The controversy over the televised bouts of the “International Fight League” (IFL) is nothing new. The 1949 film The Set-Up touched on the same theme. It stars Robert Ryan as a boxer. In his bout, he is betrayed by his manager. He sells him out to a gambler for chump change. The gambler bets big time for Ryan to throw the fight. He refuses. Ryan knocks out his opponent in a brutal struggle.

The gambler is not amused.

He and three thugs set upon Ryan after the fight. They beat him up terribly. As the coup de grace, they crush his right hand. He can never box again. The only one getting a buck was his manager. The boxer got nothing but his destroyed hand. His future, the film announces, will be running a cigar stand.

The Jesuit magazine La Civilta Cattolica editorially condemned boxing recently. The magazine’s articles are vetted prior to publication by the Vatican Secretariat of State. The reader can assume that the Vatican does not disagree with the thumbs-down message on boxing.

The magazine uses strong language. It calls boxing “a form of legalized attempted murder.” It supports its judgment by mentioning that, in the past century, approximately 500 boxers have died as a result of the “sport.”

Three weeks before that editorial was published, U.S. boxer Lavander Johnson died from injuries to his brain in a lightweight title bout. A doctor describes what happens: “One of the punches moves the skull and the brain doesn’t catch up.”

The magazine’s editorial alludes to Johnson’s demise. Perhaps his death prompted the editorial. Someone at La Civilta Cattolica reads the sports pages. He believes what he found there on the boxing death of Johnson was misplaced. It belonged on the police blotter page with other cases of manslaughter.

The magazine’s judgment is motivated by the Fifth Commandment: Thou shalt not kill.

One spectator described what happened at the English bout. “There wasn’t much boxing about it. It was one bloke trying to injure the other bloke’s brains.”

Obviously one bloke succeeded. A boxer was put on life support for 11 days before death.

That night, the British arena, seating 20,000, had been sold out. One spectator was a former boxer. He sat in his wheelchair. His brain had been damaged in a fight. He is paralyzed.

Many thousands saw the fight on TV. How many children were in that TV audience? How did they feel watching their parents and even grandma lusting for human sacrifice?

La Civilta Cattolica mentions that boxers in a typical fight are hit with 1,000 punches. Many are directed to the brain. Cells in the brain die. They become history.

Spectators demand knockouts. When boxers achieve the same, their opponent fall to the canvas unconscious. That fall usually signifies brain damage. Who can fault the magazine’s editors for concluding that the moral judgment on boxing is “gravely and absolutely negative.”

Two brothers, Mike and Jerry Quarry, both died in their early 50s. Both were boxers. One died of boxing-induced dementia. The other died of brain damage from repeated blows to the head (The New York Times, June 14, 2006).

There is danger, of course, in all sports, but the only place where it is deliberately intended is boxing. It is a 21st-century version of Roman gladiators fighting until one dies — and, too often, someone does.

La Civilta Cattolica looks kindly upon supervised amateur boxing in a gym. Head protection is used. This type of sport, writes the magazine, is “morally acceptable and even useful.”

But professional boxing — IFL or otherwise — belongs up there in the chamber of horrors. It is an insult to the brain.

Father James Gilhooley

writes from New York.