The Vatican News portal reports that the “Archbishop for the Military Services USA,” Timothy Broglio, has issued a statement “obliging” Catholic soldiers assigned to the firing squad for the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan to request excuse, declaring the act “contrary to the teaching of the Church.” The article details the coordinated outrage of the conciliar hierarchy—including the USCCB “president” Paul Coakley, “Cardinal Secretary of State” Pietro Parolin, and the antipope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost)—against the execution and its planned livestream, framing capital punishment as an attack on human dignity and a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death.” This synchronized rebellion against the God-given right of the sword manifests the apostasy of the conciliar sect, which has substituted the Gospel of Life for a Masonic humanitarianism that spares the murderer and crucifies justice.
The Usurpation of the Keys: False Shepherds Binding Consciences to Error
The cited article presents a “Archbishop” Broglio issuing a binding directive—“I oblige any Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused”—equating participation in a lawful execution with the crime of “procured abortion.” From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this is not the voice of a successor of the Apostles exercising the potestas ligandi, but the voice of a hireling (mercenarius) scattering the flock. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 188 §4) teaches that an office becomes vacant ipso facto by public defection from the Catholic faith. Since the conciliar “hierarchy” has publicly defected from the perennial doctrine on the legitimacy of capital punishment—a doctrine defined by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, confirmed by Pope Pius XII, and rooted in Sacred Scripture—their claim to jurisdiction is null. Broglio possesses no authority to “oblige” a Catholic soul to anything; his directive is a precept of men (praecepta hominum) contradicting the law of God, and therefore irritum et inane.
The article notes the “obligation” is framed “As I would in the case of a procured abortion.” This analogy is blasphemous. Abortion is the direct killing of the innocent (occasio innocentis), a sin crying to heaven for vengeance. The execution of a justly convicted murderer is the exercise of the potestas gladii entrusted by God to the civil authority (Rom 13:4: “Minister Dei est, vindex in iram ei qui male facit”). To equate the two is to deny the order of justice established by the Creator. It is the hallmark of the Antichurch to protect the guilty and persecute the innocent.
Hermeneutic of Rupture: The Dogmatic Evolution of the “Inadmissible”
The article quotes the antipope Leo XIV: “The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” This is the language of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (Prop. 58: “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him”) and Pascendi Dominici Gregis. For nineteen centuries, the Church taught, with the Fathers and Doctors (St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Roman Catechism of Trent), that the civil power has the right, and often the duty, to inflict capital punishment for the common good (bonum commune) and the expiation of the criminal’s soul.
Pope Pius XII, addressing the First International Congress of the Histopathology of the Nervous System (Sept. 14, 1952), declared with magisterial authority: “Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his right to life.” This teaching is irreformabile. The conciliar sect’s declaration of “inadmissibility” is not a development; it is a corruption (corruptio optimi pessima). It constitutes a formal heresy against the justice of God and the rights of the State, effectively declaring the Holy Ghost, Who inspired Genesis 9:6 (“Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his blood shall be shed”) and Romans 13, to have been mistaken or culturally conditioned.
Naturalistic Humanism: The “Dignity” of the Murderer vs. The Rights of God
The linguistic level of the article reveals the theological rot. The vocabulary is entirely anthropocentric: “dignity of the human person,” “culture of death,” “moral injury,” “redemption,” “spectacle.” Absent is any mention of poena vindicativa (vindictive justice), expiatio (expiation), ordo iustitiae (order of justice), or the eternal salvation of the criminal who, facing death, may repent. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches (ST II-II, q. 64, a. 2) that the death penalty is lawful because “the life of certain pestiferous men is an impediment to the common good which is the concord of human society. Therefore, certain men must be removed by death from the society of men.”
The conciliar “Cardinal” Parolin calls it “unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle.” Yet the Church has always recognized the public nature of execution as a deterrent (ut alii terreantur) and a solemn reminder of the wages of sin (mors peccati). The “livestream” objection is a red herring; the true objection is to the penalty itself. The “Archbishop” Coakley’s phrase “barbaric promotion of a culture of death” inverts the encyclical Evangelium Vitae (itself a modernist document) to attack the very justice that protects the culture of life. This is the language of the Synagogue of Satan, which cries “Crucify Him” to the Innocent and “Release Barabbas” to the guilty.
The Symptom of the Great Apostasy: The Conciliar Sect as Agent of Subversion
The coordinated response—Broglio (Military), Coakley (USCCB), Parolin (Secretariat of State), Leo XIV (Antipope)—demonstrates the monolithic unity of the ecclesia maligna in enforcing the novelties of Vatican II. This is the operatio erroris foretold by St. Paul (2 Thess 2:10-11). The “Syllabus of Errors” of Pius IX (Error 39: “The State… is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits”—condemned as error, implying the State *has* rights from God, including the jus gladii; Error 63: “It is lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate princes… and even to rebel”) is trampled underfoot. The conciliar sect teaches disobedience to the legitimate civil authority (Trump/Hegseth) acting within its God-given competence.
Furthermore, the article notes the “President Donald Trump approved his execution.” The conciliar hierarchy positions itself as the moral superior of the civil magistrate, a direct violation of Gelu et igni (Gelasius I) and the doctrine of the Two Powers. They do not preach the Kingship of Christ (Quas Primas: “His reign extends not only to Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians”); they preach the kingship of Man. By demanding the life of the murderer be spared in the name of “dignity,” they abolish the lex talionis established by God and replace it with the sentimentalism of the Enlightenment.
The Invalidity of the “Obligation” and the Duty of the Catholic Soldier
A Catholic soldier in the US Military (assuming valid orders and a just war context, which is a separate grave question) who is assigned to a lawful execution squad acts as an instrument of the potestas publica. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (Part III, Ch. 11, Q. 4) explicitly states: “Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the 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… David says: ‘In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.'”
Broglio’s “obligation” binds under pain of sin only if it aligns with Divine Law. Since it contradicts Divine Law, it binds to nothing but sin. A Catholic soldier who refuses the firing squad based on this false precept commits a sin of disobedience to lawful authority and a sin against justice (injustitia), failing to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s (Mt 22:21) and to God the vindication of His law. The true shepherd would exhort the soldier: “Do your duty justly, pray for the soul of the condemned, and trust in the ordinance of God.” The false shepherd says: “Disobey, for the State has no right to kill.” This is anarchy disguised as piety.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation in the Holy Place
The article from Vatican News is not a news report; it is a manifesto of the Counter-Church. It reveals a structure that has lost the sensus fidei, the sensus catholicus, and the very notion of Justice. By declaring the death penalty “inadmissible,” the conciliar sect has declared God “inadmissible”—the God Who commanded “He that shedeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” (Gen 9:6). The “Archbishop” Broglio, the “Cardinal” Parolin, the “President” Coakley, and the Antipope Leo XIV stand convicted by their own words: they are ministers of a “culture of life” that serves the Murderer, enemies of the Cross who make the Precious Blood of Christ—shed by the sentence of a Roman governor—into a fable. Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. The faithful Catholic recognizes in this spectacle the abominatio desolationis standing where it ought not (Mk 13:14), and flees to the mountains of Tradition, where the Law of God remains unchangeable, and the Sword of Justice is not sheathed in sentimentality.
Source:
US Archbishop ‘obliges’ Catholics to request to be excused from firing squad (vaticannews.va)
Date: 13.10.2026