... is not hate, according to Pope John Paul II. The opposite of love is use. Indeed, one very serviceable definition of sin is “Treating persons like things and things like persons. So idolatry is treating a think like the persons of the Trinity. Murder reduces persons to things called corpses. Theft exalts a thing above the person who owns it. When people stop being persons and become things to use, we are treating them with contempt and are a million miles from the love of Christ.
Conservative Catholics get this when it comes to the Church’s teaching on sexuality. Pornography is wrong because it reduces people to objects. As C.S. Lewis observed, the lustful man does not want a woman. He wants an experience for which a woman happens to be the necessary apparatus. Much of our sexual culture is ordered toward making people treat each other as things, as well as inviting others to treat us as things. As a friend of mine once said of Madonna: “Under all that voluptuous flesh is the soul of an accountant.’
For the same reason, contraception is, in the final analysis, an attempt to treat a thing (sexual pleasure) as more important than persons (both the person you are having sex with and the children who are naturally expected of such a union).
Conservatives get this—about sex.
But when it comes to reducing persons to things in war it’s a whole ‘nother thing.
Catholic Just War doctrine is ordered first and foremost to the fact that Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said “Love your enemies.” By “enemies” Jesus meant “enemies,” not “charming rogues that, gosh darn it, you kinda like even though they are a bit mistaken.” He meant “people you feel strongly tempted to hate and fear.” Those people.
Because Jesus commanded us to love our enemies, the Church’s Just War teaching is specially designed to make it as hard as possible to go to war. It puts various conditions down that (as we noted previously in this space) throw spanner after spanner into the works when we feel that overwhelming itch to just kill those jerks.
The problem is that many people do not treat Just War doctrine as a series of checks designed to make it as hard as possible to kill, or as a system of thought founded on the bedrock principle that man—even the man who is your mortal enemy—is in the image and likeness of God. Instead, they treat it as a sort of trigger system. If you can just pass all the criteria for Just War, or tilt your head and squint through one eye and game the system to pretend to yourself that you have met the criteria, then you *get* to go to war and, once you are at war, you can unleash all holy hell since “war is hell.” And so, for instance, we are routinely instructed in comboxes that reducing persons called children to a pile of ashes at Hiroshima is okay, because, hey! It’s war after all!
All this came to the fore again in recent weeks because the GOP, in a bid to horn in on some glory for the death of bin Laden, started spreading the lie that their vaunted torture policies were crucial in getting him. This is, indeed, a documented lie, told by the authorizers and paid apologists for these policies in order to save their own skins. In fact, the evidence shows that torture is not only immoral, it is also stupid and counter-productive, slowing down the hunt for bin Laden and wasting our limited resources on wild goose chases, according to professional interrogators from every branch of the service. When it’s the word of people who know what they are talking about vs. that of derriere-covering politicians, trust the people who know what they are talking about every time.
Yet, when it comes to torture, conservatives suddenly become as credulous toward the the word of the government as an MSNBC reporter drooling over the word of Nancy Pelosi that Augustine would be just fine with abortion. It goes without saying that the “all bets are off when it’s war” school of thought tends to dismiss both the word of the interrogators and of Catholic teaching as wildly impractical and unrealistic while citing a fantasy like “24” as a sober basis for realistic policy. And so we have had, for years, the shocking spectacle of allegedly “conservative” Catholics approving of torture in greater percentages than the general population. And, with the election cycle ginning up, we have the spectacle of a fresh crop of GOP candidates raising their hands for the expedient of counter-productive, immoral and stupid torture just as we shall again have the spectacle of Obama raising his hand for abortion and unjust wars.
At this point, it is customary to quibble over euphemisms like “enhanced interrogation” (which is a weasel word for “torture”). Fine shades of distinction are adduced for just *how* the human beings in question are being reduced to objects. People seriously write things to justify waterboarding (the most cinematic but by no means only form of torture), etc. Yet all sorts of things follow in this train of consequentialist reasoning if you really believe the “war means all bets are off” philosophy (a philosophy which directly contradicts the Church’s teaching, by the way). After all, if you’ve already agreed
1. Since we kill in war, torturing in war is okay; and,
2. That deliberately incinerating children in their beds at Hiroshima is heroic since “war is hell”; and
3. inducing panic and terror in a helpless prisoner by subjecting them to drowning is not even torture
... then the first and most obvious conclusion is that we should subject the *children* of those we want to interrogate to drowning and the various other tortures we have devised and jiggered our consciences to square with Catholic teaching. After all, millions of lives are (allegedly) at stake! Men who will endure much and remain silent when they view themselves as martyrs will quickly capitulate when it is their little girl who is screaming (between submersions). So are you going to tell me we can’t use that girl to make her father squeal?
