA.”
Founded in 1985 by Pope John Paul II, the military services archdiocese allows Catholic priests to join the military chaplaincy, which then assigns them to a department. As of 2020, the military archdiocese was responsible for 204 Roman Catholic priests who actively serve in the military.
Broglio’s statement referred to the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops’s condemnation of the Pentagon’s plans. Bishop Daniel E. Garcia of the Diocese of Austin, Texas, which includes Fort Hood, called on Catholics to pray for the firing squad members and anyone who may witness or be exposed to the execution.
“True justice cannot be achieved through further violence or vengeance, and a public broadcast of this execution would make a spectacle of death,” Garcia wrote. “Carrying out this execution at Fort Hood, especially as a public broadcast, will only exacerbate that trauma.” —Religion News Service
