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Debora123
Guest
Excellent point, thank you.
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donanobis
Guest
Pope Benedict XVI criticises airport body scannersI guarantee you, the Church has not spoken on this issue because it’s silly. plain and simple. If it were wrong and immoral, the Church would have said something by now. …If the Church ever actually does come out and say full body scans are immoral (which I can bet my life on that She won’t bc it isn’t),** I’ll shut my mouth like I said I would.**
**Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out against the use of body scanners at airports insisting that “human dignity must be preserved”. **
By Nick Pisa in Rome 4:18PM GMT 21 Feb 2010
The Pope made his comments during an audience with airport workers held at the Vatican.
“Every action, it is above all essential to protect and value the human person in their integrity.”
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royal_archer
Guest
Here is a better thread for those who wish to discuss the morality of touching other people in innappropriate places.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=378704
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royal_archer
Guest
Thanks for finding that.
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Romanova
Guest
Wow, thanks for finding this! I hadn’t been aware the pope had ever weighed in on this.
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onenow1
Guest
Sincere Christian faith will follow the words of St. Peter’s successor with discernment.
Peace
Happy thanks giving to all.
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Debora123
Guest
*"The Pope made his comments during an audience with airport workers held at the Vatican.
Although the Pontiff did not mention the words body scanner it was clear what he meant as he told the 1,200 strong crowd: "Every action, it is above all essential to protect and value the human person in their integrity.
“Respecting these principles can seem particularly complex and difficult in the present context.”*
Ok? I don’t see where in there he said that going through a body scanner was a sin. Just because he tells airport workers to respect human dignity when they are doing their job, doesn’t mean scanners are sinful. Airport workers have to respect human dignity just like Doctors and nurses have to respect human dignity. This includes being professional and not using your job to lust and treat people like objects.
Although the Pontiff did not mention the words body scanner it was clear what he meant as he told the 1,200 strong crowd: "Every action, it is above all essential to protect and value the human person in their integrity.
“Respecting these principles can seem particularly complex and difficult in the present context.”*
Ok? I don’t see where in there he said that going through a body scanner was a sin. Just because he tells airport workers to respect human dignity when they are doing their job, doesn’t mean scanners are sinful. Airport workers have to respect human dignity just like Doctors and nurses have to respect human dignity. This includes being professional and not using your job to lust and treat people like objects.
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Debora123
Guest
If the Pope wanted to say they were sinful, and that we should cancel our flights to avoid going through them, and that they should be abolished, that would have been his perfect chance to do so.
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juno24
Guest
We were. In fact, I was subject to an “advanced pat-down” at the end of last December on my flight home after visiting my family for Christmas. I had some windshield washer fluid and road salt residue on my hands when I went through the hand-swabbing procedure, so of course I was flagged for a pat down. It was the pat-down that they are doing now. It was a thorough pat-down and the screener was eminently professional. She described everything she was doing and where she was about to touch. I happened to be wearing a girdle that day, so she paid particular attention to my belly and waist.It was over in a matter of minutes. At no point did I feel violated, felt-up, sexually assaulted or anything else that many people seem to be afraid will happen. In fact, for whatever reason, I was more irritated when they went through every single item in my purse and carry-on bag after the pat-down, but even that was professional and took only a few minutes.
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Junebug999
Guest
Debora123 – I agree with you totally. Bring on the scanners AND pat downs. And, scan and pat down EVERYONE! – no exceptions. And…you are persistent – I see you are faily new…welcome to Catholic Answers…you sure picked a wild ride on this thread!
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pnewton
Guest
I think that is a fair summation of the moral situation. There is no objective immorality to the searches. I will not fly because of my own conscience, not for myself, by my wife and child. It is my own moral discomfort, the voice of *my *conscience, I am obliged to obey.
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donanobis
Guest
Skirting around an issue while awaiting furthur investigation, is one way the Church sometimes deals with difficult issues. She did give consumers and TSA workers some guidelines to go by right now and she has access to enough professionals who can do a thorough investigation. If and when she speaks out on what she knows depends on a lot of factors.
Let the consumer beware and be knowledgeable and investigate for themselves in order to make an *informed *decision regarding danger to themselves or their family, physically or spiritually and even the necessity of going through such procedures. Naked body scanning and being patted down are not an ex-cathedra obligations but a ruling from a seat in the White House or elsewhere. The burden of conscience is on ourselves and not on a Pope’s ruling.
But for your own sakes, don’t just subject yourself to it because you are told it is necessary, without investigating first or you may be guilty of, at the least, the sin of omission. And if you come up with negatives, don’t tax your conscience with the need to fly because it is the path of least resistance.
