After his well-known dissent on the death penalty, Justice Scalia now has now become a full-fledged torture supporter. In a recent BBC interview, he argued that interrogators could inflict pain to extract information about an imminent terrorist attack. He says the following:
“It seems to me you have to say, as unlikely as that is, it would be absurd to say you couldn’t, I don’t know, stick something under the fingernail, smack him in the face. It would be absurd to say you couldn’t do that… close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?…Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited by the Constitution? Is it obvious, that what can’t be done for punishment can’t be done to exact information that is crucial to the society? I think it’s not at all an easy question, to tell you the truth.”
True to form, Scalia attacked European who opposed torture in all circumstances as “smug”, linking it to their “self-righteous” opposition to the death penalty. If nothing else, he is quite right to link these subjects, core areas of the gospel of life for any Catholic. Scalia is engaging in simple consequentialism, turning something as non-negotiable as torture into something negotiable, at least in the presence of a “ticking bomb scenario”. The fact that the Church unambiguously condemns torture, and that it is listed as an intrinsically evil act– never justified by intent or circumstance– by the USCCB in the context of the upcoming US election, is simply not relevant to him. And Scalia’s opinions on torture are not just his personal ramblings, they affect his judicial decisions. He was a key dissenter in the Hamden v. Rumsfeld case, which determined that the Geneva Conventions (especially Common Article 3 which states that detainees shall not suffer torture or outrages upon personal dignity) applied to Al Qaeda suspects.
Scalia is the ultimate Protestantized Catholic, appealing to his “right” to interpret the Word of God in his own personal way. Of course, the way his Protestantized Catholicism shines forth is in his sola scriptura constitutionalism, the notion that only the original text matters. He forgets about the natural law, about those rights antecedent and superior to all positive law.
And yet while Catholic politicians who dissent on another intrinsically evil act (and we know what that is!) are hounded by the usual suspects, with demand that they be cast from the communion rails, the Cafeteria Justice openly vaunts his Catholicism and parades unmolested each year into the front pews of St. Matthew’s Cathedral for the annual Red Mass. Double standards? But of course…
Not at all. Abortion …unlike torture and the death penalty….was condemned INFALLIBLY within the ordinary magisterium by John Paul II using a new method of polling the bishops worldwide and thus circumventing the ex cathedra route, getting the results of that poll and inserting it in an encyclical in Evangelium Vitae…watch the wording….you’ll not see it done on torture or the death penalty which are denounced in non infallible venues…with good reason…such denouncing is on shaky ground..but on abortion here is EV:
“Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops-who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine-I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium. ”
That is the only infallible statement on all three topics (abortion, death penalty and torture) and an ecclesiatical court canon lawyer may disagree with me even there in that John Paul made no allusion to its being “divinely proposed” as the IC did and the Assumption did.
New readers would do well to consult the link below on torture and the Catholic Church which has been posted here before by myself and by Donald…for those who need a good synopsis of all that text, go to the one paragraph prior to the conclusion and skip the bulk of it:
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html
Thanks Bill.
You’ve got it covered.
Nothing to worry about I guess.
Now I can feel free to jam, in good conscience, some screwdrivers under the fingernails of some people I know who support abortion.
That will be sure to convince them to accept the authority of the magisterium.
G Alkon
No…but if you have child…a daughter…. who is kidnapped and left for dead by a criminal who taunts the police that your child is dying but he won’t tell them where as actually happened several years ago……then I would hope that you have a police force that does to him what many Popes would have done….apply pain not permanent damage. Or would you want your child to die so that you could honor the non infallible Splendor of the Truth which cited a pastoral decree…not a dogmatic decree from Vatican II. Good luck with that. The saints in heaven will be groaning….”is he freaked”.
Proverbs 26:3
The whip for the horse, the bridle for the ass, and the rod for the back of fools.
Sirach 42: 1
But of these things be not ashamed, lest you sin through human respect:
2
Of the law of the Most High and his precepts, or of the sentence to be passed upon the sinful;
…… Of constant training of children, or of beating the sides of a disloyal servant;
Bill
I guess priests can follow your dismissal of the Church’s praxis and say, “No infallible declarations have been made which says I can’t get married.” They will even be able to point to married priests to prove that point.
