ps. A response to my post would be very helpful. Do YOU think that waterboarding is as evil as abortion? A yes or no answer is acceptable.

Can you answer? or not? I guess if you don’t your answer is a relativistic YES.

You should at least build a strawman before you tear it down.

Is killing one person better than killing a million? That’s a choice we can never make.

No, but murdering an innocent unborn baby is more evil than making a terrorist think he is drowning.

You cannot kill one person to save the life of a million.

With due regard to the principle of double effect you can… and if it meets the conditions YOU MUST, if it does not meet the conditions, you MUST NOT.

You can never support any intrisincally evil act.

Correct.

You cannot publicly advocate for abortion.

Tell it to Martin Sheen.

You cannot publicly advocate for torture.

I think you’re right here, but doesn’t seem definitive, certainly not as evil as the former.

You cannot claim that an ancient and horrible technique like waterboarding is not torture.

Oh yes I can.

And you cannot simply claim the Church does not deem torture instrinsically evil, when it patently and obviously does so (I’m sure you know all the references).

Post them then, they’ve been posted before and found wanting. I don’t think the Church is ready to declare torture intrinsicly evil, probably not until it clarifies what constitutes torture. The Catechism does not say it is intrinsicly evil, and especially it does not identify waterboarding as torture.

Why are trying to jump through hoops to defend evil?

I’m sorry, but making these arguments puts you in the same category as Catholics for a Free Choice.

I’m sorry but that’s an utter, and slanderous LIE. Demonstrably so. CFFC advocates for the murder of the most innocent. I do not advocate for waterboarding or torture. I advocate for a principled discussion of the Church’s teaching on these matters, and that waterboarding is not torture since the Church does not teach that it is and it is a lie for you to claim it does. Therefore you have committed the grave offense of slander against me personally, but fret not, I forgive you already.

Bill,

I think I agree (cautiously), I wanted to make it clear that the Church’s teaching did not change, but it’s prudential judgement about the legal-governmental situation did, and rightly so. In the same sense the Church has become increasingly critical of things like slavery and other human rights violations in the modern world, but never changing her fundamental doctrine.

God Bless,

Matt

Matt: to defend one instrinsically evil act over another is a heresy known as proportionalism. Start reading Veritatis Splendour!

Perhaps YOU should tone down the accusations of heresy, they do not further the cause of truth and only seek to inflame the situation. Why can’t you have a reasonable discourse? And why do you throw out entire documents instead of making a reasoned point by point argument? Is your intellect so weak that you can’t argue properly?

I did not “defend” one intrinsicly evil act over another, I dare you to repeat the accusation with a supporting quote… but you won’t. Furthermore, you missapply the heresy of proportionalism, it refers to a belief that the greater good can justify an evil act. I respectfully suggest you set aside some of the lofty reading you do, and start in with the Catechism, maybe the compendium would be best. You really need to bone up on the fundamentals before you can understand the more complex and less ‘unpacked’ writings.

God Bless,

Matt
ps. A response to my post would be very helpful. Do YOU think that waterboarding is as evil as abortion? A yes or no answer is acceptable.

Frances Kissling as you have for Lopez– after all, they are in the exact same moral box– claiming to be Catholic and supporting– and publicly lobbying in favor of– an intrinsically evil act.

This is moral relativism. Just as evil to advocate for waterboarding a handful of terrorists, as it is to advocate for the murder of millions of unborn children. That is profoundly evil.

Matt: if you want to refute the pope and the bishops, go ahead.

Are you saying the Pope says that waterboarding is torture? We’ve already shown that neither the catechism nor VII nor any other authoritative documents declare in any sort of definitive way that torture is intrinsicly evil. Even if it is the Church has clearly stated that not all evils are at the same level, abortion and euthanasia being the most serious.

There are many Protestant churches for you. You friend Bill Bannon likes to quote all kinds of passages from the OT and papal documents simply to repudiate Dei Verbum and the whole basis of modern Catholic social teaching– he revealed himself quote clearly when he defended torture on consequentialist grounds. Juts don’t pretend you are not flirting with evil as egregiously as any abortion supporter.

I demonstrate above that your assertion is false. Furthermore, I was not even advocating for or against waterboarding being designated as torture (frankly I don’t see how it could be), or for the use of torture in any circumstance. Just that the Church has not made a definitive statement on either situation. You and your ilk are simply trying to apply your interpretation as magisterial authority, that is just not the case.

Speaking of labelling a magazine by it’s editorial content, I guess by that standard National Catholic Reporter, America and Commonweal are ant-Catholic as well.

Bill B.,

I think you raise some interesting points, I’m not sure we agree completely though. There is many levels of authority, and the Church can bind our conscience and intellect even if a declaration is not infallible. There has to be a careful breakdown of the application of constant teaching to changing situations. That is not relativism but a question of understanding what the definitive teaching is, and what the circumstances are. What I mean to say is that Quanta Cura was not wrong, but it may not completely apply to the current context. Furthermore, a careful reading of QC vs. DH shows that they are not fundamentally opposed. DH ought to be read in contect of QC, it does not create an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly an publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way, but to ensure that religion is not imposed (or violated) by the coercive power of the state. Very importantly, as the Holy Father has recently clarified, DH does not imply that religion is simply a matter of free choice, it is most certainly not, freedom is the right to do what one ought… The Church has alwasy taught that one ought to be a Christian in the fullest sense – Catholic and that it is an abuse of freedom to refuse to do what one ought, carrying has serious and eternal consequences.

God Bless,

Matt

Quanta Cura Pius IX Encyclical promulgated on 8 December 1864.
section 3 2nd paragraph:

“And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that “that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require. From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an “insanity,”2 viz., that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.”

Vatican II said this in DIGNITATIS HUMANAE :

“This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.”

_______________

And I’m sorry, but– in spite of internal dissent– a magazine can be labeled by its editorial policy,

God Bless,

ps. isn’t it a shame that socialist/marxist regimes (democratically elected ones) are threatening to destroy the peace that exists in South America? It’s a clear reproof against their very philosphy.