Letter to the Vatican About Torture

Letter

Rep. Neil Abercrombie sent a letter asking the Vatican to speak out on the issue of torture, following recent comments by the Church on "violations of the basic rights of human nature." The text of the letter follows:

The Most Reverend Gianfranco Girotti, O.F.M. Conv.
Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary
Palazzo della Cancelleria, 00186
Roma, Piazza della Cancelleria, 1

Your Excellency,

My letter is prompted by widely published news reports of your comments to L'Osservatore Romano that "violations of the basic rights of human nature" through genetic manipulation, drugs that "weaken the mind and cloud intelligence," and the imbalance between the rich and the poor should now be considered as mortal sins.

"If yesterday, sin had a rather individualistic dimension," you were quoted as saying, "today it has a weight, a resonance, that's especially social, rather than individual."

While I applaud the Church's view that a complete lack of concern for others is sinful behavior, I am deeply troubled that the Church has not addressed the contemporary issue of the use of torture.

It is, in fact, ironic that your comments about sinful behaviors are being reported at the very time the President of the United States has announced his veto of a Congressional measure because it bans the use of torture by agents of the United States. President Bush insists that techniques such as waterboarding are not only ‘valuable tools,' but vital to the security of the United States; that they provide a means of gaining information that might prevent terrorist attacks, even though the techniques are acknowledged in international agreement and our own laws to be forms of torture

I believe the institutions of civilized society have a moral obligation to speak out on the matter. Accordingly, I sincerely request your views on the position of the Catholic Church on the use of torture as an interrogation technique; and specifically, a statement as to whether the use or support for the use of torture as an instrument of state policy is a mortal sin.

The church's judgment on this moral question will provide a profoundly important context for the critical dialog taking place throughout the world. As the controversy has already begun in my country with President Bush's veto of legislation banning the use of torture, your earliest response would be most welcome.

Respectfully,
Neil Abercrombie
Member of Congress

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