Military's Top Archbishop Tells Catholic Troops To Seek Exemption From Hasan Firing Squad, Likens Livestream To Terrorists

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the Catholic Church's archbishop for the U.S. armed forces, told Catholic service members assigned to Nidal Hasan's firing squad to request to be excused, in a statement Monday that also condemned War Secretary Pete Hegseth's plan to livestream the Dec. 3 execution of the Fort Hood shooter.

Broglio, who led the U.S. bishops' conference from 2022 to 2025, wrote that he wanted to "express my disapproval of what is proposed regarding the execution of the terrorist Hasan." "Do we really want to imitate the terrorists of this world and make a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries?" he asked, according to CBS News. He also questioned broadcasting to the world the execution of "a man in a wheel chair." Hasan has been paralyzed from the chest down since military police shot him during the 2009 attack.

The statement cites the Catechism and Pope Francis on the Church's opposition to capital punishment, then lists the costs Broglio sees in a public killing: "moral injury" to the soldiers who carry it out, the exposure of young viewers during the nation's 250th anniversary year, and the effect on the military's reputation. He asked people of goodwill to push for the decision to be reconsidered, or at least to keep children from watching. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to CBS's request for comment.

A specific unit has already been picked to carry out the execution, and officials are weighing the psychological toll as they choose which soldiers will fire, CNN reported Saturday, citing sources. Because the execution is being carried out under a legal order, it is unclear whether those soldiers can decline. One source noted that while many soldiers have killed in combat, this would be different: the prisoner would be immobile and positioned as a target.

Hegseth's announcement caught people across the Pentagon and the Army off guard, three sources told CNN; for many, his interview last week with Jack Posobiec aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln was the first they heard of a public execution. Hegseth said it would be public "because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things."

Army regulations limit the witnesses at a military execution to a short list that includes the prisoner's family, the victims' families, the press and a chaplain. One source said Hegseth, acting Army Secretary Adam Telle and Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell's team settled on a livestream as what "public" would mean, and the Pentagon confirmed the livestream on Thursday, saying details would follow.

President Trump told reporters Saturday he hasn't made a final call on the livestream, a day after saying he "absolutely" approved it. "There are two thoughts: don't show it and show it," Trump said at the White House, adding that he knows "what the military would like to do" but "I'll make a decision," according to NBC News. He also reposted on Truth Social a Dallas News piece in which pastor Robert Jeffress, a longtime ally, backed a public execution.

Broglio's statement follows Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who called the livestream "a barbaric promotion of a culture of death" on Friday. Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, marked the World Day Against the Death Penalty with a post on X saying "the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment," without mentioning Hasan. Broglio's opposition predates the livestream: when Hasan was sentenced in 2013, he said "the church teaches that unjustified killing is wrong in all circumstances. That includes the death penalty."

In October 2021, as the Pentagon threatened to punish troops who refused the COVID-19 vaccine without an approved exemption, Broglio wrote: "No one should be forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine if it would violate the sanctity of his or her conscience." Hegseth hailed the troops discharged for refusing that vaccine as "warriors of conscience" last year, after the Trump administration ordered them reinstated with back pay.

The livestream has drawn objections from both parties. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she "would expect this from terrorists and dictators, but not here in America," and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said the "death penalty is not entertainment," per CBS. House Speaker Mike Johnson told CBS that some House Republicans have "concerns" he plans to raise with the White House, warning the video could become "a recruiting tool for future terrorists." Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called the plan "beyond disgusting," and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called public executions "medieval." Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, said he didn't know whether the livestream would actually happen and that he wouldn't watch it, as we reported.

Trump signed off on execution by firing squad, on Hegseth's recommendation, earlier this month, and the Army has set it for 1 p.m. Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, as we noted last week. Hasan, a former Army major and psychiatrist, killed 13 people - 12 soldiers and a retired soldier working as a civilian - and wounded more than 30 at a soldier readiness center at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009, as troops prepared to deploy. A court-martial convicted him in 2013, and the Supreme Court declined to review his case last year, Stars and Stripes reported. Alonzo Lunsford, a retired staff sergeant who survived the attack, told CNN that broadcasting the execution "is not acceptable."

If it goes ahead, it will be the first military execution since the Army hanged Pvt. John A. Bennett at Fort Leavenworth in 1961, and the Army's first by firing squad since Pvt. Eddie Slovik was shot for desertion in France in 1945. The Death Penalty Information Center says it has no record of any U.S. execution being livestreamed. The last known large-scale public execution in the country was the 1936 hanging of Rainey Bethea before roughly 20,000 people in Kentucky.