I had mentioned some time back that I will share with all of you some of the issues that I would like to create more of an awareness about. Here is part of a guide that I am sharing with the rest of our parish.
TORTURE IS A MORAL ISSUE: A CATHOLIC GUIDE
In early 2008 a discussion guide on torture was developed as a collaboration between the Catholic members of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and the Office of International Justice and Peace of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In the coming weeks, we will be featuring portions of this guide to develop an understanding of the following: 1) Dignity of every human person; 2) Torture; 3) Jesus’ Gospel instruction on loving our enemies; and 4) Promoting a discussion of actions that individuals, families, small groups and others might take to address the issue of torture.
RECOGNIZING EVERY PERSON’S GOD-GIVEN DIGNITY
Catholic social teaching holds that all people bear a God-given dignity. This conviction makes demands upon us: calls us to action, calls us to respect each person.
It is possible at once to feel personally affirmed by this teaching and disturbed by its most far-reaching demands, especially the demand to recognize human dignity in what may appear to us as difficult cases.
So this teaching leads somewhere: It leads to respect for ourselves and all others, and to action on behalf of justice. It leads to recognizing the face of Jesus in others.
This teaching also may prompt us to take a second look at widely accepted ways our society treats people – to assess whether some ways of treating people reflect respect for human dignity, or whether, in fact, they constitute abuses of human dignity.
Society itself frequently is divided when it comes to judging whether or not an action constitutes an abuse of human dignity. Thus, debates over particular issues get played out in the pages of our daily newspapers and on TV. For example, since 1973, there has been an intense debate over abortion, in which the Church calls for respect for human life from the moment of conception. There are ongoing debates over racism: when it is operative in school systems and when it is not, or how it influence voting choices. Currently, there is an ongoing debate in society over abortion and human embryonic stem-cell research, which the Church regards as a failure to recognize the unborn child’s humanity and dignity.
And, of course, there is debate over torture: whether certain practices commonly regarded as torture are legally or morally acceptable in the treatment and interrogation of prisoners accused of terrorist acts.
Torture is an issue in the news of our day, an issue that Catholic social teaching prompts us to examine. The issue of torture will be explored in detail in this discussion guide. At this point, however, we might conclude this discussion of human dignity by posing these questions:
What is at risk when respect does not characterize the relationships of individuals, of cultural and religious groups, or of nations?
Is it possible to condone practices of torture while at the same time affirming every person’s God-given human dignity? Why or why not?
Concluding Prayer
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
you have given the world its true light,
Jesus, your Son – the Son of God.
You abandoned yourself completely
to God’s call
and thus became a wellspring
of the goodness that flows forth from him.
Show us Jesus. Lead us to him.
Teach us to know and love him,
so that we too can become
capable of true love
and be fountains of living water
in the midst of a thirsting world.
(From “Deus Caritas Est,” Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical)
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