Archbishop of the U.S. Military Says Catholics Cannot Participate in Firing Squad

Breitbart ^ | Oct. 12, 2026 | Paul Bois

[chickenlips]

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of all pastoral services to Catholics serving in the U.S. military, said that his fellow churchmen cannot participate in the upcoming firing squad of Nidal Hasan.

Controversy erupted last week when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon will be livestreaming Hasan’s execution, which has been scheduled for December 3. Hasan was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood that killed 14 people — 12 U.S. Army soldiers, one civilian, and an unborn child. Another 33 were injured.

In a statement on Monday, Broglio said that Catholics who serve on the firing squad would be going against church teaching, taking particular issue with the proposed livestream.

“I renew my expression of heartfelt sympathy to the families and friends of those who died in the attack at Fort Hood. It was an attack that disregarded the dignity of the human person. I had the sad duty of presiding and preaching at the funeral of Michael Grant Cahill, the only civilian killed in that attack,” said Broglio.

“Secondly, I repeat the opposition of the Catholic Church to capital punishment. The Catechism was already clear and Pope Francis made it even clearer. The dignity of the human person is again at stake,” he continued.

---

TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: arresttimothybroglio; catholic; courtmartialbroglio; execution; goeasternorthodox; gotoconfession; hasan; hereticalarchbishop; military; prudentialjudgment; sedition; seeromans13; seestthomasaquinas; thebosssays; topdownsalvationmgt

[chickenlips]

So will a Catholic service member that obeys a lawful order and participates be excommunicated?

[Enterprise]

Can FReepers volunteer? Asking for a friend.

[T.B. Yoits]

Giovanni Battista Bugatti, known as Mastro Titta (Senigallia, 1779 – Rome, 1869) was an Italian executioner of the Papal States who executed 514 people during his 68 years of activity.

https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/robe-and-axe-of-giovanni-bugatti-the-official-papal-executioner-who-executed-514-people

[alexander_busek]

“I renew my expression of heartfelt sympathy to the families and friends of those who died in the attack at Fort Hood. It was an attack that disregarded the dignity of the human person. I had the sad duty of presiding and preaching at the funeral of Michael Grant Cahill, the only civilian killed in that attack,” said Broglio.

Idiot! The unborn child Nidal Hasan murdered was likewise a civilian!

Regards,

[PGR88]

What is fighting a war then, if not active “capital punishment?”

[stanne]

“Secondly, I repeat the opposition of the Catholic Church to capital punishment. The Catechism was already clear and Pope Francis made it even clearer.”

As a Catholic who sought the legal support of the Catholic Church in refusing the COVID vax as it was created and infused with aborted fetuses, I have researched this

The catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2267 clearly states the position

Pope Francis refuted it but, to my knowledge, and I may be wrong, clearly has no opposition to capital punishment

I’ll reiterate that I found it very horrific to not have the Holy See’s support in refusing th covid vax. Which I did through alternative support. Shaky at best

[Avalon Memories]

I repeat the opposition of the Catholic Church to capital punishment.

Archbishop Broglio apparently doesn't know the bloody history of the Roman Catholic Church through the ages.

[stanne]

“ So will a Catholic service member that obeys a lawful order and participates be excommunicated?”

Canon lawyers may have come upon a different ruling but no, the catechism allows for capital punishment

Further, my parish priest stated after 9/11 this year, in his Sunday sermon, that these guys/dheads who flew into the WTC and the pentagon are not our neighbors to be forgiven. That they acted in pure evil, so we do not forgive them. Military priest

[Flaming Conservative]

Capitol punishment is Biblical, OT and NT. Jesus had plenty of opportunity to teach against it, but He did not.

[doc maverick]

So now the Islamocommie left is using bought off bishops instead of their lawyers.
Anything to demonize the military, ICE, police and the Trump administration.

[stanne]

I don’t know about any of that

I just know that the catechism allows for capital punishment

[stanne]

these guys/dheads who flew into the WTC and FLEW INTO the pentagon are not our neighbors to be forgiven. That they acted in pure evil, so we do not forgive them.

