Catholics in US Army must not take part in firing squad, archbishop says

Catholics serving in the US Army should not take part in the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan that the Pentagon is planning to live stream on December 3, a prominent US archbishop said on Monday.

In an unusually strongly worded statement, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees the spiritual care of ‌Catholic members of the US armed forces, raised a series of objections to the unprecedented plan to broadcast the execution of Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in a 2009 shooting spree.

Broglio said he presided at the funeral of one of Hasan’s victims and lamented the shooting. But the Ohio-born archbishop asked whether the US wanted to “imitate the terrorists of this world and make a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries”.

“I oblige any Catholics assigned to ⁠the firing squad to request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the church,” Broglio said.