ROME — Pope Leo XIV on Saturday declared capital punishment “inadmissible” as he marked the World Day Against the Death Penalty and his native United States announced plans to livestream an execution by firing squad, reports BritPanorama.
In a post on X, the American pope quoted the revised Catholic teaching on capital punishment ushered in by Pope Francis that the death penalty attacks the inherent dignity of a human being.
“The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment,” read the post under Leo’s official handle, @Pontifex. “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 post ended with the hashtag #NoDeathPenalty.
The U.S. Defense Department announced Thursday that the firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of a 2009 shooting at the Fort Hood military base, will be livestreamed. Hasan, scheduled to be executed at Fort Hood on Dec. 3, was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others.
Leo didn’t refer specifically to the planned execution, or the botched lethal injection in Tennessee last week that has revived debate over the death penalty in the United States. Saturday is World Day Against the Death Penalty, and it is common for the pope’s official social media accounts to post messages marking such commemorations.
However, Leo’s post came just hours after his top deputy, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, said explicitly that the planned U.S. public execution was “unacceptable.”
Pope Francis declared capital punishment ‘inadmissible’
Pope Francis in 2018 amended 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 didn’t exclude recourse to capital punishment “if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”