MM — I share your frustration with Justice Scalia’s remarks (though, as I explained a few days ago on my “other blog”, I think the remarks do contain several points that *are* sound and worth making). That said, I think, with all due respect, that you misunderstand the Hamdan case. There is no reason to think that Justice Scalia’s (somewhat cavalier) remarks about the ticking-time-bomb scenario have anything do do with his entirely reasonable arguments, in his Hamdan dissent, that Congress’s Detainee Treatment Act had deprived the Court of jurisdiction to hear Hamdan’s challenge. To think that one’s Court lacks jurisdiction to answer a question about which many Catholics do (and should) care is not to be a “cafeteria” Catholic. Nor does it make one a “cafeteria” Catholic to conclude, as Scalia and the dissenters did, that Common Article III did not apply to the cases of people in Hamdan’s situation. This is not a question of morality (though, obviously, the Geneva Conventions codify moral norms); it is a question of the reach and meaning of positive law.
Bill,
How do you respond to the fact that the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church clearly states:
“In carrying out investigations, the regulation against the use of torture, even in the case of serious crimes, must be strictly observed: “Christ’s disciple refuses every recourse to such methods, which nothing could justify and in which the dignity of man is as much debased in his torturer as in the torturer’s victim”. International juridical instruments concerning human rights correctly indicate a prohibition against torture as a principle which cannot be contravened under any circumstances.”
John Paul II’s personalist vision, when understood in its fullness, undermines your selective (cafeteria) presentation of his words in Evangelium Vitae. Our late pontiff’s emphasis lay on the dignity of the human person, which must be affirmed before all else, even though we sin. The fact that we are created in the image and likeness of God must be the ground upon which we address the evils of abortion, torture and the death penalty. If we neglect this basis we will inevitably become the dehumanized Jack Bauer’s of the world, failing to recognize the beauty of human existence.
Henry
The comparison fails. No marriage for priests is not a doctrine at all but a regula disciplinae (like Sunday Mass attendance) which may one day be allowed because Peter was married as apparently were several others of the apostles. So doctrine is not involved in the married priests question…that is why Catholic priests of the Eastern rite can marry.
Bill
You don’t understand ecclesial authority, especially of ecumenical councils. Whether or not it is doctrine or praxis, the authority and required obedience is there… you can say “things have changed and might change in the future.” That has nothing to do with the current situation and obedience. To say “it can change, therefore I will be disobedient now” IS cafeteria-style reasoning.
Rick
The problem I have here is Scalia plays it both ways. On issues where he says it is the law of the land such as torture or the death penalty, he uses that argument to suggest there is nothing judges can do. That they shouldn’t go against the established law. That if a judge (Catholic) thinks the death penalty has no justification, they should not be on the bench. But when you take it to abortion, he goes against this. Abortion is the law of the land. His rhetoric is the complete opposite here – he wants pro-life judges in to change things.
Christopher
The linked essay by Fr. Brian Harrison deals with the catechism. Catechisms by the way are infallible only when they cite that which is infallible from another venue.
Scripture…being inerrant….trumps any non infallible statement by a catechism. Scripture as to the proverbial books is rarely interpreted by the Church in the infallible venues….I actually can’t think of one instance.
The catechism mentions wifely obedience not at all and the New Testament explicitly mentions it 6 times. The death penalty is given to the Gentiles in Genesis 9:5-6 and Christ actually referred to the passage when before Pilate….”you would have no power over me at all were it not given you from above.”
The difference, of course, is that the Constitution clearly permits the imposition of the death penalty, and says nothing about the issue of abortion.
Henry,
Where did Scalia say that about abortion? That “he wants pro-life judges in to change things”? To “change things” to what? To create a constitutional right to life for the unborn? Or to reverse a decision that was wrong to begin with and return things to the status quo ante?
I’m interested in reading where Scalia made these comments you ascribe to him regarding abortion, because they fly in the face of anything I’ve ever read from Scalia on the subject in the past.
That said, I don’t think Scalia should be commenting on matters such as this that may come before the Court in the very near future. Nor should he have been so cavalier in his reference to “so-called torture”.
Henry
Canon law supported the enslavement of those born to slave mothers for centuries up til the 20th century from Aquinas’ time who is the one who gives the actual decretal cites involved if you go to his supplement to the ST and then go to marriage and then to the marriage of slaves. Disobeying that praxis….would have been a good thing….not a bad thing. God is not going to accept….”I was just obeying”…in all instances of our lives.
The Old Testament is not “infallible.”