[Dr. Sivana]

It was an attack that disregarded the dignity of the human person.

No, blowing your nose in someone's face "disregards the dignity of the human person". The attack was a mass slaughter of innocent human beings, the planned human destruction by a monster that must be defended against. This is about the self-defense of civilization from evil.

[stanne]

“ Secondly, I repeat the opposition of the Catholic Church to capital Punishment”

Read para 2267 in the catechism

Any refute is not necessarily a revision. If any member of the capital punishment unit sought religious immunity it could be questionable under catechetical grounds.

[doc maverick]

We’re going to have to start deporting them along with Ilhan Omar or the US will end up just like the UK and EU.
We’re not far behind.
Mamdani needs to go too!
They all need to go or our streets will look just like the streets in France and our wives and daughters will be raped by enemy combatants.

[Prince of Space]

I disregard pretty much anything Pope Francis & Pope Leo opine on because they’re Catholic Light. I examine my conscience instead & act accordingly.

[Tymesup]

If there were only Catholics, Hasan wouldn’t be executed?

Since there are non-Catholics, it’s ok for them to participate in the firing squad? Or it’s not ok?

[Orosius]

That’s this guy’s opinion, it’s not binding on any Catholic soldier who’s called upon to do his duty on the firing squad.

[fidelis]

With all due respect, this bishop is wrong. In Catholic teaching from the beginning, capital punishment has been seen as legitimate.

I don’t expect most non-Catholics (and even many Catholics) to appreciate the distinction here, but the Catechism of the Catholic Church is not an infallible document. It is rather, a teaching document that contains a compendium of Church teachings, some of which are defined infallible teachings.

When Francis changed the entry in the Catechism to make it say that there was no instance that the death penalty could be used, he did not bother to pronounce it as an infallible teaching because he couldn’t do that and he knew it— the Church has consistently taught its legitimacy for 2000 years. It was entirely his personal opinion and he had it changed to reflect his personal beliefs. Many esteemed Catholic canon lawyers have pointed this out, but many bishops and others act like Francis’ opinion on this is infallible teaching, probably because it reflects their own beliefs.

The good news is that it can be changed back as easily as it was changed. I don’t expect this to happen under Leo but, God willing, when we again have more orthodox Popes, it will happen.

[Dr. Sivana]

The catechism never says that Capital Punishment is intrinsically evil. it cannot. It states that it is no longer necessary because of "modern detention systems". That is a judgment of the efficiency of technology and efficiency of physical secular systems that is outside of the scope of the Church's teaching authority on Faith and Morals, just as assumptions on the efficacy of shots is. My refutation is two words: Ted Bundy.

(From Claude AI):
Pope Innocent III, profession of faith prescribed for reconciling Waldensians (1208): “Concerning the secular power, we declare that it can exercise the judgment of blood without mortal sin, provided that in carrying out the punishment it proceeds not from hatred but from judgment, not carelessly but with deliberation” (Denzinger 795). The Waldensians had held all bloodshed by the state unlawful, so this is the nearest thing to a formal doctrinal statement on the question.

Fourth Lateran Council (1215), canon 18: forbade clerics to pronounce or carry out death sentences, or take part in judicial procedures involving bloodshed. The penalty was permitted to the state, not to clergy.

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 64, a. 2: it is lawful for public authority to kill a criminal dangerous to the community, as a physician removes a diseased limb to save the body. Not magisterial in itself, but Aquinas’s treatment became the standard reference.

Catechism of the Council of Trent (Roman Catechism, 1566), on the Fifth Commandment: lists among lawful killings that carried out by civil authorities, “to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent,” and adds that such punishment is an act of obedience to the commandment, which aims at the protection of human life.

Besides that of course, is the lack of opposition from time immemorial. Our Lord certainly did not correct the Good Thief who said he deserved his punishment, only that the he would join Our Lord in Paradise. St. Augustine also is clear on this issue, and it was not a controversy among the Church Fathers or Doctors of the Church.