This is Matt: We here at CMR have been huge fans of Erin Manning who blogs over at And Sometimes Tea. And so we wanted to have Erin write over here once a week for the next month as a guest blogger. I think CMR could use some female perspective – other than Patrick’s. So enjoy Erin’s post. Heeeeeeerrrre’s Erin!!!!!!!
When Matt and Patrick honored me last week with their invitation to write a few blog posts for them this month, I was glad to accept, and grateful for the opportunity. I’m still glad and grateful, but what I have to write about this week is a bit more serious in tone than what I’d anticipated writing about when this guest-posting privilege started.
A couple of years ago, I started noticing all the discussions about the morality of torture that were cropping up in the Catholic blogosphere. As a conservative and someone who voted for GOP candidates more often than not (though I’d had a few forays into the fun of voting for independents), I hadn’t really given much thought to the issue. Sure, torture was immoral; and torture was defined loosely in my mind as “Really really bad stuff that does permanent physical damage to people, but only if it’s being done to innocent people by bad guys.” Since Americans weren’t bad guys, terrorists weren’t innocent, and waterboarding didn’t leave permanent damage (well, not most of the time, anyway; I was unaware then that it could actually kill people, which is pretty permanent by anybody’s definition) I wasn’t too interested in the debate.
Or I thought I wasn’t. But it seemed like “my side” was taking a beating, if you’ll forgive the metaphor. So I started entering in the combox discussions, wondering how we could define torture, doubting that the Church really meant enhanced interrogation when she said that torture was evil, and generally acting as though moral clarity on this issue was a practical impossibility.
The story of how that changed and I came to realize that I was out of line with Church teaching is really the story of how better-informed Catholics (one in particular) didn’t give up trying to show me how wrong I was. Eventually the light dawned, and I realized that I was trying to make the teaching fit various political ideas I had, instead of seeking the truth as a starting point. And I realized, too, how right these guys had been: I really was trying to bend Church teaching to my notions, instead of sincerely trying to understand.
I wrote about those things on my blog, and from time to time would address the issue of torture from my new-found understanding that the Church says torture is evil, that this includes things we try to dismiss euphemistically as “enhanced interrogation,” that there is no “good guys exemption” to allow us to torture prisoners, and that there’s also no “Jack Bauer ticking-time-bomb exemption” which somehow transforms torture into a good and noble act if we can just concoct a wildly unlikely-enough scenario to justify its use. I even, about a year ago, stuck a little picture on my blog sidebar which read “Coalition for Clarity/Because Torture is Intrinsically Evil.” But that was all I did.
Until last week.
It started with a question from a reader. What was the Coalition for Clarity? she asked. Was there an actual group of Catholic bloggers opposed to torture?
Good question–so I wrote a blog post about it. There should be such a group, I said.
And the response was overwhelming. I had emails and comments and post links from Catholics saying, in essence, “Sign me up.” But there wasn’t anywhere to sign them up; the group was still fictional. I had written the blog post sort of hoping some qualified person would realize that such a group was needed and would create one–but it dawned on me that I shouldn’t be asking others to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself.
So I started a blog called Coalition for Clarity. Meanwhile Tom McDonald and Sean Dailey had had the idea to start up a Facebook page with that title, too (to which they graciously added me once I broke down and signed up for a Facebook account). And considering this whole thing has only been going on since Wednesday of last week, the response continues to be amazing.
Now, maybe you’re a bit like I used to be. You haven’t given the issue of torture much thought, or you’ve let partisan beliefs set the tone for what you think of the idea. Maybe you’ve even, as I (to my shame) used to do, thought of the Church’s teaching that torture is evil as one of those nice ivory-tower things–sure, in a perfect world, torture might be evil, but if national security demands it here and now in our fallen world, well then, etc. If that describes how you think about torture, may I respectfully suggest you consider giving it a bit more thought? Perhaps delving into the Catechism’s mention of torture, or reading through some key sections of Veritatis Splendor, or seeking out other sources of Church teaching on the topic? I hadn’t yet done even that much when I used to insist that whatever torture was, the things Americans were doing or asking to do couldn’t possibly be included.