That is why there is a new one.
Its “inerrancy” is only comprehensible if it is seen as an “inerrant” moment in the history of God and man, which culminates in the revelation in Christ.
Recognizing that not every “law” in the OT is binding is part of the definition of being a Christian.
This is what the letters of Paul are, of course, about.
It will not do to say the OT is “wrong.” But at the same time it will (of course) not do to follow the OT as a binding legal code, when the law itself has reached its end and culmination in Christ.
There are any number of commandments given in the OT that have in fact been abrogated by the common practice of all Christians, starting with Paul.
That Christians in the U.S. claim otherwise is a sign of its extreme Protestantization, to the point that Christ himself is being forgotten.
Jay
First, let’s remember this: http://www.baptiststandard.com/2002/2_11/pages/scalia.html Now is he saying Catholics following the Church’s teaching should not be on the bench? Obviously he is himself pro-life, despite it being contrary to the law of the land. He still is on it. Why is he if he follows this principle?
http://www.slate.com/id/2134452/
And I can’t find his speeches, but I remember some of the ones I’ve read to pro-life organizations about abortion.
Bill,
Your argument suffers from several deficiencies, the first and foremost of which is your explicit Protestant approach to Sacred Scripture. Scripture does not “trump” Tradition, it coexists with it and forms one well spring of Truth. Secondly, what do you mean in stating “Scripture as to the proverbial books is rarely interpreted by the Church in the infallible venues….I actually can’t think of one instance”? Where is the connection to your argument about torture?
In addition to these problems I would like to inquire what connection exists between “wifely obedience” and the death penalty, along with your inclusion of Jesus Christ’s words to Pilate. Is a wife (or victim of torture) to submit in obedience to an unjust superior?
The speech Justice Scalia gave on the death penalty a while back is here:
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2022+
Here is the section dealing with the difference (in Scalia’s view) between ruling on death penalty cases when one is opposed to the death penalty, and ruling on abortion cases when one is opposed to abortion:
“Capital cases are much different from the other life-and-death issues that my Court sometimes faces: abortion, for example, or legalized suicide. There it is not the state (of which I am in a sense the last instrument) that is decreeing death, but rather private individuals whom the state has decided not to restrain. One may argue (as many do) that the society has a moral obligation to restrain. That moral obligation may weigh heavily upon the voter, and upon the legislator who enacts the laws; but a judge, I think, bears no moral guilt for the laws society has failed to enact. Thus, my difficulty with Roe v. Wade is a legal rather than a moral one: I do not believe (and, for two hundred years, no one believed) that the Constitution contains a right to abortion. And if a state were to permit abortion on demand, I would-and could in good conscience-vote against an attempt to invalidate that law for the same reason that I vote against the invalidation of laws that forbid abortion on demand: because the Constitution gives the federal government (and hence me) no power over the matter.
“With the death penalty, on the other hand, I am part of the criminal-law machinery that imposes death-which extends from the indictment, to the jury conviction, to rejection of the last appeal. I am aware of the ethical principle that one can give “material cooperation” to the immoral act of another when the evil that would attend failure to cooperate is even greater (for example, helping a burglar tie up a householder where the alternative is that the burglar would kill the householder). I doubt whether that doctrine is even applicable to the trial judges and jurors who must themselves determine that the death sentence will be imposed. It seems to me these individuals are not merely engaged in “material cooperation” with someone else’s action, but are themselves decreeing death on behalf of the state.
“The same is true of appellate judges in those states where they are charged with “reweighing” the mitigating and aggravating factors and determining de novo whether the death penalty should be imposed: they are themselves decreeing death. Where (as is the case in the federal system) the appellate judge merely determines that the sentence pronounced by the trial court is in accordance with law, perhaps the principle of material cooperation could be applied. But as I have said, that principle demands that the good deriving from the cooperation exceed the evil which is assisted. I find it hard to see how any appellate judge could find this condition to be met, unless he believes retaining his seat on the bench (rather than resigning) is somehow essential to preservation of the society-which is of course absurd. (As Charles de Gaulle is reputed to have remarked when his aides told him he could not resign as President of France because he was the indispensable man: “Mon ami, the cemeteries are full of indispensable men.”)”
alexham.
The difference, of course, is that the Constitution clearly permits the imposition of the death penalty, and says nothing about the issue of abortion.