At this point torture supporters, uncomfortable with where their own premises inexorably lead, will try to protest that this is absurd, since the little girl is innocent.
But, of course, so were the children of Hiroshima, and we are already agreed that innocent children can be sacrificed in order to save millions of lives, aren’t we? And what is more, we are agreed that, heck!, this isn’t even torture! Just a little good clean dunking (according to former VP Dick Cheney)! What is more, what’s with the whole “innocence” thing? I thought tor—, I’m sorry, enhanced interrogation, was not about punishing people but about the cool clinical technological efficient pursuit of information necessary for saving lives. Well, if all that is so, then it would seem that the quickest most efficient conclusion from all these premises is that we do what the CIA did in interrogating Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and not just subject adults to drowning but induce panic and terror in the children of our interrogation subjects, too.
That’s where the tormented logic of Catholic justifications for torture lead, just as the tormented logic of Catholic justifications for contraception lead to abortion. In both cases, they begin with the conviction that, under special circumstances, we can ignore the obligation to love persons and instead use them as means to some other end. Consequentialism and using people go hand in hand. Once people become things to use, the genie is out of the bottle. The temptation to use more and more of them in service of some supposed greater good will not limit itself merely to bad guys. It’s not, after all, like this hasn’t happened a million times before in human history. We are not exempt from the fall. That is why we have things like the rule of law—and the teaching of the Church.
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Excellent analysis. I frequently tire of those who identify themselves as “staunchly pro-life,” yet see no issue with all the evils that occur related to war (or the death penalty, for that matter).
As an aside, where can one find precisely how the Church defines “just war?”
Start at paragraph 2309 and read down.
and not just subject adults to drowning but induce panic and terror in the children of our interrogation subjects, too.
Wait, wha??? I’ve heard you use this argument before, and I agree with your reasoning, but it wasn’t until that link that I knew that we’ve already done that.
God save us.
Thank you, Mark, for having your head on straight. I know too many people, who are other wise trying to be the best Catholics they can, who believe that these heinous practices are a-ok with the Church, and that Jesus Himself would have used them to “protect America’s freedom”.
As a Democrat who has willingly and wholeheartedly embraced the Church’s teachings on life and sexuality, I am hurt and appalled that when I try to argue that torture and warmongering fly in the face of the Church’s Just War teachings, I get written off as “not a real Catholic” because of my party affiliation (in spite of the fact that I have taken serious ridicule for breaking with that party when the Church does).
I’m sorry, but to publicly claim to be Catholic should mean that people are willing to forego party ideology (which is often little more than “the opposite of what HE said”) to stand with Christ and what He revealed to His Church. And if that makes people call you “brainwashed”, “unAmerican” or any other unkind name, then you should be willing to endure the consequences of that. Jesus didn’t say “the world will only hate you if you’re not a Republican”, He said “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.” (Jn 15:18) No matter what party a person aligns himself with, someone will inevitably hate him for following Christ instead of the world.
Mark, the purpose of war is to “subdue” the enemy. This is basically a charitable act. However, in order to successfully engage in it, you need to be yourself extremely virtuous - especially in the virtue of justice. That’s what’s behind all the medieval romances of chivalry. That’s what’s behind the time-honored tradition of a holy royalty (see King David). And I would submit that’s what undergirds the aspirations of most military men and women even today: the quest for justice. I like to make the argument that “you get the priests you deserve” in terms of the recent horrible eclesiastical scandals. The same is true for the military - society (we) get the military (we) deserve. If you have a pusillanimous and depraved, slavish population, expect a rank and degenerate army (to say nothing of elected officials). My advice? “You better free your mind instead…”
I agree that “enhanced interrogation” (a.k.a. torture) is morally reprehensible and counterproductive. But, equating it with contraception and saying that contraception leads to abortion is non sequitur. Sex between consenting adults can be an act of love and not just people using each other. Responsible use of contraception prevents abortion. The suppression of sexuality often leads to unhealthy outlets. http://blog.shoppingcartcatholicagnostic.com/
TAKE YOUR PICK—JP II (THE GREAT?) OR ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, THE ANGELIC DOCTOR WHO STATES THE FOLLOWING IN THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA Q.29 Art. 2 Pt. I-II: “ON THE CONTRARY, HATRED IS THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE.”
