Earlier this month the U.S. Senate passed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill which would prohibit all U.S. personnel from engaging in cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees anywhere in the world. The Catholic Church teaches...
Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself ..., whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as ... torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; ... all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator. (Gaudium et Spes n. 27; Evangelium Vitae n. 3)
Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. (CCC 2297)
... In carrying out investigations, the regulation against the use of torture, even in the case of serious crimes, must be strictly observed: "Christ's disciple refuses every recourse to such methods, which nothing could justify and in which the dignity of man is as much debased in his torturer as in the torturer's victim." International judicial instruments concerning human rights correctly indicate a prohibition against torture as a principle which cannot be contravened under any circumstances. Likewise ruled out is "the use of detention for the sole purpose of trying to obtain significant information for the trial."... (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, n. 404)
All 24 of the Catholics in the Senate voted for the amendment. The final vote was 90-9.
The amendment has an uncertain future in the House and in the House/Senate conference committee which will reconcile the differences in the two Defense Appropriation bills from the two chambers. As well, the President has threatened to veto the bill if the anti-torture language is not removed. The administration's thinking is that the Global War on Terror (GWOT) may require the use of torture to extract information from detainees.
The veto threat and probable lack of similar language in the House bill may be why 46 Republican senators 'bucked' the president on this issue. The thinking is that they get to be against torture knowing that the provision will never make it into the final version of the bill.
There may be another reason. The amendment's sponsor, Sen McCain, originally proposed it earlier in the summer. Shortly after, he re-worded the amendment adding a Presidential Waiver on the prohibition of "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.". Perhaps emboldened by the president's recent weakness in the polls, the amendment which passed contained no such waiver. That weakness may have enabled those 46 Republicans to ignore the threat of a veto and vote for the anti-torture amendment. Maybe they saw the amendment as a necessary action to reign in military and intelligence organizations, which seem at best confused or unsure of what interrogation standards to use or at worse to accept the use of torture as an acceptable means of interrogation.
Still another reason may be Sen McCain himself. Here are his remarks on introducing the amendment:
Mr. President, war is an awful business. I know that. I don’t think I’m naïve about how severe are the wages of war, and how terrible are the things that must be done to wage it successfully. It is a grim, dark business, and no matter how noble the cause for which it is fought, no matter how valiant the service, many veterans spend much of their subsequent lives trying to forget not only what was done to them and their comrades, but some of what had to be done by their hand to prevail.
I don’t mourn the loss of any terrorist’s life nor do I care if in the course of serving their ignoble cause they suffer great harm. They have pledged their lives to the intentional destruction of innocent lives, and they have earned their terrible punishment in this life and the next.
What I do regret, what I do mourn, and what I do care very much about is what we lose, what we -- the American serviceman and woman and the great nation they defend at the risk of their lives – what we lose when by official policy or by official negligence – we allow, confuse or encourage our soldiers to forget that best sense of ourselves, our greatest strength – that we are different and better than our enemies; that we fight for an idea – not a tribe, not a land, not a king, not a twisted interpretation of an ancient religion – but for an idea that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights.
I have been asked before where did the brave men I was privileged to serve with in Vietnam draw the strength to resist to the best of their ability the cruelties inflicted on them by our enemies. Well, we drew strength from our faith in each other, from our faith in God, and from our faith in our country. Our enemies didn’t adhere to the Geneva Convention. Many of my comrades were subjected to very cruel, very inhumane and degrading treatment, a few of them even unto death. But everyone of us knew, every single one of us knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or countenancing such mistreatment of them. That faith was indispensable not only to our survival, but to our attempts to return home with honor. Many of the men I served with would have preferred death to such dishonor.
The enemies we fight today hold such liberal notions in contempt, as they hold the international conventions that enshrine them such as the Geneva Conventions and the treaty on torture in contempt. I know that. But we’re better than them, and we are the stronger for our faith. And we will prevail. I submit to my colleagues that it is indispensable to our success in this war that our servicemen and women know that in the discharge of their dangerous responsibilities to their country they are never expected to forget that they are Americans, the valiant defenders of a sacred idea of how nations should govern their own affairs and their relations with others – even our enemies.
Those who return to us and those who give their lives for us are entitled to that honor. And those of us who have given them this onerous duty are obliged by our history, and by the sacrifices – the many terrible sacrifices -- that have been made in our defense – we are obliged to make clear to them that they need not risk their or their country’s honor to prevail; that they are always, always – through the violence, chaos and heartache of war, through deprivation and cruelty and loss – they are always, always Americans, and different, better, and stronger than those who would destroy us.
God bless them as he has blessed us with their service.
It could be these words moved his otherwise reluctant senators to vote for the amendment. As a Catholic, they moved me and reminded me that this is not merely a religious, let alone Catholic, issue. One can, by reason alone, see the wrong of torture. These words also reminded me that this issue is not just about those who may be tortured, but by those of us who would allow, order, and carry it out, and what it say about us.
Nevertheless, as Catholics we should take great interest in the outcome of this amendment. As stated above the evil of torture is true and should be recognized by right reason and not just on faith in the teachings of the Church. Like opposition to abortion, ESCR, human cloning, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia, opposition to torture is a non-negotiable. Many Catholics do not see it this way. I admit I too saw torture differently. The arguments for justifying torture though are are eerily similar to some arguments made by pro-abort Catholics.
One such argument is that we must keep abortion legal in order to prevent women from being forced into "dangerous" back-alley abortions. The argument continues that Roe is keeping women alive for legalized abortion is safer for women. Now, compare this argument to one from the pro-torture crowd: They argue that we must allow the use of torture in order to prevent the deaths of are men and women in the military or worse in the civilian population. A popular argument is the suitcase nuke in the middle of a major US city. A captured terrorist supposedly knows of its location. Torturing the terrorist, like allowing a women to abort her child, supposedly will result in finding the suitcase nuke and keeping us all safe. Neither argument is convincing. Though women may seek back-alley abortions if abortion becomes illegal, there is little, if any, evidence that more women would die as a result. And there is no guarantee that torturing the terrorist in the example above would result in determining the location of the suitcase nuke and saving the citizens in the city.
Another similarity among these two camps is that the fetus is somehow less human than the rest of us and so is expendable. Terrorists and insurgents in the GWOT are described in much the same way and thus not worthy of the same protections as uniformed military. (A major difference here is that the unborn are innocents while terrorists and insurgents held captive are accountable for their actions and decisions. This accountability though in no way justifies their being tortured, but does make understanding opposing torture more difficult and complex.)
In both arguments, evil is being justified to do a good. Even if we could guarantee preventing the death of women during abortion or our providing for our safety from terrorists, abortion and torture are not justified. (
CCC 1753)
Serious Catholics have no qualms about unconditional opposition to abortion and see through arguments like the ones above. Yet, many of these same Catholics similarly justify support for torture. Let us pray that they soon end such justification. The 24 Catholic senators, for whatever reason, have helped the Senate take a hopeful step. Let us also pray that the president and the House take this step as well.
Back in June '05 David explained why 
Sometimes you can test the merit of a political candidate by the ranting of the opposition -- in this case, note the reaction of MoveOn.Org:
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