Or maybe you’re the opposite–you’re someone who has been teaching and writing against torture since before many Americans even realized that it was being done. Maybe you’re wondering why an upstart with no moral theology training or background is even involved in this effort (and nobody wonders that more than I do, believe me). If that’s you, won’t you consider becoming a contributor to the Coalition for Clarity blog?
I think we have a unique opportunity as Catholics to stand up now, before we reach a situation where one political party is enthusiastically pro-torture and the other is “Personally opposed, but…” on the issue, and be clear about the fact that the Church teaches that torture is evil. But we can’t do that unless our fellow Catholics know what the Church teaches. Right now, according to this Pew Forum survey, 51% of Catholics surveyed believed that torture was “often justified” or “sometimes justified” if it was being used to get information from suspected terrorists–and the question asked used the word “torture,” not “enhanced interrogation” or any other euphemism. A response like that shows that when it comes to torture, many of us Catholics could use a little moral clarity.
January 30, 2010 at 7:31 pm
As for people who rely on the argument that torture impinges on the dignity or the "bodily integrity" of the person in question, and also potentially causes damage to the torturer himself: so it does. The same argument could be applied to battlefield killing (ever hear of PTSD, for example?), and could be used to outlaw all warfare, but historically, the Catholic Church has not done that. Christianity is not a pacifist religion (though a lot of people seem to forget that).
To say that it is acceptable to kill an enemy soldier–or terrorist–in order to prevent an attack on one's homeland, but not acceptable to pour some water up his nose in order to prevent that same attack, is to reduce oneself to incoherence and ridiculousness, and to reveal that one understands little or nothing of the nature of reality, or of one's duty to one's fellow Man.
My work is calling me ever more persistently, so I'm going to have to stop. But let me end with a few quotations from St. Ambrose' _De officiis_, a marvellous work of clear common sense, written by a man who had experience as a Roman provincial governor before being made archbishop of Milan, and a work which has suffered from unjustified neglect (perhaps because it is not friendly to many of the politically correct sensitivities of the present age). There are two translations available, one in Schaff's Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, v. 10, the other a more recent translation by Ivor Davidson for Oxford. In it, Ambrose spends a good bit of time discussing moral virtues, including Courage, Prudence, and Fortitude.
I:xxvii:128: "It is ingrained in all living creatures, first of all, to preserve their own safety, to guard against what is harmful, to strive for what is advantageous." This, Ambrose says, is a mark of the virtue of Prudence, and he links Prudence and Courage together in I:xxvii:129: "For courage, which in war preserves one's country from the barbarians, or at home defends the weak, or comrades from robbers, is full of justice…."
I:xxxvi:179: "The glory of fortitude, therefore, does not rest only on the strength of one's body or of one's arms, but rather on the courage of the mind. Nor is the law of courage exercised in causing, but in driving away all harm. HE WHO DOES NOT KEEP HARM OFF HIS FRIEND, IF HE CAN, IS AS MUCH IN FAULT AS HE WHO CAUSES IS [emphasis mine]. Wherefore holy Moses gave this as first proof of his fortitude in war. For when he saw an Hebrew receiving hard treatment at the hands of an Egyptian, he defended him, and laid low the Egyptian and hid him in the sand."
Let me sign off by repeating:
HE WHO DOES NOT KEEP HARM OFF HIS FRIEND, IF HE CAN, IS AS MUCH IN FAULT AS HE WHO CAUSES IT.
This applies very much to torturing the person who intends the harm, distasteful though the idea may be (and to me, it certainly is distasteful).
It's been an interesting discussion. Best wishes to all.
January 30, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Tom,
"Can you quote a style guide that makes your distinction between 'restrictive' and 'non-restrictive and essential'?
"One key proviso: though you can use which instead of that in restrictive clauses, you can’t do so the other way round: non-restrictive clauses ought always to start with which. Also, you can’t change the punctuation rules; it is particularly important to watch this point if you decide to use which in a restrictive clause, as otherwise your poor reader has no clue at all how you intend the sentence to be read. Here is a rather artificial example to make the point:
The cup which he stepped on is in the bin.
The cup, which he stepped on, is in the bin.
In the first, you’re being told about a specific cup with the special property that it is the one he stepped on; in the second, the fact that he stepped on it is an ancillary bit of information. My view is that punctuation is more important than choice of pronoun in such situations." – from the same citation you gave above.
"[W]hen have I ever attempted to prove waterboarding is wrong using only a single sentence from the CCC?"
