Yesterday the Pentagon announced that it intends to livestream the firing squad execution in early December of Nidal Hassan, a U.S. Army major who was responsible for the shooting of fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in 2008, who was convicted in 2013. This is the first such firing squad execution in decades.
The plan by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth raised an immediate outcry from Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, the head of the conference of Catholic Bishops, who called it “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered.” He said, “The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people.”
