Catholics Should Condemn Death on Display

The clocks are striking thirteen months since Charlie Kirk was publicly executed—shot through the neck while speaking to a crowd at Utah Valley University. His bloody assassination was seen by millions, thanks to the often-devilish dynamic of the internet. Many saw the footage of a life being snuffed out in a second without knowing what they were about to see—and they were shaken, sickened, and shocked.

But what was equally disturbing were the reactions of those whose eyes and souls were not seared by this sight. Social media crackled with posts of people cheering, dancing, praising, mocking, and applauding the murder of this conservative giant. It was demonic.

Given the outrage and outcry over these inhuman reactions over a death put on display, it is incredible that the US Department of War considered lining America up to witness another execution online. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth proposed that the December 3 execution of Nidal Hasan by firing squad should be livestreamed. In his words, “people need to understand that there’s [sic] serious consequences for these types of things.” President Trump was considering whether to proceed with the plan or not—appreciating, no doubt, the attention this dark controversy is giving his administration. He decided yesterday (October 15) to not livestream. But the very fact it was being seriously considered shows at least some appetite for the spectacle.

Though an official livestream of a capital punishment is obviously not a one-for-one with the viral videos of Kirk’s assassination, the former runs the risk of the latter’s barbaric social degradation. It should never be permissible to make a public display of death, even a justifiable death. Some crimes against life forfeit the life of the criminal, and that forfeiture is a serious, sacred moment, when a soul goes suddenly to the judgment seat of God—and such moments are not fodder for mass consumption.

Nidal Hasan is a former Army major and psychiatrist who carried out a massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 9, 2009. He murdered 13 people and wounded 30, shouting “Allahu Akbar” before he was immobilized by five gunshot wounds that left him a paraplegic. During the trial, Hasan acknowledged his guilt and that he gunned down his fellow service members to protect Islamic insurgents from the US military. He was convicted by court-martial and sentenced to death.

Though the death penalty is a hotly debated and divisive application of justice, it is appropriate in certain extreme cases. The Catholic Church has allowed it for centuries, given its defense in Scripture and by Doctors of the Church. The catechetical teaching on capital punishment was notably narrowed by Pope St. John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae, and that with good reason. Given the advancement of societal structure in the legal system and incarceration capacities, capital punishment need only be rare. But structures and systems cannot change whether something is a moral evil or not, and capital punishment is still admissible.

Pope Francis attempted to condemn capital punishment altogether, saying it is “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the human person.” But this statement, which Pope Leo XIV holds to, only prescribes intrinsic immorality to something which the Church has never regarded as intrinsically immoral, which is a logical contradiction. Catholics can uphold the death penalty, despite what any pope may prudentially hold. Besides being a proportionate response of justice for those who destroy life flagrantly, the death penalty is the strongest deterrent to potential aggressors which upholds the common good.

The objections to it are not, of course, to be dismissed out of hand. There is a spiritual consideration of giving lost souls all of their natural lives to convert and repent of their sins. Additionally, the state, as a human institution, can make errors and has sent many innocent people to their deaths, which is terrible. The common practices for executions in the US are not above criticism, as the sanitizing of capital punishment can result in botch jobs—like the appalling story of Christa Pike in recent weeks, who survived two doses of lethal injection and certainly at the cost of indescribable agony.

But human weakness and historic failures are not reasons to pursue a just response to egregious acts of evil. Further, and to the point at hand, that a response is just does not mean that it may be for all to see. The modern inclination of sensitivity to make capital punishment resemble a medical procedure bespeaks the human instinct to recoil from watching a person have their life taken.

Public executions were a common practice in times gone by, even in the United States. The last prominent public execution in the US was applied to Rainey Bethea for rape and murder in Kentucky, 1936. The crowd of 20,000’s riotous behavior afterwards started the trend of states banning public executions. Over and above any concern for public safety and order, however, it is disproportionate to human nature to put the delivery of death on display.

The inclination to behold the act of taking life is rooted in either something visceral, something curious, or something depraved. Whatever that interest may be, it is not something to indulge. The stigma attached to excessively or graphically violent films is related to this unhealthy appetite. The loss of life is a spiritual tragedy, and when it is taken forcefully by another, whether for just or unjust reasons, it should not be witnessed casually like a spectator sport. Even as an act of justice, it is beneath man’s dignity to use the administration of death as propaganda or, worse, entertainment.

Of course, the dignity of the person being executed is central to Catholic objection to capital punishment, and with good cause. The dignity of a profound sinner, such as a mass murderer, is one that St. Thomas Aquinas questioned, positing that certain grave sins caused people to fall away from their natural human dignity, and so their execution was not an offense against dignity.

The Church has moved from this position, teaching instead that man, regardless of sin, possesses an essential dignity or sanctity, having been made in the Image and Likeness of God, and the destruction of that being is a terrible thing—even if it is a just thing. Based on that essential dignity, death should not be looked upon lightly or with morbid curiosity or savagery, as a livestreamed event will almost certainly court. It is beneath the dignity of the person meeting their Maker and the dignity of those who behold that moment out of some twinge of fascination.

The dignity of the law and the legal system should not put on display the fruits of evil. That dignity demands a decency in handling sensitive and terrible affairs, and the execution of justice for serious crimes should not be celebrated or offered as a spectacle out of respect for the people who suffered on his account, out of respect for the dignity of the condemned, and out of respect for the dignity of those who comprise the society that has condemned the malefactor.

Hasan’s death should be private instead of making him a figure of undue notoriety or, worse still, an Islamist martyr whose filmed demise could become a terrorist recruiting tool. It is these groups—groups who promote terror and death—that put executions on public display. It is the enemies of God who behead captives on camera and hang corpses from bridges. If the United States government gives in to some chest-thumping, saber-rattling urge to put their enemy to death on screen, the difference between what America stands for and what America is becomes more glaring.

The Archbishop of the US Military, Timothy P. Broglio, has entered the fray, and after incorrectly stating that the Church is opposed to capital punishment, His Excellency went on to pose some strong questions:

“[D]o we really want to imitate the terrorists of this world and make a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries? The crime committed by Nidal Malik Hasan was heinous, but does exposing the public to his execution serve any purpose? Has the potential moral injury, which the members of the firing squad might experience, been considered? Will the exposure of a live-stream to the young and impressionable during the 250th anniversary year of our independence be able to be repaired? The US military generally enjoys a good reputation in the world. Is there really a value to throwing them in the same boat with terrorists by broadcasting the image of the execution of a man in a wheel chair to the whole world? Does this decision reflect the dignity of the human person?”

When His Excellency asserted that “the dignity of the human person is again at stake,” he means, presumably, the dignity of Hasan. Hasan’s dignity, however, will not be damaged by applying a punishment befitting his crime after due process according to the law. Hasan’s dignity, and the dignity of others, would be damaged by making his execution an exhibition, inviting again the disgusting pandemonium that was unleashed after Charlie Kirk’s murder.

Some things should simply not be seen, let alone broadcasted, and President Trump’s decision to keep Hasan’s execution behind closed doors is the right one—the dignified and humane one. All this may be an attention-seizing strategy to make his Republican administration look strong and then clement as the midterms loom. Whether these moves will have that effect remains to be seen, but at least Hasan’s execution won’t be.