You jumped into my criticism of Red Cardigan's use of CCC 2297. I pointed out that it does not apply in this case. I'm not sure why you attempted to enter the argument. As I've said before, I'm also open to other authoritative statements.
January 30, 2010 at 7:49 pm
A la Tom's comment, here is Fr. Harrison's concluding paragraph:
"Thirdly, there remains the question – nowadays a very practical and much-discussed one – of torture inflicted not for any of the above purposes, but for extracting life-saving information from, say, a captured terrorist known to be participating in an attack that may take thousands of lives (the now-famous ‘ticking bomb’ scenario). As we have noted above, this possible use of torture is not mentioned in the Catechism. If, as I have argued, the infliction of severe pain is not intrinsically evil, its use in that type of scenario would not seem to be excluded by the arguments and authorities we have considered so far. (John Paul II’s statement about the "intrinsic evil" of a list of ugly things including torture in VS #80 does not seem to me decisive, even at the level of authentic, non-infallible, magisterium, for the reasons I have already given in commenting above on that text.) My understanding would be that, given the present status questionis, the moral legitimacy of torture under the aforesaid desperate circumstances, while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, remains open at present to legitimate discussion by Catholic theologians."
His conclusion is that no definitive conclusion has been reached about certain circumstances and certain levels of inflicting physical pain. I would think twice before I accused Fr. Harrison of promoting viewpoints contrary to the teachings of the Church.
January 30, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Paul:
I don't think you are correctly invoking the Vincentian Canon. Neither "torture is always evil" nor "torture is not always evil" has been believed everywhere, always and by all. This does raise significant historical and theological questions, but they are distinct from the question of whether the Church teaches that torture is always evil.
Also, your use of St. Ambrose begs the question. You cannot do evil. Whether torture is evil is the question.
WingletDriver:
The passage you quote distinguished "restrictive" and "non-restrictive." It doesn't mention a "non-restrictive and essential" case, does it? As far as I can tell, you use "non-restrictive and essential" in the same way everyone else uses "restrictive." Can you give an example of something that is "non-restrictive and essential" but not "restrictive"?
MissWordsmith:
Fr. Harrison's conclusion is that "the moral legitimacy of torture under the aforesaid desperate circumstances… remains open at present to legitimate discussion by Catholic theologians."
The Catholic Church teaches that torture is always wrong.
January 30, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Since Fr. Harrison is being held up as an authority here, it seems to me that people have a right to know just what sort of authority he represents. He stated, for example, on the occasion of Pope John Paul II's funeral, that Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) was a liberal and a weak reed:
Ratzinger himself is a weak reed to lean upon. His track record shows clear liberal tendencies in some areas, and he has at times seemingly caved under pressure from other liberals. I'm afraid I must agree entirely. (For instance, with all due respect to His Eminence, my own honest opinion is that he is too skeptical when it comes to the historical reliability of Scripture, and not skeptical enough when it comes to the theory of evolution.) But I respond to the objection with Peter's question to Jesus at Capernaum: "To whom shall we go?"
As I mentioned before, if I wanted to provide a bibliography of priests, Catholic theologians, Catholic journals, etc which provide dissenting arguments about homosex, abortion, etc; well, unfortunately, that could very easily be done. That pro-torture Catholics can find one priest who writes dissenting opinions about torture — probably at least in part because of his anti-presentist agenda — is hardly surprising.
The extent to which Republican-first-Catholic-second torture apologists have attached themselves to Fr. "Ratzinger is a weak reed" Harrison as an authority figure is itself rather telling, it seems to me.
January 30, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Tom,
Your citation refers to it as "an ancillary bit of information." You're being obtuse.
Also from your citation: "[T]he writer is giving additional information about a house he’s describing; the clause which is painted pink is here parenthetical — the writer is saying “by the way, the house is painted pink” as an additional bit of information that’s NOT ESSENTIAL to the meaning and could be taken out." If you're going to cite something, please read it first.
"Can you give an example of something that is "non-restrictive and essential" but not "restrictive"?" Truly, you're being obtuse. Anything that is non-restrictive is, by definition, not restrictive.
January 31, 2010 at 3:33 am
If you're going to cite something, please read it first.
Excellent advice.