Only if you interpret “person” to be something other than all human beings, as any reasonable interpretation must.
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church – “In carrying out investigations, the regulation against the use of torture, even in the case of serious crimes, must be strictly observed: “Christ’s disciple refuses every recourse to such methods, which nothing could justify and in which the dignity of man is as much debased in his torturer as in the torturer’s victim”. International juridical instruments concerning human rights correctly indicate a prohibition against torture as a principle which cannot be contravened under any circumstances.”
Several questions, what is the authority of the Compendium, what is the basis for the above statement, is it new? What constitutes torture? Does intelligence gathering to prevent an ongoing crime equate to investigating a crime? I’m not sure, that bears consideration as well.
Many questions.
God Bless,
Matt
ps. Morning Minion – you might consider the post about disingenuous rhetoric instead of referring to Justice Scalia as a protestantized or cafeteria Catholic.
pps. none of the posted sources suggest torture is intrinsicly evil, if there is such a reference I would like to see it.
Matt-
I am open to that argument, but there is a fiarly strong textualist rejoinder when one reads Section 1 of the 14th Amendment in context:
Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Matt: if you understood what “intrinsically evil” meant, you would not ask that question for it is already answered in the above quote from the Compnedium: “a principle which cannot be contravened under any circumstance”– that circumstance would include the Scalia scenario. As for other references to torture being intrsinsically evil, see Veritatis Splendour (80), and the new USCCB Faithful Citizenship document (23).
Morning Minion,
What a disingenuous posting on Scalia and your rhetorical attacks on his faith.
This guy has a son who’s a priest and you label him as a Cafeteria Catholic?
Not very nice is it.
Matt
Veritatis Splendor does call torture “intrinsically evil” as MM says it does….and Veritatis Splendor is incorrect and non infallible. The Church herself allows the right to dissent from the non infallible not lightly but with study in those moral theology tomes that She herself approves with Imprimaturs such as Grisez’ “Way of the Lord Jesus” 1997…which is used in seminaries.
Such books are so expensive that few Catholics buy them. If you are in a Catholic college library someday, just go to their moral theology section.
In Veritatis Splendor….John Paul incorrectly through lack of nuance lists these as intrinsically evil:
” 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:”
Eternal damnation for an 8 year old missing Mass would be coercion of the spirit to most human beings.
The Church used light physical torture for centuries herself and outside herself used excommunication for those secular rulers who did not burn heretics at the stake subsequent to 1252 under about 4 different popes at least. The church’s canon law allowed just titled slavery due to being born to a slave mother….Aquinas Supplement to the Summa T….on Marriage of a slave. That is why you will see apologetics sites list the papal bulls on slavery but they will omit a simultaneous history of just titled slavery derived from Roman law that coexisted with the papal bulls against slavery of the capturing type…. but in our canons and thus slavery was practiced even by the clergy up through the 19th century which can be found detailed either in the periodical of the Catholic Historical Society…or in books like John Noonan’s “The Church That Can and Cannot Change”….in which he details how Popes had slaves and the third Lateran Council gave slavery as the reward to anyone who would capture pirates…..which means that John Paul has the Church itself doing the intrinsically evil for centuries despite God allowing the Jews to have slaves in the OT???
Bill Bannon,
You in the library?
The Constitution of the United States is not a device for incorporating modern Catholic ethics into the superstructure of American democracy. What limits the Constitution puts on waterboarding foreigners overseas, or whatever, is not at all clear to me.
Tito: since Catholics do not believe the sins of the father are borne by the son, your point is irrelevant. My use of the term “Cafeteria Catholic” is both acurrate and precise in that it refers to a person who self-identifies as a practicing Catholic and yet dissents on at least two core areas. You, on the other hand, are one of those people who throw around the term “liberal” all the time, without the slightest hint that you really understand that term at all.
MM,
Please tell me in your best Chomskyspeak what the term “liberal” means?
I really want to know because I need another good laugh today.
Christopher
I said that Scripture trumps non infallible statments and you reported that as my saying that Scripture trumps Tradition. Yves Congar, one of the best 20th century theologians distinguished between Tradition with a capital T (as you gave) and tradition with a small t….as I meant. Scripture trumps papal tradition with a small t (non infallible encyclicals)….papal Tradition with a capital T is the infallible which is equal to Scripture in authority but includes few encyclicals. I gave OT passages regarding “beatings”…..such passages trump the non infallible encyclical writings like VS and its faulty non nuanced list of intrinsically evil acts.
