Pope Leo declares death penalty ‘inadmissible’ attack on dignity of human person

VATICAN CITY (OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV has posted on his official X account that the Catholic Church holds the death penalty to be “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

In a post published Oct. 10, on the World Day Against the Death Penalty, the pope noted that justice can be upheld and the common good of humanity can be safeguarded without relying on capital punishment.

He said criminals can be effectively detained in order to protect citizens, while still allowing those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.

“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment: 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. #NoDeathPenalty,” Pope Leo wrote.

The pope’s post came a day after the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops made statements against the U.S. government’s planned public execution of Nidal Malik Hasan.

Hassan, a former U.S. Army psychiatrist, was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. A military court sentenced him to death in 2013.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Oct. 8 in an interview with the pro-Trump TV outlet Real America’s Voice News that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3, and that it would be made public.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” said Hegseth, who uses the moniker “secretary of war” since Trump signed an executive order last year adding the “Department of War” as a secondary, ceremonial title for the Department of Defense.

Hegseth later confirmed his comments on X.

Speaking to reporters Oct. 9, Cardinal Parolin said plans for a livestreamed execution were unacceptable.

“It is truly incomprehensible that anyone would want to use this method in this day and age,” he said. “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.”

He reiterated that the death penalty “is incompatible with human dignity and does not serve as a deterrent.”

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the USCCB, issued an Oct. 9 statement that condemned the government’s plans, warning, “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.”

“Our God is the God of life,” Archbishop Coakley said. “In no way can Hassan’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).”

The Catholic Church’s official magisterium opposes the use of capital punishment as a violation of the inherent sanctity of human life, and advocates for the abolition of the practice worldwide.

The late Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to clarify the Church’s teaching that capital punishment is morally “inadmissible” in the modern world “because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

In his 2020 encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis cited the teaching of St. John Paul II, writing that his predecessor “stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice.”

Earlier this year, Pope Leo XIV delivered a video message to Catholic death penalty abolitionists marking 15 years since the abolition of the death penalty in his home state of Illinois.

If carried out, Hasan’s execution would mark the first time U.S. officials livestreamed an execution to the public. The last public execution in the U.S. took place in Missouri in 1937, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

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