“The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people,” Archbishop Paul Coakley.
US Vice President JD Vance speaks during a midterm campaign rally on October 1, 2026 in Lakeland, Florida.
(Photo by Kevin Lamarque-Pool/Getty Images)
Jessica Corbett
Oct 09, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
While US Vice President JD Vance—a Catholic convert—suggested on Friday that the administration may not actually livestream a firing squad execution at a military base in December, the church’s top bishop in the country denounced the widely decried plan.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pledged this week to make the execution of Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Hasan “public,” and officials said that would mean a livestream. As Religion News Service noted, the Pentagon chief is an evangelical Christian who has often spoken about his faith and “attends a church led by Pastor Doug Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist.”
On Friday, the vice president—who recently published a book about his religious experiences, including his conversion to Catholicism—told reporters that despite those statements about a livestream, “I don’t know that that’s actually gonna happen.”
Vance argued that Hasan, a former Army major and doctor, committed “the worst terrorist attack on American soil outside of 9/11,” but also said that “if it’s ultimately livestreamed, I’m not gonna be watching it.”
Meanwhile, using President Donald Trump’s preferred term for the Department of Defense, Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement that “it is with shock and great sorrow that I have learned of the Department of War’s decision to publicly livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan.”
“Our God is the God of life. In no way can Hasan’s actions be condoned, but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered. The word of God exhorts us: ‘Do not repay anyone evil for evil’ (Romans 12:17),” declared Coakley, a “conservative culture warrior” elected to his leadership role last year.
“The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people,” he added. “I pray for the intercession of Our Lady of Good Counsel that we as a nation may always choose life even in the most trying times and circumstances.”
Coakley joined a growing chorus of critics who have condemned the Pentagon plan, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which said Friday that “the livestreaming of an execution is tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture.”
American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, who had blasted the livestream decision on Thursday, called the archbishop’s statement a “strong response from the Catholic Church.”
James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor at large of America Magazine, explained that “the Catholic Church teaches that the death penalty is ‘inadmissible,’ primarily because every human being has God-given dignity, even a murderer, even a mass murderer. The televising of an execution is barbarism of the worst kind, offering up death as entertainment.”
“Some Catholics still reject Pope Francis’ magisterial pronouncement on the death penalty, which is now included in the Catechism,” he noted. “But opposition to the death penalty, grounded in the respect for all human life, is not a brand new doctrine. Rather, it is one that took time to develop, as the church came to understand more deeply the innate dignity of every human life.”
Sharing Coakley’s comments on social media Friday, journalist Paul Blest wrote that “this happening so soon after the botched Tennessee execution is creating the conditions for real momentum against the death penalty.”
Tennessee last week botched two attempts to kill Christa Pike with injections of pentobarbital, after which she was rushed to the hospital. Pike’s legal team said Thursday that she “continues to experience cognitive challenges” but is taking “limited steps” with assistance. While Republican Gov. Bill Lee has responded by halting executions and ordering a probe, the incident has fueled fresh calls for the US to outlaw the death penalty at the state and federal level.
The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, also weighed in on the livestream plan, saying Friday that “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.”
“The church’s position is one of total opposition to the death penalty. It is incompatible with human dignity and does not serve as a deterrent,” Parolin said, acknowledging Coakley’s comments and pledging that “there will be a statement from the Holy See.”
As the Catholic leaders and others from various faiths spoke out against the Defense Department plan, Robert Jeffress, a Texas-based American Southern Baptist pastor and televangelist, wrote on social media that “I support the Pentagon’s decision to livestream the execution of mass murderer Nidal Hasan. Capital punishment is commanded by God in Genesis 9:6 to remind people of the sanctity of human life. The more people that can see that truth illustrated through a public execution, the better.”
Christa Brown, a former lawyer, sexual abuse survivor, and author of the memoirs This Little Light and Baptistland, responded: “Livestreaming an execution is barbaric. And no amount of Bible verses will change that.”
Evangelicals revolt against Trump's 'culture of death'
REUTERS /Umit Bektas
REUTERS /Umit Bektas
October 09, 2026
ALTERNET
A prominent group of conservative Christians are denouncing President Donald Trump's top military official, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, for ordering that convicted terrorist and mass murder Nidal Malik Hasan — who committed the 2009 Fort Hood shooting that led to 13 deaths and 32 injuries — be executed publicly by firing squad. It is the first public execution in modern American history.
"The National Association of Evangelicals (along with several other religious groups) are now joining the USCCB in condemning Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth’s plans to publicly execute Nidal Malik Hasan, also saying doing so promotes a 'culture of death,'" reported journalist Jack Jenkins of the religious news outlet RNS on Friday.
In an excerpt from his report, Jenkins wrote that "Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, told RNS that while he affirms the 'need for justice' regarding Hasan’s crime, 'at the same time, a live-streamed execution by firing squad risks turning one of the state’s most solemn responsibilities into a public spectacle, promoting a culture of death, rather than a culture that upholds the dignity of every human being.'"