@ Chris, You are right. It only takes eyes that see and ears that hear the boasts of the perpetrators. For example:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=397902
http://didiremez.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/settler-rabbi-publishes-the-complete-guide-to-killing-non-jews/
Then, of course, there is the problem of the “Catholic” Judases who abet the creed and the behavior.
James, any rational Catholic must wonder if that “Blessed” enabler of pederasts, heretics, and the synagogue of Satan is even in a position to discuss the matter with the Angelic Doctor.
Mr. Shea, If incinerating children in their beds is bad in Hiroshima, why is it OK to incinerate children in their beds in Palestine?
Israel: White Phosphorus Use Evidence of War Crimes
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/03/25/israel-white-phosphorus-use-evidence-war-crimes
Mark, where did JPII say that use is the opposite of love?
Sharon:
Love and Responsibility.
@DW
“The suppression of sexuality” also leads to civilization, great art and just about everything worthwhile. “The unfettered expression of sexuality’ leads to ennui, dejection and a society characterized by rampant sexually transmitted diseases. Or haven’t you noticed?
Speaking of ‘using’ people, I’m bemused that people use General Sherman’s “war is hell” comment to defend modern atrocities with a shrug of the shoulders. I wonder what Sherman would think of his expression being used to justify such things? He himself was guilty of the relatively tame acts of destruction and theft of property.
“But, equating it with contraception and saying that contraception leads to abortion is non sequitur. Sex between consenting adults can be an act of love and not just people using each other. Responsible use of contraception prevents abortion. The suppression of sexuality often leads to unhealthy outlets.”
Contraception does, in fact, lead to more abortion, not less. This is in two ways: 1) all forms of hormonal contraception act as an abortifacient (i.e., directly causing early abortion) on average once every 10-25 menstrual cycles (or once every 1-2 years). Also, the IUD form always acts as an abortificient. Hence causing more direct (though mostly unknown) abortions. 2) The use of any form of contraception contributes to the “contraceptive mentality,” whereby a couple deliberately removes the life-giving nature inherent in the conjugal act with the intent of seperating sex from conception (hence the term “contra-ception”). Every study that tracks the rates of contraceptive use and abortion finds that these rates parallel (that is, as contraceptive use increases, so does the rate of abortion). Even the Alan Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood) extols the statistics that over 2/3 (and maybe a higher percentage) of women seeking abortion used contraceptives in the month they became pregnant. In essence, abortion is “necessary” because it provides a back-up for contraceptive failure (which happens a lot).
This has nothing to do with whether or not two consenting adults have the ability to love each other; that is a seperate issue (though I would argue that the love expressed is hindered and incomplete). But rather than “freeing” sexuality, the use of contraception chains and binds sexuality with devastating consequences - physical, emotional, and spiritual. Truly “free” expression of intimacy should never require the use of additives
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@Mark Shea: thanks for the source!
Brilliant: you’ve developed this line of reasoning well.
@ Mark Shea. You don’t know what you are talking about. You should stick to other subjects.
Enhanced interrogation is not torture.
1. We have used the EXACT same techniques at “special schools” FOR DECADES on THOUSANDS our own troops to prepare them to endure REAL torture.
2. The objective of EI is not the same as the objective of torture. Real torture has no limits to it, and is done purely for the harm of the person/enjoyment of the torturer. Real torture is a punishment, not an interrogation technique. People are correct when the say that torture doesn’t yield good intel. It doesn’t, but EI does, because it isn’t torture! (EI is done with precision, team of Dr.‘s standing by and so on). EI is not designed to, and does not harm the person going through it. It can be scary, but so is being told to jump out of an airplane door. We do a lot in the military that could easily be viewed as torture by your standards, standing in the hot sun until you pass out, running until you pass out, doing push ups until you throw up, enduring cold until you get hypothermia - over and over again… I could give you a REALLY long list and none of those are things these terrorists have had to endure at the “GTMO Resort and Spa”, where they are treated FAR better that your average American state penitentiary prisoner.
3. The point of EI techniques is to break down a person’s resistance to the interrogation component itself. Basically, they get sick of it. They start to think, “Are they going to be doing this to me every day for the rest of my life? Forget it. Enough.” It’s closer to being extremely annoying than it is torture. (Talk to vets from Viet Nam who had to listen to the screams of their captured 18 year old comrades, right outside the wire, being skinned alive and their genitals stuffed in their mouth about what torture is. EI ain’t it.) A halt to resisting questioning, is exactly what happened with KSM the FEW times he went through it. (Each session contained multiple “dunkings” if you will - the press of course counts each one and says he was “water boarded hundreds of times” - crock.)
