October 2, 2011
NO FOOLISH CONSISTENCY FOR HER:
Cooperation in Evil (MAUREEN DOWD, 10/01/11, NY Times)Pope Benedict sent Georgia state officials a letter last month asking for clemency for Troy Davis, but the very Catholic Supreme Court denied a last-minute stay of execution.
In his Duquesne speech, Scalia said: "If I thought that Catholic doctrine held the death penalty to be immoral, I would resign. I could not be a part of a system that imposes it."
My family priest, Father Kevin O'Neil, teaches about "cooperation in evil" in Catholic moral theology. If you facilitate something that has been deemed wrong, like taking a human life, are you cooperating in evil?
Maybe the Supreme Court should ask itself that question. Are you "cooperating in evil," Justice Scalia?
The death penalty debate tends to bring out the hypocrite in all of us, but Ms Dowd and her ilk have a particular problem here, because the sort of incarceration that we offer as an alternative to execution is, by pretty much any rational definition, torture. In order to meet the popes' criteria for treating such prisoners you almost have to keep them in solitary confinement, else they're a threat to other prisoners. But solitary confinement over long periods is so psychologically damaging it tends to bring on psychosis. This becomes especially problematic when you confront the bizarre dichotomy that they believe we ought not be allowed to waterboard a terrorist briefly to obtain intelligence but are untroubled by sending him to Supermax for the rest of his life.
Of course, the most revealing thing in all of this is her inability, or unwillingness, to differentiate between killing a convicted murderer, on the one hand, and an unborn child, on the other.
Posted by oj at October 2, 2011 7:46 PM
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