Here from the New Catholic Encyclopedia is a section on the datedness of some non infallible encyclicals…on infalliblity:
“the contents of an encyclical are presumed to belong to the ordinary magisterium unless the opposite is clearly manifested. Moreover since they belong to the ordinary papal magisterium,they are capable of change. Such possiblity of change was mentioned by Paul VI in his June 23,1964 address to a group of cardinals, when it was observed that it was not evident that certain teachings pertaining to the ordinary magisterium of Pius XII were ” out of date and therefore not binding” and that these teachings were consequently still valid until he felt obliged to change them”.
G Alkon
You can actually read Aquinas for free at New Advent wherein in the Summa Theologica, he will explain what in the OT is dated and what is not….go to the section on the duration of the “law”. That the OT was defective was a position of several heretical groups in the early Church centuries including Marcion and separately the Manichaeans.
It’s (Aquinas’ ST) free while buying the ST outside in a store goes into the hundreds. And you avoided my example of your having daugther who is dying and a criminal knows where she is but is brazenly teasing the police about her impending death.
“Liberalism” is an Enlightenment-era anthropology predicated on the notion of individual liberty as the foundation of society. Society is reduced to a mere social contract between individuals and private liberty always supplants the common good. The common good steps away from obeying God’s law toward satisfying self-interest. Now, this is not all bad. It led us to refine our notions of personhood and inherent human dignity. But it can also lead to ideas like unfettered free markets, abortion, and marriage as the fulfilment of individual wants and desires rather than the bearing and rearing of children. Like it or not, the US is a child of the Enlighenment, and the pathetic “culture war” language that you seem so keen on bringing into Catholic discourse is merely a fight between siblings. As Catholics, we need to step back and realize that.
Are you still laughing?
One more thing, Tito: you criticize my use of “Cafeteria Catholic” for Scalia, but I notice from your blog that you use that very term for Vox Nova. I hear something about pots and kettles…
MM,
We are all entitled to our opinions.
To call Vox Nova a Cafeteria Catholic Paradise is my opinion. I just back it up with facts by pointing to Vox Nova (some not all bloggers) and the Chomskyspeak that occurrs on a daily basis here.
Now that is evidence enough.
Bill Bannon: You the man!! You need to educate Pope Mark (P. Shea) and Richard Cardinal Comerford over at Cath and Enjoying. They’ve both ex-communicated and anathemized me. Banned again! I deserved it. “Forgive all injuries.”
Here’s my insane two-cents.
He’s a lot smarter than I am and his son is a priest. I agree with Associate Justice Scalia. However, I will follow the pope’s orders and not torture anyone. Now, all of you must promise not to vote for O’Bama, because he’s 100% for born and unborn baby murder.
More of my wild-eyed speculations and opinions (like rectums, everyone has at least one). The last pope not only kissed a Q’ran (If he knew what was in it he wouldn’t have). He also decided a bunch of stuff (death penalty, any war, undefined minimum wage, undefined working conditions, undefined living conditions, undefined torture, etc. – Veritatis Splendor) that were not sins are now sins. This despite the fact that his predecessors not only countenanced but actually ordered (Inquisition, Papal state wars, etc. for about 600 years) such acts. What would an alteration of objective truth ‘say’ about objective truth? And, are those popes and Benedictine/Dominican inquisitors roasting in hell? I hope not! And, what does that say about papal infallibility? N.B., no pope has ever said one of his predecessors was wrong – he infallibly can’t.
Further, there are about 50 more horrid and widespread evils that the pope first needs to address.
“Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.” The theologian that wrote the above is Pope Benedict XVI.
Tangentially, persons who turn their backs on their country during war time for such piddling cause as its agents attempting to save thousands of civilians’ lives by pouring water over the faces of three terrorist masterminds for 30 seconds each meet my definition of traitor. That’s all my ignorant opinion. Again, opinions are like rectums, everyone’s got one.
It should be obvious to all. I don’t have a Ph.D. (not even an MA) in anything from any PC University. Go easy on me!
T. Shaw,
:)
Henry? Henry? Where is Henry, he promised Tito that he would defend anyone against “Disingenuous Rhetoric”…. yet, he is not here…. hmmm….. speaking of disingenuous.
