Is torture a non-negotiable issue for Catholics?

[dmschrader]

Is opposition to torture, as defined in the Catechism, a non-negotiable issue for Catholics?

 

[Brendan]

A ‘non-negotialble’ is a clearly defined act declared infallibly to be ‘intrinsically evil’.

The CCC defines torture as

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Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity.

The Church would have to more more clearly define torture for it to rise to a ‘non-negotiable’.

For example, sleep deprivation: When does it become torture. 18 hours without sleep? 24 hours? 36? Is not letting a prisioner sleep in on Saturdays torture?

The others are all clearly defined. Direct Abortion (which includes abortion for embryonic stem cells) , genital homosexual acts, etc. The conditions are clear. Not so with torture.

I

 

[BayCityRickL]

dmschrader:

Is opposition to torture, as defined in the Catechism, a non-negotiable issue for Catholics?

No.

 

[dmschrader]

Karl Keating, in an interview with Joe Feuerherd, had this to say about torture: Another bite at the apple: torture. This is a good one because the Catechism of the Catholic Church is crystal clear on torture, condemning the practice as “contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity.” Non-negotiable, right?

Yes, agrees Keating, torture is non-negotiable. Got 'em!

Well, not quite. The Voter’s Guide was published in January 2004, before the torture issue really hit home, he recalled. And no one actually favors torture, Keating noted. Certainly there are more than five non-negotiable issues, said Keating, but the Voter’s Guide focused on those that were “in political play” during the election season.

So again, is torture a non-negotiable?

 

[wcknight]

If it’s not, it certainly should be.

 

[Brendan]

dmschrader:

[/indent]So again, is torture a non-negotiable?

And again, what exactly is torture. Exactly when and how does legitimate interrogation become torture. Where has the Church defined that?

A Moral Absolute requires a absolute definition.

 

[dmschrader]

Okay, I see the point about defining torture. Is the following, as reported by an FBI agent at Gitmo, torture?

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

Or is this just interregation?

John Paul II wrote in VS the following:

Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature “incapable of being ordered” to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church’s moral tradition, have been termed “intrinsically evil” (intrinsece malum): they are such *always and per se, *in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances. Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church teaches that “there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object”.131 The Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person, gives a number of examples of such acts: “Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator”. (Veritas Splendor, 80)

Is John Paul II equating torture to abortion and euthansia here?

 

[Lisa_N]

dmschrader:

Okay, I see the point about defining torture. Is the following, as reported by an FBI agent at Gitmo, torture?

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

The extremes in temperature do not sound like torture. Over 100 degrees? As someone commented on Laura Ingraham’s show “How hot was it when the Twin Towers were on fire?” You know my heart bleeds through every pore for these detainees.

The stories of the people being chained in fetal position need to be unpacked. Why? Were they being violent? Sometimes violent inmates or patients in hospitals are also restrained both to protect them and to protect the staff.

Actually my major concern is whether or not these discomforts produced any result. Did they work? If so the temporary discomfort might be considered legitimate.

OTOH the idea that some nutty politicians are comparing a shivering or sweating detainee with prisoners in the Gulag is a bit over the top.

Lisa N

 

[Benedictus]

Of course torture is never acceptable. Torture is a lot like pornography, I know it when I see it even if I can’t define it.

So, yes, I do think that torture is a non-negotiable.

As someone commented on Laura Ingraham’s show “How hot was it when the Twin Towers were on fire?”

Wow, there’s a red herring. If it were Friday, I’d suggest a fish fry. At best, this falls under the “do unto others” category. We’re supposed to be better than the terrorists, remember?

You know my heart bleeds through every pore for these detainees.

Some of whom apparently have committed no crime. Like the taxi driver who made headlines a few weeks ago.