A reader writes:<\/p>\n
Dear God what have we come to?<\/a> Once abortion is cast into the fiery dustbins of history from whence it came, will torture take its place as the next grave evil threatening our livelihood and well-being?<\/p>\n
What do these guys not get about Gaudium et Spes 27, CCC 2297, the bull of Pope Pius SVII, St. Nicholas I\u2019s ninth-century condemnation, the Sacred Tradition handed on by the apostles, etc\u2026?<\/p>\n
I just don\u2019t get how anyone could justify torture, ever. Period. I mean, isn\u2019t it obvious that it\u2019s bad to intentionally inflict pain on another person?<\/p>\n
We learned that in Kinder\u2026wait\u2026we didn\u2019t even have to learn that! That intuition came built-in at birth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
FWIW, if there\u2019s anything the last six years have taught us, there are dozens and dozens of ways to rationalize evil. Most Catholics never give the question of torture a thought, I\u2019ll wager, so their easy assumption that \u201cIt\u2019s probably okay sometimes: you know, to save New York and stuff\u201d is about all the farther the thought ever goes, just as the average Catholic would say they oppose abortion\u2013but still think it should be legal and wouldn\u2019t blame a woman in a tough spot for having one. Our mind do not naturally want to dwell on such matters, so we make quick summary assessments and move on. Here\u2019s a fairly average quick summary judgment from just the other day<\/a>:<\/p>\n
I think I am against [torture] but with this one exception: if I have a choice between saving say, 5 million lives in a nuke-contaminated Chicago or being able to say, \u201cbut at least we didn\u2019t waterboard that guy,\u201d I am inclined to think I would go for torture. The 5 million might still die, it\u2019s true, but at least I won\u2019t have to answer for standing idly by and watching it so that my morals might remain intact. I will take the chance that my moral failing in that instance will simply join my other moral failings in life, and then God and I will work that stuff out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The refreshing thing about this post is that it is blessedly free of the normal mealy-mouthed rubbish about \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d anywhere in this apologia for what the author frankly calls \u201ctorture\u201d. Nor is there the intelligence-insulting pretense that waterboarding is not torture, much less waterboarding 183 times. There is just the straight-up statement that in a tradeoff between torturing some goon and saving five million people, we should go ahead and torture, normative Church teaching about it being intrinsically immoral be damned. And there is the equally refreshing and plain suggestion that only people with preening moralistic pride and no sense of proportion could possibly have a problem with approving such a supposedly clear moral choice.<\/p>\n
I like that. You know where you stand.<\/p>\n
Only here\u2019s the the thing: such rhetoric does not stay still over time. While Catholics have been quibbling over the meaning of torture for the past four years, reluctant to admit that they are, in fact, defending torture, non-Christians like Charles Krauthammer<\/a>, unfettered by the need for squaring torture with the circle of Catholic doctrine, have been frank about their insistence on the moral imperative of torture since 2005:<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take the textbook case. Ethics 101: A terrorist has planted a nuclear bomb in New York City. It will go off in one hour. A million people will die. You capture the terrorist. He knows where it is. He\u2019s not talking.<\/p>\n
Question: If you have the slightest belief that hanging this man by his thumbs will get you the information to save a million people, are you permitted to do it?<\/p>\n
Now, on most issues regarding torture, I confess tentativeness and uncertainty. But on this issue, there can be no uncertainty: Not only is it permissible to hang this miscreant by his thumbs. It is a moral duty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
No beating around the bush here. No definitional mickey mouse games about \u201cWhat O what is torture?\u201d Not even the fine-tuned jesuitical sophistries about whether torture is gravely evil. Just the refreshing and straight forward claim that we must do evil (\u201cterrible things\u201d) that good may come of it. He was, then, where the Catholic torture defenders are finally admitting they are now. And (note carefully) he expressly says that you should torture, not if you are absolutely certain your victim has the info, but if you have \u201cthe slightest belief\u201d he might.<\/p>\n