Anyone following the debate among Catholic commentators regarding the firing-squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan is likely to experience more confusion than edification. 

The initial plan to live stream the event is now canceled, but the execution is still scheduled for December 3. The spark, of course, was Secretary of War Pete Hegseth confirming a few weeks ago that the execution would be made public. His argument had a simplicity to it. Hasan, who had been a major in the United States Army Medical Corps, murdered thirteen people (twelve of them soldiers) and injured thirty-two more at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009. Accordingly, he would be executed in the same place, on the same day, at the same time, and in the same way he had perpetuated his crimes. Moreover, since it was an attack on the country (Hasan had been in contact with al-Qaeda), the country should have an opportunity to witness justice being done. With respect to the use of a firing squad, Hegseth said he liked the “mentality of WWII,” which was to “stand one’s ground.” The backlash was swift. Politicians and commentators from both sides of the partisan divide denounced the idea of a public execution, calling it “barbaric,” “what the Jihadists do,” and “beneath the dignity” of the country. A writer at Commonweal declared that it was evidence of the political right’s “disturbing appetite for death.” Matthew Walther of The Lamp went all the way over the top, describing the White House as “the Antichrist junta.” It is noteworthy that Vice President Vance’s comments were constrained. He recounted the enormity of Hasan’s crimes and then added that “if it is ultimately lived streamed, I’m not gonna be watching it.” That “if” gave the impression that he knew no final decision had been made. 

The reaction from U.S. bishops was uniformly negative. Cardinal Cupich, never one for understatement when politics are at play, described the plan to televise the execution as “performative barbarism” and asked if the country truly wishes for its children to be “exposed to the pornography of a state-sponsored slaying.” The bishops of Texas, where Fort Hood is located, issued their own statement, emphasizing the broadcast would only add to the trauma of Hasan’s victims’ families. More detailed is the statement from His Excellency Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services. Broglio had personal experience of Hasan’s crimes, having presided and preached at the funeral of Michael Cahill, the only civilian murdered that day. After expressing sympathy for the victims and the Church’s opposition to the death penalty, Broglio asks if the act of “broadcasting the image of the execution of a man in a wheelchair to the whole world . . . reflects the dignity of the human person?” Add to this a condemnatory statement by Archbishop Paul Coakley as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Finally, and most importantly, Pope Leo weighed in, although he did not reference the Hasan case and could have been referring to the botched execution of Christa Pike: 

Notably, the pontiff did not address anything beyond the immorality of capital punishment.

In this sense, Leo’s statement was not affected by President Trump’s ultimate rejection of the idea of live streaming Hasan’s death. With his typical bombast, the president said that, despite believing that the original plan “might have been a strong deterrent for the World to see how America deals with Terrorists . . . many good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die.” Viewing will be restricted to persons directly affected by Hasan’s shooting spree. Although many will see this as an easy call, Trump’s reversal is still notable given his well-established habit of doubling down when criticized. He does not identify those “good and well-meaning people,” but it is quite possible it includes members of his administration for whom he has respect. It is also possible that he took a look at the polls showing how few Americans wanted a public execution.

Both Hegseth and Trump emphasize—coarsely, of course—that Hasan’s execution is a matter of justice, an offsetting of the evil he committed by a commensurate punishment. For them, and for a heavy majority of the American people, the death penalty is a matter of justice for those guilty of murder, especially particularly heinous or multiple murders. There are good reasons, however, to hold that Catholics are required by their faith to belong to the minority who believe that the death penalty is an affront to human dignity and never justified. To say this, I realize, is controversial and contrary to many Catholic intellectuals with whom I often agree. It is this dispute with the American Catholic community that I wish to treat.