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donanobis
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Morally speaking consider this:
[RAGE (http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=231653)
Scientists challenge TSA on scanner radiation
Warn of ‘potential health consequences’ to elderly, pregnant women, children
Posted: November 22, 2010 11:09 pm Eastern By Drew Zahn © 2010 WorldNetDaily
"… …
"The professors are calling on the administration to specifically reexamine potential risks to the following groups:
- Older travelers, those greater than 65 years of age, who may be at particular risk from the mutagenic effects of the X-rays;
- A fraction of the female population especially sensitive to mutagenesis-provoking radiation leading to breast cancer, women typically exempted from X-ray mammograms, for example;
- The population of immuno-compromised individuals, such as HIV and cancer Patients;
- Children and adolescents;
- Pregnant women and their unborn children;
- And men in general, because of the proximity of the testicles to skin, which is most highly effected by the backscatter rays. "
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tjm190
Guest
I’ll assume the ‘actual’ amount of radiation is somewhere in between those two estimates- so I treat the professor’s numbers as an upper bound.
“The TSA says the radiation from its security scans amounts to about a thousandth of the amount a patient receives from a standard chest X-ray, or an amount “equivalent to two minutes of flying on an airplane.””
“But a physics professor at Arizona State University in Tempe not only conducted his own study, finding the radiation exposure 10 times what the TSA estimates, but also argues that the health risks aren’t mathematically worth taking.”
So… 10 times 2 minutes of flying=20 minutes of flying and 10*1/1000=1/100=1% of radiation received from an xray. The horror… The horror!
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karbear
Guest
But the radiation is not dissipated through the body,but concentrated on the skin. The total surface area of the skin is probably much less than 1% the area of the entire body, but just assuming it is 1%…1%/.01 = 100%. Also, it is not a fair comparison when the amount total radiation over an extended time is compared to the amount given in a short second.
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DanteAlighieri
Guest
Sorry, friend. This is not a valid counterargument. Since we are bound by our faith to assume the best of people unless we have a concrete reason to think otherwise, we must accept the claim that the scanners do not reveal more than the images we’ve seen. It’s perfectly acceptable to be skeptical given our experiences, but we have no reason to doubt the claims that faces and genitals are obscured.
Furthermore, as is pointed out in the blog I cited, it is often necessary to appear naked before our doctors. This is not a sexual nakedness, but one that at times is necessary to the maintenance of our health. The scanners produce a virtual nakedness that is similarly done for a grave reason; even assuming that the images are full revelations of our nakedness, it is not a prurient or gratuitous nakedness that would be sinful in and of itself.
Peace,
Dante
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royal_archer
Guest
Stripping down for a doctor is only as needed for medical reasons. It would be wrong for a doctor to ask all patients to strip regardless of the symptom. It would also be wrong to have a patient strip down when there is a less intrusive yet practical method of performing an equivalent exam.
How often do people get onto flights for Grave Reasons? Normally it is for vacation or for profit.
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Debora123
Guest
Very untrue. Many check ups require you to strip down or be subject to “groping” regadless of the symptoms. Gyno’s are good examples. Women over 18 are supposed to go once a year, regardless of symptoms. In high school, the male athletes had to be checked for testicular hernias, regardless of whether or not they had symptoms. It’s a precaution, just like airport security. It is not wrong for a doctor to check these things, neither does the Church say it is.
People don’t just get into flights for “vacations.” I, for one, have family members who live all over South America, and all over the US. I will be flying next month to spend the holidays with my parents and siblings. My father, for example, has to get on a plane and fly to some part of the world for business purposes once every month. Not everyone who flies is just going to the Bahamas for a nice little vacation. We have families, jobs, lives, and loved ones. And even if it WAS “just a vacation,” there is nothing sinful about going through routine security that has the intention of keeping its passengers safe.
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onenow1
Guest
Has it been considered, that the skin is the largest organ of the body, and the possible consequences ?
Peace
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royal_archer
Guest
In the case where the only practical option is to do the examination with the patient exposed, and the exam is needed to treat, prevent or detect a problem, there is no problem with the exam. The problem comes when the exam is not needed or if there is a more modest way to achieve the same end.
Take away all of the distractors, the cost of going on an aircraft is that you either have to be scanned by millimeter waves and “exposed” or you have to submitt to having another person touching you (or your family) in intimate places. Now imagine sitting around the kitchen table. telling your family the plans for summer vacation and then telling them that the drawback is that they have to let a stranger touch them in a place that strangers should not be touching them. Can you imaging telling your spouse that you got a new job and a raise but one of the conditions is that you have to let a stranger touch you in intimate areas a couple of times a week.
Several individuals here have stated that the touching and viewing is justified because of the motive. And for the TSA, (if you assume these are effective) has motive that may be proportionate to the negatives of these searches.
I just do not believe that ALL cases of air travel provide bennefits proportional to the negatives.
I hope that you will at least agree that the exposures and touching are in themselves negative and would disagree with these activities if they were not related to a terrorist threat.
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