Pope Leo and US bishops have cried stop to State killings

This week's column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Last week I wrote in this column about the attempted killing of Christa Pike; the great news is that she is still alive. But since then a lot has happened in the world of US killings and how they are talking about the subject. Secretary of Defence, now called Secretary of War last week made some of the most disgusting statements I’ve ever heard. He told the world that former army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan would be killed by firing squad, that it was going to be live streamed so that everyone would be able to watch it. Hasan shot dead 13 unarmed soldiers and wounded another 32 at the Fort Hood military base in 2009.

Just stop and think about it for a moment; in Tennessee a woman, whom US authorities attempted to kill, not once, but twice, is now back in prison waiting to hear when the authorities will attempt to kill her again. 

In Texas a former soldier is to be shot by firing squad and the US authorities hope to live stream his killing.

Honestly you could not make this up.

It is beyond annoying to see US world leaders being feted and treated reverentially and to think these same men are responsible for the attempted killing of Christa Pike and the planned television spectacle of the killing by firing squad of Nidal Hasan.

The stupidity of it. All they are doing is creating a martyr, who will go down forever in history for fighting the infidel. His name and photo will be a symbol of struggle across the Muslim and Arab world for generations to come.

And then to hear teddy-boy-in-chief, aka US Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth, though he and his boss now use the title Secretary of War, say: ‘We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.’

On Saturday Pope Leo wrote on X: ‘The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. 

Justice and the common good can be secured through effective systems of detention that do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.’ 

And it’s not Leo’s first time to speak out on the subject, only in April he upheld efforts to abolish the death penalty in a video message to a US university.

In 2018 Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church to state that the church officially opposes the death penalty.  

On October 2 the Tennessee Catholic Conference  of Bishops said: ‘Accountability for grave wrongdoing is necessary, but it does not require the taking of another life.’

We all know how the world worships the Dollar Bill but surely the world must now know what a cruel place this ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ can be.

Do we realise how privileged we are to live within the European Union, where the death penalty is proscribed.

All my life I’ve wondered why the US flag is atop so many flagpoles across our land. Why do we do that?

Last week I bet Pope Leo would speak, and so he has.