God Bless,
Matt
Look at this stugots, talking about Uncle Nino like this ! I say he should be swimmin’ with da fishes! What a jamook !
To call Vox Nova a Cafeteria Catholic Paradise is my opinion. I just back it up with facts by pointing to Vox Nova (some not all bloggers) and the Chomskyspeak that occurrs on a daily basis here.
How does “Chomskyspeak” make a Catholic a “Cafeteria Catholic”? Given that Chomsky is not a Catholic, nor does he pronounce on doctrinal matters, how would any Catholic’s invoking his authority necessitate a picking and choosing of doctrine? What a fundamentally confused and neurotic suggestion.
Policraticus,
I agree he’s not Catholic.
What I meant was comparing how Chomsky likes to twist language to make things what they are not.
Gotta get some zzzzsss, take care gentelment.
Tito
Morning’s Minion, because of this:
“Liberalism” is an Enlightenment-era anthropology predicated on the notion of individual liberty as the foundation of society. Society is reduced to a mere social contract between individuals and private liberty always supplants the common good. The common good steps away from obeying God’s law toward satisfying self-interest. Now, this is not all bad. It led us to refine our notions of personhood and inherent human dignity. But it can also lead to ideas like unfettered free markets, abortion, and marriage as the fulfilment of individual wants and desires rather than the bearing and rearing of children. Like it or not, the US is a child of the Enlighenment, and the pathetic “culture war” language that you seem so keen on bringing into Catholic discourse is merely a fight between siblings. As Catholics, we need to step back and realize that
…I will now pay much more attention to everything you write here. Whether I agree with you or not, I now feel that you have a much better grip on traditional Catholic theology and how it relates to American culture and politics than almost anybody else writing here.
Isn’t it frivolous to go on about whether the church has “infallibly” “defined” torture as “intrinsically” evil at a time when the USA is brazenly practicing and justifying torture, to the shame of every upright citizen? That torture is evil was recognized by Catherine II of Russia long, long ago. The US is regressing to barbarism at inconceivable speed — a regression prepared by the many decades in which the US promoted torture in Latin America and elsewhere.
Spirit of Vatican II
But there are gradations and extraordinary circumstances. Give us your take on the example that no one touches and which would be allowed under the interpretation of Fr. Brian Harrison even with the extant Church documents as he interprets the elipsis within them: you have a 7 year old daughter kidnapped by a
rapist who tells the police he has raped her and left her half dead in a shack and he taunts them that he will not tell them the whereabouts and that she is bleeding from her stomach area. Would you not want the police to have the power to give him pain in certain nerve centers like the finger tips as the Church did for centuries in ecclesiastical courts….so that he discloses where your daughter is…pain that will do no great lasting damage.
Do not post to me unless you are going to deal with this case.
Spirit of Vatican II
Catherine II by the way at 60 years old seems to have had a woman whipped who stole one of her serial fornicators and married the man whereupon Catherine is said to have had the police whip her in front of the man. You might hunt around for another opponent of torture…fi only on more credible moral grounds.
Bill Bannon:
You are arguing in favor of consequentialism. I know you are at heart a Protestant, but please read Veritatis Splendour on why this is a monstrous evil. It is the clear, unambiguous, and infallible teaching of the Church that one cannot do evil to bring about a greater good.
Except that the scriptures themselves show that some of the actions that John Paul names are not evil intrinsically at all so that consequentialism does not apply….or they would not have ever been allowed including in the Old Testament….let alone for centuries in the Church’s canons. Bestiality actually is intrinsically evil since God has never permitted it for a nanosecond throughout both testaments…likewise with adultery, murder, covertousness, omitting to help the suffering etc.
MM
Here for example is God in John Paul’s logic permitting an intrinsic evil…slavery….by permitting eternal slavery of foreigners to the Jews:
Lev 25:45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that [are] with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
Lev 25:46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit [them for] a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.
Is it not more accurate to say that slavery is a penal or existential evil when economies are primitive and a moral evil when economies are advanced ….so that it’s evil depends on context….rather than it being intrinsically evil which forces you to indict God or the Old Testament as did early heretics in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
So John Paul in VS was being inaccurate on slavery e.g. ….because as a group, we have no system of correcting Popes when they are fallible which the Church admits they can be.
Bill Bannon, your consequentalist logic can justify anything whatever.
For instance, suppose I am told to kill a baby or terrorist will blow up a school.
