Religion & Law

Our Sunday Visitor's March 29th editorial ends with this:

While the debate about the definition and value of torture will continue, the Church's teachings in this area are clear and consistent: The ends do not justify the means. Torture is an affront to human dignity and has been labeled by the U.S. bishops as an "intrinsically evil action" in their 2007 document "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," along with abortion, the destruction of human embryos, genocide, racism and targeting noncombatants.

All of these actions deny the immutable dignity of human life, and all are condemned. Pope Benedict XVI himself said in 2007 that "means of punishment or correction that either undermine or debase the human dignity of prisoners" must be avoided. "The prohibition against torture cannot be contravened under any circumstances."

That the ends justify the means -- be it for abortion, euthanasia or embryonic stem cell research -- has become the rationalization of choice for a host of questionable actions that our society now approves. Torture certainly fits within those categories.

What we surrender when we make such accommodations with evil, however, goes much further than simply the moral diminishment of our country and its ideals. By using legal legerdemain to justify the unjustifiable, we give cover to more despotic nations and weaken the internal restraints that keep our own society from resorting to more debased actions.

As with abortion, by appearing to tolerate and even justify an evil such as torture, Americans hasten the erosion of the moral values upon which all civilized society must be based.