Edgar Beltrán / The Pillar
At a time when lawlessness is rampaging across Western nations and violent repeat offenders are routinely set free by far-left activist prosecutors, the leadership at the Vatican is doubling down on their soft-on-crime narrative.
The first American-born pontiff, Pope Leo XIV (formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago), took to his official X account on Saturday to reaffirm the modern Catholic Church’s absolute opposition to capital punishment.
In the post, Leo wrote:
“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.”
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 XIV (@Pontifex) October 10, 2026
Leo’s post did not name Hasan or the United States, but it followed statements from Cardinal Pietro Parolin (Vatican Secretary of State) and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops President Archbishop Paul Coakley condemning the planned public/livestreamed execution as “unacceptable,” “incomprehensible,” and a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death.” Vatican News explicitly linked the Pope’s message to the Fort Hood case and the World Day Against the Death Penalty.
The timing could not be more pointed. Just days earlier, the Trump administration and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth finalized plans for the U.S. Army firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, the radical Islamist Army psychiatrist who, on November 5, 2009, walked into a Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Processing Center shouting “Allahu Akbar,” murdered 13 American soldiers (including a pregnant service member), and wounded 32 more.
As The Gateway Pundit has extensively reported, President Trump approved the death sentence, Hegseth recommended the firing squad method, and the execution is set for December 3, 2026, at 1 p.m. Central Time at Fort Hood itself, the same time of day as the original attack.
The Pentagon has confirmed the execution will be livestreamed so the public can witness the consequences of such an atrocity.
In a September 14, 1952, address to the First International Congress on the Histopathology of the Nervous System, Pope Pius XII defended the state’s authority to execute a convicted criminal under certain circumstances.
Pius XII explained that, in such cases, public authorities could deprive a condemned offender of life as punishment for a crime.
His argument was that an offender could, through his own criminal actions, forfeit his claim to continued life, allowing the state to impose the ultimate punishment. ( Pope Pius XII’s Address to the First International Congress on the Histopathology of the Nervous System — September 14, 1952 See paragraph 28)
Traditional Catholic teaching and Scripture (including Old Testament capital offenses and Romans 13’s affirmation of the state’s sword) have long recognized that the death penalty can be legitimate.
In 2018, Pope Francis formally revised Paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to declare the death penalty inadmissible.
The revised teaching argues that even individuals responsible for serious crimes retain their inherent human dignity and that modern detention facilities can protect society without execution.
The Vatican has defended this revision as a development consistent with earlier Catholic doctrine, rather than a repudiation of it.
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