Roman Catholic and United Methodist leaders have joined the condemnation of Pete Hegseth’s planned livestreamed execution of Nidal Malik Hasan.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio
Any Catholics assigned to the firing squad are “obliged” to request to be excused from this action, which is “contrary to the teaching of the church,” said Timothy Broglio, Catholic archbishop for the United States Military Services.
Ruben Saenz, president of the Council of United Methodist Bishops, issued a statement saying: “Turning the death of a human being into a public broadcast does not honor the victims. It coarsens the conscience of a people and contradicts the gospel we proclaim.”
The Methodist bishops, he said, “urge U.S. leaders to end plans for a livestreamed execution.”
Archbishop Broglio issued a strongly worded statement on behalf of the Catholic Church, not only condemning the planned execution by firing squad but urging Catholic soldiers not to participate in it.
“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,” he said.
“It 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,” he said.
“I oblige any Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the church.”
Despite the horrendous nature of Hasan’s crime in murdering 13 people and wounding 30 others at Fort Hood, the Catholic Church steadfastly opposes capital punishment, he explained. “The dignity of the human person is at stake. … Do we really want to imitate the terrorists of this world and make a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries?”
Soldiers who participate in or witness this execution risk “potential moral injury,” Broglio said.
He joins Pope Leo in this sentiment.
“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” the pope wrote on Oct. 10, which was designated World Day Against the Death Penalty. “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.”
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, secretary of state for the Vatican, also denounced the plan to livestream Hasan’s execution: “It is certainly unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle. However guilty the person may be, there are other ways.”
Ruben Saenz
Meanwhile, the Methodist bishops joined the international condemnation of the Trump administration’s planned media execution.
“We write about an event in one nation because it holds up a mirror to all of us,” they said. “Every society, on every continent where our church lives, is tempted to answer violence with spectacle, to bless national power with the name of God, and to make a whole people pay for the crime of one. What is happening in the United States is a local test of a global faithfulness.”
The letter adds: “Our Lord himself died by public execution, staged by an empire to display its power and frighten the watching crowd. Christians, of all people, should refuse to gather around such a spectacle again.”
The letter also directly denounces the kind of Christian nationalism embeded into the Trump administration: “In the United States and in many nations, some voices fuse Christian faith with national power, treating the Cross as a banner for the nation rather than the sign of a crucified Lord who loved his enemies. The church of Jesus Christ belongs to no nation. Our first citizenship is in the reign of God, which gathers people from every tribe and tongue.”
Related:
What kind of people are we becoming? | Opinion by George Mason
The state doesn’t need my eyes | Opinion by Justin Cox
Pete Hegseth’s gospel of violence | Analysis by Josh Olds
Justice does not require spectators | Opinion by Brian Henderson
Go ahead and livestream that firing squad execution! | Opinion by Mark Wingfield