Or suppose I am caught by terrorists who tell me that unless I perform an act of bestiality they will kill my family (the US seems to have gone in for this kind of demoralizing blackmail in Iraq).
Likewise, appeal to the letter of Scripture can justify anything — not only genocide, but lots of sexual irregularities too — take what God says to Hosea about the women or what Ruth gets up to with Boaz.
Simple….you are not to kill the child nor perform the act of bestiality because both are intrinsically evil and that really would be consequentialism. The dooms God commanded against the tribes of the promised lands….were not about land…..the real reason and the real mercy extended to them prior to the dooms are given in Wisdom 12…and involved child sacrifice to idols and Jewish weakness prior to grace…..which see. Your other references were too sketchily constructed to respond to. If you meant Osee marrying a prostitute, he married her as a sign of God’s love for israel which marriage is not a sin though not recommended to Christians later wherein it says… ” do not bear the yoke with unbelievers”.
Bill,
If in fact torture is not among those practices that are intrinsically evil, would you judge the current U.S. involvement with it to be evil from a prudential standpoint?
Pax Christi,
X-Cathedra
It could be. I would want moral theologians to dispute each other on it as one has seen at Theological Studies periodical where no one author is safe…. and let such a group approach the matter in rigorous detail as to the water boarding. I don’t see Popes doing much rigorous detail because they have so little accountability and are guarded from cross examination unlike world leaders and ceo’s nowadays who do face cross examination and are not protected from the painful growth that that brings. “Because I say so” is over for modern man….unless a Pope accesses the venue for that…the ex cathedra venue where his point does not need the consent of the laity or clergy.
That is one of several reasons that Humanae Vitae met with an avalanche of non assent. To many, a celibate with nothing at stake was writing in a room under no cross examination an encyclical that he did not place in the venue that would require no cross examination…the ex-cathedra venue. Instead, he wrote with no cross examination in the non infallible venue (introduced twice at its press conference as non infallible) where cross examination would be natural in the modern world with its ease of communication. That generation was asked by a previous pope for their imput on that topic and that genreration had an ex cathedra encyclical just 14 years prior to HV in the Assumption encyclical and thus thought on a more critical issue…their lives….they would get that amount of intensity and work which the ex cathedra process requires according to Vatican II. When they found that after two years, the infallible Pope chose less than infallibility…less work….. to deal with their concerns, the non assent was deafening. I’m all for ex cathedra non cross examined papal edicts. Few Popes will do the work. John Paul had all the time in the world to do one on birth control and he did nothing of the sort and Benedict in an interview simply noted that that topic needs reflection. Your post name must have caused this digression into the ex cathedra area.
But outside that area, I would prefer seeing work by moral theologians than cursory paragraphs by the Pope sans nuances that section 80 of VS amounts to. Go to section 40 of EV and you will see part of the problem of VS…John Paul’s view of elements of the OT resembles the ancient complaints of Mani and Marcion that the OT was evil in some ways….thanks but no thanks.
but please read Veritatis Splendour
No, MM, I would recommend Bill to read Dei Verbum so he can understand the nature of divine revelation and start reading Sacred Scriptures with the Church, because all of his arguments show that this is lacking.
Katerina
So the Church is suddenly Pope John Paul II when he overturns centuries of praxis and the Church is suddenly John Paul II who appointed Fr. Raymond Brown to the Pontifical Biblical Commission…a scholar who contended on page 349 of “Birth of the Messiah” that Mary never said the Magnificat but that Luke stuck it in the gospel after getting it really from Palestinian Anawim in order to make the gospel look more like the OT where women also actually (not fictiously) said similar speeches when they received a mission from God…..historical scripture as fictious advertising and manipulation for effect. And I actually like Raymond Brown when his redaction side is applied to the problems in John where he makes perfect sense….even though his earlier work bordered on crap at times from the Jesus Seminar.
I still don’t see where it can be shown that any practices permitted by the US (as opposed to those not permitted, such as the abuses at Abu Ghraib) would be reasonably defined as torture, let alone definitively.
Perhaps someone can use an authoritative document to show this.
I would at first propose that any treatment morally permitted on our own troops in regard to their training, any treatment morally permitted on convicted criminals as a means of punishment at the very least would not be considered torture.
God Bless,
Matt
ps. Katerina ows Bill an apology and a reasoned response which does not attack his catechesis, surely someone on this blog understands that her attacks are personal.