Above you wrote, "By writing 'Torture which' (without the comma) they are indicating that the information following 'which' is … non-restrictive…."
My citation says "you can use which instead of that in restrictive clauses," and that "you will be justly criticised if you leave out the commas" in a non-restrictive clause.
So I ask again: Can you quote a style guide that agrees that using a "which" without the comma is non-restrictive?
January 31, 2010 at 4:20 am
Tom,
The comma is used to indicate whether the information is essential or ancillary, not restrictive. Please read your reference again. Please, please take that excellent advice I gave you.
"My citation says "you can use which instead of that in restrictive clauses. . . ." You're running into a bigger problem if you think that 2297 is using a restrictive clause. If it is restrictive, then it clearly implies that certain tortures may be used in some situations. This would undercut your entire argument and put the USCC for Adults in direct opposition to the CCC.
Because you seem intent on parsing grammar, I assume you agree that there is nothing authoritative from the Church banning harsh interrogation methods.
January 31, 2010 at 4:31 am
Because you seem intent on parsing grammar…
That is rich. A license to commit water torture on prisoners is inferred by careful (perhaps "tendentious" might be a better descriptor) logic chopping of a particular snippet from the Catechism, ignoring all the other things the Church is constantly teaching on the subject, and when Tom points out that the logic chopping doesn't even work, he gets tarred with being "intent on parsing grammar".
I suggest considering who is in danger of burning in Hell for eternity if the focus on grammar doesn't work out precisely as that interlocutor suggests. That might be a hint about whose argument depends on the intent focus on very specific grammar and application of the Catechism as if it were (unlike any other Magisterial document, well, ever) written as a specification of what torture is and is not in a formal language.
January 31, 2010 at 4:35 am
Zippy,
Yawn. Did you anything intelligent to say or are you still making up stuff that you think should be in the Catechism?
January 31, 2010 at 4:42 am
Should have been "Did you say anything intelligent . . . ."
Please, Zippy provide any reference that says that gathering intelligence via coercive means is intrinsically evil. Look at the clear wording of CCC 2297.
January 31, 2010 at 4:42 am
Did you anything intelligent to say…
The thing I had to say in my last comment (whether it was intelligent or not is left as an exercise to the reader), to spell it out, is that it is ridiculous of you to accuse Tom of being "intent on parsing grammar" when it is your arguments, not his, which depend on tendentious parsing of the specific grammar of a specific sentence in the Catechism, not to mention ignoring the entire context of what the Church teaches on the subject in the rest of the Catechism and elsewhere.
January 31, 2010 at 4:51 am
… provide any reference that says that gathering intelligence via coercive means is intrinsically evil.
Why would I provide a reference for a premise I don't hold?
The syllogism is straightforward. Torture is always immoral. Waterboarding a prisoner is always torture. End of discussion.
I could have a similar discussion about abortion. Abortion is always immoral. Suctioning a living child out of her mother's womb is always abortion. End of discussion.
Now, on the latter discussion, pro-aborts will inevitably raise the issue of ectopic pregnancies, salpingostomy, salpingectomy, etc. They will endlessly attempt to destroy and deny that the category "abortion" is clear. But at the end of the day, they are full of it: it isn't really about difficult or obscure cases, it is about obscuring all cases.
Same thing here. Water torture has been considered torture by humanity for thousands of years. It is only since 2001 that many Catholics on the right have become suddenly so baffled by the supposed difficulty of referring to water torture as torture. But this isn't about difficult or obscure cases, any more than the abortion discussion is about the difficult or obscure cases. It is about trying to reject the demands of the moral law, because for various reasons people want to reject those demands.
January 31, 2010 at 4:51 am
WingletDriver:
The comma is used to indicate whether the information is essential or ancillary, not restrictive
Hmm… I had thought that 'essential' and 'restrictive' pretty much covered the same thing. If the conditions named are only essential but not restrictive, then surely they may be allowed to imply others (such as the extraction of intelligence) that are not mentioned?
jj
January 31, 2010 at 7:30 am
Another point worth making is that torture isn't a conservative thing, either. I am thinking of Burke's clear stance that a society is measured on the basis of how it treats its most despised.
