Vatican & World News 09.10.2026

Laudator Jesus Christus, Vatican and World News.

In the headlines this Friday the 9th of October, the President of the U.S.

Bishops' Conference condemns plans to live stream and execution by firing squad,

Russian strikes kill more than 70 people in Ukraine over two days,

and the Holy See warns against ideologies that undermine human dignity. In the Vatican, I am Francesca Merlo.

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Bishops' Conference, has expressed his shock over the Pentagon's announcement that it will live-stream an upcoming execution by firing squad.

In comments made to Vatican Radio, the Archbishop said the proposed live-stream promotes, quote, a culture of death, as Joseph Tullock reports.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that the public will be able to watch the upcoming execution of a former U.S. Army major.

It is believed that the execution of Nidal Hassan, who shot dead 13 unarmed U.S.

soldiers in 2009, would be the first public execution in the United States in almost a century.

In a statement to Vatican Radio, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Paul Coakley, expressed his shock and great sorrow.

Our God is the God of life, the Archbishop said. This decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered.

Archbishop Coakley recalled the exhortation in St. Paul's letter to the Romans, Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

The public execution, even of one who has done grave harm, he stressed, will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and will be a blight on the conscience of its people.

The Archbishop concluded with a prayer that the United States would choose life even in difficult circumstances.

I pray, he said, for the intercession of Our Lady of Good Counsel, that we as a nation may always choose life even in the most trying times and circumstances.

According to the US Army, the execution is scheduled for December 3, although further legal proceedings might delay it.

It will be the first execution carried out by the US military since 1961 and its first by firing squad since 1945.

Hassan, a former army psychiatrist, killed 13 people and wounded 32 others at a military base in November 2009.

Separately, the legal team for death row inmate Krista Pike has said that she is up and walking, although mentally foggy, after the US state of Tennessee botched an attempt to execute her.

Pike was sentenced to death for murder in 1995, but survived two lethal injections administered on 30 September.

I'm Joseph Tulloch. Meanwhile, turning to Ukraine, President

Vladimir Zelensky has accused the United States of being unwilling to help his country following a Russian attack on Thursday that killed at least 35 people in eastern Ukraine.

The attack brought the death toll from Russian strikes over two days to more than 70.

As Stefan Boss reports, the latest violence has overshadowed peace plans planned in the United States.

Fire brigades in the embattled city of Kramatorsk. They

tried to extinguish a fire after an apparent Russian bomb blast struck a street where two passenger buses were operating, killing and injuring scores of people.

Bodies were scattered across the street. Another reminder that Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II is far from over.

United Nations Rights Chief Volker Turp said he was appalled by what he called Thursday's horrifying strike.

I'm appalled by the wave of attacks killing civilians across Ukraine over the past four days,

including today's horrifying strike hitting two public buses that left at least 30 civilians dead in Kramatorsk according to the local authorities.

The scale and manner of these attacks, killing and injuring people on buses, at their homes and work in different areas of the country is reprehensible.

It was among numerous attacks that has killed more than 70 civilians and wounded many more across Ukraine.

The strikes also overshadow talks in the United States on how to end the war.

High-level officials from Ukraine and Europe have

flown to Miami to take part in a new round of

peace negotiations to end Russia's full-scale invasion amid the new wave of escalation that has battered Ukrainian cities.

The talks set to take place on Friday and Saturday will discuss

several options, including a targeted ceasefire covering the Black Sea, a vital trade route for shipping grain and energy facilities, which Moscow has hit at a relentless pace.

Kiev has responded, striking Russia's oil refineries.