Pope Leo XIV on Saturday declared capital punishment “inadmissible” as he marked the World Day Against the Death Penalty, hours after the United States announced plans to livestream an execution by firing squad.

In a on X, the American pope cited revised Catholic teaching on capital punishment introduced by Pope Francis, which says the death penalty attacks the inherent dignity of every human being. Writing under his official handle, @Pontifex, Leo said: “The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment. Effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.”

The post ended with the hashtag #NoDeathPenalty.

The U.S. Defense Department announced Thursday that the firing-squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who was convicted in connection with a 2009 shooting at the Fort Hood military base, would be livestreamed. Hasan is scheduled to be executed at Fort Hood on Dec. 3. He was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would ultimately decide whether the execution would be livestreamed.

Leo did not specifically refer to the planned execution or to a botched lethal injection in Tennessee that had earlier revived debate over the death penalty in the United States. Saturday was the World Day Against the Death Penalty, and the pope’s official social media accounts commonly publish messages to mark such commemorations.

However, Leo’s post came only hours after his top deputy, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, explicitly described the planned U.S. public execution as “unacceptable.”

Pope Francis amended official Catholic teaching in 2018 to declare capital punishment “inadmissible” in all circumstances. Previously, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the official compendium of church teaching, said the church did not exclude recourse to capital punishment “if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”

Past popes had upheld that position, although St. John Paul II began urging an end to the practice and emphasized that people who were guilty were as deserving of dignity as those who were innocent.

Like Francis before him, Leo has made prison visits a significant part of his papal travel. The visits are intended to offer inmates a message of hope and underscore their inherent dignity, the belief that God loves them and that redemption is always possible.

“If any of you fear being abandoned by everyone, know that God will never abandon you, and that the church will stand by your side,” Leo told inmates at the notorious Bata prison in Equatorial Guinea during a visit in April. Leo is scheduled to visit a prison in Buenos Aires during an upcoming tour of Latin America.

Speaking specifically about the United States, Parolin called the planned livestreamed execution “truly incomprehensible” and said it was “unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle.”

“The Church’s position is one of total opposition to the death penalty; it is incompatible with human dignity and serves as no deterrent…,” Parolin said in comments carried by Vatican News. “It is truly incomprehensible that anyone would want to use this system today — I don’t know for what purpose. It is certainly unacceptable to turn death into a spectacle; even if the person is guilty, of course, there are other methods.”

Archbishop Paul Coakley, head of the U.S. bishops conference, expressed “shock” and “great sorrow” over the Pentagon’s plans.

“In no way can Hasan’s actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered,” Coakley said in a statement Friday. “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.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.