Pope Leo calls the death penalty 'inadmissible' a day after his secretary of state called the Fort Hood livestream plan 'unacceptable'

Pope Leo XIV declared on Saturday, Oct. 10, that the death penalty is "inadmissible," as debate continued in the United States over a Defense Department plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

"The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person," the Pope wrote on his official X account, @Pontifex, on the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Vatican News reported. "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." The first sentence repeats the wording that Pope Francis added to the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018.

The Pope's post did not mention Hasan, Fort Hood or the livestream. The direct link came the evening before from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state. Speaking to reporters in Rome on Friday, Oct. 9, Parolin said of the plan, "It is truly incomprehensible that anyone would want to use this method in this day and age. I do not know for what purpose. It is certainly unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle. However guilty the person may be, there are other ways," according to Vatican News. He said the death penalty "is incompatible with human dignity and does not serve as a deterrent," and that "there will be a statement from the Holy See." No further statement had been issued as of Sunday.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump shared on Truth Social a Dallas Morning News report on Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Dallas, backing a public execution, Newsweek reported. "Capital punishment is commanded by God in Genesis 9:6 to remind people of the sanctity of human life," Jeffress wrote on Facebook, according to CBS News Texas. "The more people that can see that truth illustrated through a public execution, the better." The same day, Trump told reporters he had not made a final decision: "There are two thoughts: don't show it and show it. … I'll make a decision, ultimately. I know what the military would like to do," according to Fox News and NBC News.

On Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin defended the plan on CBS's "Face the Nation." "If you attack America, we will come after you and we will make sure that the punishment fits the crime," he said, adding, "No one has to watch it if they don't choose to." Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, called the livestream a "gruesome decision" and wrote on X, "I would expect this from terrorists and dictators, but not here in America," CBS News reported. Hasan's execution is scheduled for Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, though further legal proceedings could delay it, Vatican News noted.