January 31, 2010 at 1:34 pm
John Thayer Jensen,
Essential and restrictive may be synonymous when you consider that a restrictive clause is essential in understanding how the noun is modified. But if you consider the "which" to lead a non-restrictive clause, you run into the problem that the CCC clearly implies that certain tortures may be used. Is this your argument?
A sentence can be understood with or without a non-restricitve clause. But it can contain be essential or non-essential information. If I said, "The house, which is pink, is for sale," to someone who has been looking to buy a pink house, I've used a non-restrictive clause to pass on important information. If the "which" leads a non-restrictive clause in CCC, there is no implication that certain acceptable forms of torture exist.
Zippy,
You have once again defined a priori waterboarding as torture. This is not a logical argument. Please provide a reference that establishes this. Once again, I do not believe in the infallibility of the blog. I notice that abortion is directly condemned in the CCC (although not in the same sloppy wording you use). So just point me to the passage on water torture. Or is this the infallible Zippy's opinion?
I also noted earlier that many Vatican officials did not hesitate to criticize Bush on Iraq, but they were all very silent on waterboarding. So, Zippy, scream and cry all you want. Write your own cheeto-stained Catechism. However, your "arguments" carry more weight in Catholic circles when they have Catholic references.
January 31, 2010 at 2:10 pm
So just point me to the passage on water torture.
I notice that torture is directly condemned not just in the CCC but in many places. I also notice that suction aspiration is not defined as abortion in the CCC. Just point me to the passage on suction aspiration. Sure, the Church condemns abortion as always wrong; but where oh where does the Vatican define suction aspiration as abortion?
It is so baffling.
January 31, 2010 at 2:37 pm
The comma is used to indicate whether the information is essential or ancillary, not restrictive.
Restrictive implies essential, non-restrictive implies ancillary.
If I had realized you didn't know that, I would have asked the question differently.
You're running into a bigger problem if you think that 2297 is using a restrictive clause.
In standard English, a non-restrictive clause is always set off by commas.
The clause in the sentence at issue is not set off by commas.
Therefore, either the clause in the sentence at issue is a restrictive clause, or the sentence is not written in standard English.
If the clause is restrictive, we nevertheless find a categorical condemnation of all torture elsewhere in authoritative Catholic teaching.
If the sentence is not written in standard English, then you have no basis for assuming the translators used the same non-standard English you use.
In my judgment, the sentence is not written in standard English.
I assume you agree that there is nothing authoritative from the Church banning harsh interrogation methods.
As far as I know, the Church doesn't treat "harsh interrogation methods" as a moral category of acts.
And as far as I know, the fact that the use of cold rooms and waterboarding on prisoners is objectively evil has been left as an exercise to the faithful Catholic (though they might save some work by peeking at what the Catholic bishops have been saying to the U.S. government).
January 31, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Tom,
Is it your contention that the CCC was translated into non-standard English? If that's the case, we can make the words mean whatever we want and it serves as a poor reference. Which brings me back to my point to Red Cardigan that you cannot use 2297 as proof that waterboarding to get intelligence is always wrong.
"If the clause is restrictive, we nevertheless find a categorical condemnation of all torture elsewhere in authoritative Catholic teaching." Please provide the reference from authoritatve Catholic teacing that defines coercive interrogation as torture. It should be very simple if it has been so well established.
January 31, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Is it your contention that the CCC was translated into non-standard English?
Yes.
It is also your contention, although you don't seem to have yet realized that your grammatical fabrication —
By writing "Torture which" (without the comma) they are indicating that the information following "which" is both non-restrictive (proper use of "which") and essential (no comma).
— is non-standard English.
"If the clause is restrictive, we nevertheless find a categorical condemnation of all torture elsewhere in authoritative Catholic teaching." Please provide the reference from authoritatve Catholic teacing that defines coercive interrogation as torture.
If I tell you six times that I am not arguing that the Church defines coercive interrogation as torture, will you take notice? How about eight times?
I am not arguing that the Church defines coercive interrogation as torture. I am not arguing that the Church defines coercive interrogation as torture. I am not arguing that the Church defines coercive interrogation as torture. I am not arguing that the Church defines coercive interrogation as torture. I am not arguing that the Church defines coercive interrogation as torture. I am not arguing that the Church defines coercive interrogation as torture. I am not arguing that the Church defines coercive interrogation as torture. I am not arguing that the Church defines coercive interrogation as torture.