Pope Leo declares death penalty ‘inadmissible’ as his homeland US plans to livestream execution

ROME — Pope Leo

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“The common good can be safeguarded and the demands of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment,” reads the message under Leo’s official handle, @Pontifex. “Effective detention systems have been developed to protect citizens while not completely depriving perpetrators of the possibility of redemption.”

The message ended with the hashtag #NoDeathPenalty.

The US Department of Defense announced Thursday that the firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of a 2009 shooting at the Fort Hood military base, would be broadcast live. Hasan, who was scheduled to be executed at Fort Hood on December 3, was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others.

Leo did not specifically refer to the planned execution or the botched lethal injection in Tennessee last week, which reignited the debate over the death penalty in the United States. Saturday is the World Day Against the Death Penalty, and it is common for the pope’s official social media accounts to post messages marking such commemorations.

But Leo’s message came just hours after his top deputy, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, explicitly said the planned public execution by the United States was “unacceptable.”

Pope Francis declares capital punishment ‘inadmissible’

Pope Francis in 2018 changed official Catholic teaching to declare capital punishment “inadmissible” in all circumstances.

Previously, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the official compendium of Church teaching, said the Church does not exclude the use of capital punishment “if it is the only possible means of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”

Past popes had supported this position, although St. John Paul II began urging an end to the practice and emphasized that the guilty were just as deserving of dignity as the innocent.

Like Francis before him, Leo made visiting prisons a key part of his papal trip in an effort to convey a message of hope to inmates and emphasize their inherent dignity, that God loves them and that there is always a chance for redemption.

“If any of you fear being abandoned by everyone, know that God will never abandon you and that the Church will be with you,” Leo told inmates at Equatorial Guinea’s notorious Bata prison during his April visit. Leo is scheduled to visit a prison in Buenos Aires during his upcoming tour of Latin America.

Speaking specifically about the United States, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said the planned live execution was “truly incomprehensible” and “unacceptable for turning death into a spectacle.”

“The position of the Church is one of total opposition to the death penalty; it is incompatible with human dignity and has no deterrent effect…” Parolin said in comments reported by Vatican News. “It is truly incomprehensible that anyone would want to use this system today, I don’t know for what purpose. It is certainly unacceptable to make a spectacle of death; even if the person is guilty, there are of course other methods.”

The head of the US bishops’ conference, Archbishop Paul Coakley, expressed “shock” and “great sadness” at the Pentagon’s plans.

“Hasan’s actions cannot be tolerated in any way, but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered,” he said in a statement Friday. “The public execution of even a person who has caused serious harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and constitute a scourge on the conscience of its people. »