Earlier this month, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that, for the first time since 1936, the United States would conduct a public execution by firing squad to carry out the death penalty on Nidal Hasan, a gunman who killed 13 people and injured 32 others in 2009.
In the wake of Hegseth’s seemingly impromptu announcement, a cascade of Catholic leaders stepped forward to condemn his plans for the live-streamed execution. In recognition of World Day Against the Death Penalty, just a few days after Hegseth unveiled the Pentagon’s plans, Pope Leo XIV reiterated the church’s stance that the death penalty is “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” The Holy Father was not alone; Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the USCCB, called Hegseth’s plan for a live-streamed firing squad “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death [which] must be reconsidered,” and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, deemed the plan “unacceptable,” not least of all because the death penalty “does not serve as a deterrent.”
Cardinal Parolin is correct. Data does not support the claim that the death penalty actually deters crime; in fact, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s own data shows that states which use the death penalty have a higher murder rate than states which have abolished it.
Yet, as other executions have been carried out (or horrifically botched) in recent months, similar wide-ranging and vocal opposition from U.S. church leadership was absent. U.S. states have executed 31 prisoners this year alone, most recently on October 13, and another seven are scheduled to be killed prior to Hasan’s scheduled execution. What made this particular planned execution different was that it would be televised.
Public pressure from Catholic leadership—and from bipartisan lay leaders—worked. On October 15, President Donald Trump announced via Truth Social that Hasan would still be, executed, as scheduled, by firing squad, but that the event would not be streamed.
Our collective Catholic conscience is shocked and horrified at the idea of televising a man in a wheelchair being executed by gunshot. But even though this execution will now be carried out privately, it will still nevertheless be carried out. And, crucially, it will be carried out in our name, by a government created through our choices at the ballot box. And so perhaps it is our duty—as Catholics, but also as Americans and especially as voters—not to look away in shame when our government kills in our name, but to turn with Christian love towards those living and dying in the carceral system that we have all participated in creating.
One reason we Americans can be so casual about such a draconian system of punishment is that it is so far removed from our daily lives. Most of us have not been tried for a crime, few of us have been incarcerated or visited a prison, and fewer still have witnessed an execution like the one scheduled for December 3. Yet a study from the Pew Research Center earlier this year found that 66 percent of Americans favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder. Only 13 percent of those surveyed strongly opposed such a penalty. In our representative democracy, perhaps one reason the punishments doled out on our behalf are so barbaric and cruel is that they are so distant from us—yet not nearly as distant as the humanity and suffering of the accused.
Take Christa Pike, whose botched execution in September sparked renewed debate about the death penalty in the United States. Prior to Pike’s execution, she spent more than 30 years in solitary confinement. That’s approximately 700 times longer than the United Nation’s 15 day limit for such a punishment, beyond which they define it as “torture.”
If we, the American electorate, had any meaningful frame of reference for the horror of 30 years in solitary confinement, would we permit legislators to mandate that punishment? If we could all have heard Pike’s two hours of labored breathing as the State of Tennessee attempted—twice in as many hours—to put her to death, would we be as likely to use our ballots to vote for leaders so eager to execute? Had we been in that room, would we also discover that there is little difference between the barbarism of a firing squad and the barbarism of lethal injection?
If we saw the full scope of the horrors that we allow to be committed in our name against our fellow humans, could we stomach it? By averting our eyes from the executions carried out in our name and from the carceral system more broadly, we reduce ourselves to the crowd in the Gospel of Luke, cheering “crucify him, crucify him,” demanding the torture and execution of Christ, but turning away as he bleeds to death.
The sins committed by democratically elected leaders rest, in part, on the electorate who puts them into power. Insofar as we permit these acts to be committed in our name through our representative democracy, it deepens our sin to look away. A failure to confront the worst impulses of our humanity may forever keep us from addressing them, like a penitent making a poor examination of conscience before confession.
Advocating for policy changes, voting for candidates who promise an end to the death penalty, and organizing in support of the rights of those on death row can be tools of bearing meaningful witness against this grave sin. Christ himself elucidated a corporal work of mercy—visiting the imprisoned and witnessing the image of God within them—of which we as Catholics and voters of conscience would do well to avail ourselves.
But as long as we electorally insist on executions, we have a duty not to look away. It’s not enough to breathe a collective sigh of relief when this grave evil is once again made private, then move on with our lives while ignoring the violent harm which we permit in our name. Our inability to stomach a confrontation, though a live-streamed execution, with the system we have created, we must look unblinkingly at the whole carceral system and allow ourselves to be scandalized by the image of God we see in accused and in executioner alike.
Prior to the president cancelling the Pentagon’s plans, Hegseth said the public nature of the planned public execution was to ensure that viewers “understand that there are serious consequences for these types of things.” Perhaps Hegseth is right that such executions could serve as a deterrent—for Americans who may excuse or even champion the executioner’s rifle, because they are too far removed from the agonizing cruelty of the carceral system to understand what pain and horror we inflict on our neighbors.
Image: Unsplash