4. Enhanced interrogation DID lead to the name that was confirmed as the courier who was followed to Bin Laden. Without that name from KSM in the first place we’d have nothing to compare it to, would not have a confirmation and would not have had the operation. (Of course, once he started talking, he told us LOTS more, all of which was extremely, extremely helpful. The Bin Ladin op was but one thing)
5. EI was ONLY used on KSM (and a couple others) AFTER LOTS and LOTS of every other traditional type of interrogation was used FIRST and failed.
6. In your noble crusade against torture, (yes I mean that - it is noble to crusade against actual torture - which is plainly evil) why not pick on ACTUAL torturers? How about the terrorists themselves? How about the Communist and Islamic regimes all over the world? The list is nearly ENDLESS!
It bothers me to no end to hear the miss or uninformed continue to spout this ridiculous blather about EI. When you accuse Republicans of LYING about something that is TRUE I have to wonder about you as a Catholic. Isn’t bearing false witness something you are not supposed to do? Seriously, I don’t care what else you do with your web site, but this is supposed to be EWTN now - don’t they vet what you write? Do you personally think it’s okay to repeat a lie?
At a minimum you do a grave disservice to those in the service of our country who have protected us with dignity and with VERY MEASURED and VERY CAREFUL attention to the HUMANE LIMITS that reflect on the values of this country. None of which run counter to the teachings of the Church.
You ought to thoughtfully consider the actual TRUTH before you continue spinning this story in the worst way so that it conforms to the generally, publicly accepted take that EI is torture. Well it ain’t.
If you don’t really understand this subject, then I hope this post was useful, but if you do the truth, but you continue in this vein then what you are doing is very wrong.
Bin Laden’s fingermen, who were recently coralled - I wonder what they’re undergoing now, in some Pakistani prison?
Mark, all the bluster fails to address the fact that something materially evil is transpiring here - an earth-shattering evil. And your recourse to the fatuous terminology of “consequentialism” fails to adequately drape that. Shrill outcries over a practice which is really quite tame forebode badly on our national resolve to overcome deadly adversaries and make peace for ourselves and others. Do you think it will come automatically? Perhaps you really are Canadian.
And while you claim the moral high ground, it really erodes quite badly from beneath your feet. We’re celebrating the feast of St. Thomas More, who was ripped from the heights of the kingdom and thrown into prison, where it all ended with an executioners axe (reminiscent of St. Paul). They were motivated by charity and courage. Do the benighted, struggling, oppressed people of today deserve any less, be they living in Kandahar or Cincinnati? I suggest that your queasy reservations are more motivated by faintheartedness than philosophy. If I am wrong, answer me this: what if the mullahs came for your daughter with the knife of “female circumcision” in their hand? Where would the Shaevian ire be directed then? Maybe you could explain your theory of Consequentialism to them, and maybe they would listen!
I’ve always been a Mark Shea fan from the very first column I ever read (of yours), but this is too far afield from where your commentary packs the biggest wallop. I have to agree 100% with John Davis and only wish I could have expressed myself as well as he did. EI, i.e. waterboarding does not equal torture.
I don’t find you fainthearted in the least. I think this whole business of renaming things to muddy the waters is ridiculous yet sinister. Gambling is “gaming”, pro-abortion is “pro-choice, and now torture is “enhanced interrogation.” It’s all about the spin. I am going to steal a car and call it “extended borrowing.” I am going to burn down my neighbor’s house and call it “uninvited fire sharing.” Do you ever get the feeling that people have forgotten that this life is preparation for an eternity with God?
@Jude:
You are incorrect. This is not a matter of “renaming” something that is torture as something else. (Read my full post).
This is more like calling an apple an orange. Ei is to arson what a child’s “time out” is to lethal injection. These are not even really matters of scale. The purpose is different, the mechanisms are different and the resultant harm is also totally different. Again - you ought to read the post.
@ DW Taylor
Sex outside of marriage says something with the body that the heart knows is not true: “I am giving myself completely; I am entirely yours without reservation.” A good rule of thumb is if you’re afraid of the natural result of sex, which is conception, in and of itself, as I wager most unmarried people are to some degree—ask yourself why you would need to be afraid if you had given yourself completely, as we are meant to, not halfway. An act cannot be called love when it leads another away from the Author of Love Himself, instead of toward Him, especially lying to rationalize away the inconvenience. Didn’t know there was a way to lie to another person without saying a word?
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