Evangelical Christian organizations are not alone in slamming Trump and Hegseth for choosing to publicly execute Hasan. On the social media platform X, prominent commentators from all sides of the political spectrum expressed disgust with the decision.
Billy Binion, reporter for the libertarian magazine Reason Magazine, posted, “This is sick. You can support justice for Nidal Hasan’s victims without making his execution a source of entertainment. This administration so often governs for the online mob. It’s depraved.”
Glenn Greenwald, formerly of The Intercept and ideologically heterodox, argued, “There are a very small number of countries that still carry out public executions. Those are the countries we are constantly told are uniquely primitive, barbaric, sick and evil. It’s revealing that Pete Hegseth wants the US to join that group but also entirely unsurprising.”
Wajahat Ali of the liberal Substack The Left Hook stated, “Public lynchings will be next.”
Trump and Hegseth are also under fire for terminating the employment of dozens of top staff at the Pentagon, amounting to more than 900 years of combined experience, and replacing them with partisan loyalists.
"Since January 2025," Michael N. Schmitt, a law professor at New York University, wrote for Just Security in June, "the Defense Department has removed, replaced, or forced the early retirement of a remarkable concentration of operationally experienced senior officers. Among them are the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the Army, and the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, who concurrently serves as director of the National Security Agency. Most recently, Gen. Christopher Donahue, one of the most decorated and combat-experienced officers of his generation, has been forced out as commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and, in his NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) role, as commander of Allied Land Command. Public explanations have been sparse and, to the extent they have been offered, largely general."
Schmitt added, "The question regarding these departures is not whether the president and secretary of defense have broad lawful authority to reshape the senior officer corps. They unequivocally do. Nor is it a question of whether personnel decisions of this kind are ever warranted. Sometimes, they certainly are. Instead, at its core, a central question is their impact on the combat effectiveness, indeed the lethality, of our armed forces."
Even Gen. Christopher LaNeve, Hegseth’s senior military aide, indirectly admitted the mass firings could become a problem.
“Every shortcut in training and lapse in discipline will be paid for in blood,” LaNeve wrote.
A prominent group of conservative Christians are denouncing President Donald Trump's top military official, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, for ordering that convicted terrorist and mass murder Nidal Malik Hasan — who committed the 2009 Fort Hood shooting that led to 13 deaths and 32 injuries — be executed publicly by firing squad. It is the first public execution in modern American history.
"The National Association of Evangelicals (along with several other religious groups) are now joining the USCCB in condemning Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth’s plans to publicly execute Nidal Malik Hasan, also saying doing so promotes a 'culture of death,'" reported journalist Jack Jenkins of the religious news outlet RNS on Friday.
In an excerpt from his report, Jenkins wrote that "Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, told RNS that while he affirms the 'need for justice' regarding Hasan’s crime, 'at the same time, a live-streamed execution by firing squad risks turning one of the state’s most solemn responsibilities into a public spectacle, promoting a culture of death, rather than a culture that upholds the dignity of every human being.'"
Evangelical Christian organizations are not alone in slamming Trump and Hegseth for choosing to publicly execute Hasan. On the social media platform X, prominent commentators from all sides of the political spectrum expressed disgust with the decision.
Billy Binion, reporter for the libertarian magazine Reason Magazine, posted, “This is sick. You can support justice for Nidal Hasan’s victims without making his execution a source of entertainment. This administration so often governs for the online mob. It’s depraved.”
Glenn Greenwald, formerly of The Intercept and ideologically heterodox, argued, “There are a very small number of countries that still carry out public executions. Those are the countries we are constantly told are uniquely primitive, barbaric, sick and evil. It’s revealing that Pete Hegseth wants the US to join that group but also entirely unsurprising.”
Wajahat Ali of the liberal Substack The Left Hook stated, “Public lynchings will be next.”
Trump and Hegseth are also under fire for terminating the employment of dozens of top staff at the Pentagon, amounting to more than 900 years of combined experience, and replacing them with partisan loyalists.
"Since January 2025," Michael N. Schmitt, a law professor at New York University, wrote for Just Security in June, "the Defense Department has removed, replaced, or forced the early retirement of a remarkable concentration of operationally experienced senior officers. Among them are the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the Army, and the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, who concurrently serves as director of the National Security Agency. Most recently, Gen. Christopher Donahue, one of the most decorated and combat-experienced officers of his generation, has been forced out as commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and, in his NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) role, as commander of Allied Land Command. Public explanations have been sparse and, to the extent they have been offered, largely general."
Schmitt added, "The question regarding these departures is not whether the president and secretary of defense have broad lawful authority to reshape the senior officer corps. They unequivocally do. Nor is it a question of whether personnel decisions of this kind are ever warranted. Sometimes, they certainly are. Instead, at its core, a central question is their impact on the combat effectiveness, indeed the lethality, of our armed forces."
Even Gen. Christopher LaNeve, Hegseth’s senior military aide, indirectly admitted the mass firings could become a problem.
“Every shortcut in training and lapse in discipline will be paid for in blood,” LaNeve wrote.
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