Catholic Exchange

Tortured Morality

Written by

Mark Shea

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The Apostle Paul had his detractors, and some of the worst were those who claimed he taught, "Why not do evil that good may come?" Paul's verdict on these people was blunt: "Their condemnation is deserved" (Rom 3:8).  Few things were more contemptible to Paul than saying "good ends justify evil means."  Such thinking — called "consequentialism" by the Church — is categorically condemned by biblical and Catholic teaching to this day.

Let's recap briefly what the Congress of the overwhelmingly Christian population of the United States has just approved.  In September, Congress basically agreed to give President Bush the final authority to decide what does and does not constitute "torture" under Geneva.  From a dozen perspectives, this reckless move by the state is dangerous.

I say this, not as a disgruntled Democrat, but as a pro-life, run-of-the-mill conservative who voted twice for Bush.  I am, to boot, a committed Christian who confesses Jesus as Lord and Savior, and who believes as strongly as any American that Radical Islam is a dangerous foe that must be defeated.

But because I really do believe in Jesus, I cannot help but feel the strength of His warning: "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"  And in embracing torture as a legitimate tool of warfare, I cannot help but believe that what we have done is embrace precisely the consequentialist thinking that Paul warned us would damn our souls.

Some will question whether we have really done this. Yes, we have. The way we have done it is by giving the same man who denies we have ever tortured anybody — President George W. Bush — the final power to define what is and is not torture.  President Bush is a man who has repeatedly assured us that he has never authorized torture. 

Let me ask you: if your spouse or child were held for days in a 50 degree temperature room, naked, and repeatedly doused with cold water, would you call that "humane treatment"?  If they were stretched on a rack and submerged till they were at the point of drowning, would you say they had not been tortured?  How about simply being forced to stand without moving for a day?  These are but a few of the techniques the CIA has employed on prisoners under Bush's authority, techniques which he insists were not torture.  Numerous other techniques have also been employed by the CIA which space forbids detailing here, but which you can read about in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago — because they were perfected by the Soviet Union's KGB.

With the possible exception of waterboarding, which the Administration simultaneously denied is torture and yet apparently agreed to forego — virtually all these totalitarian-approved techniques are now legal for these United States as "tools" in the War on Terror.  Indeed, according to Ron Suskind, author of The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11, the interrogation of Khalid Sheik Mohammed included not only torture, but a threat to murder his 7- and 9-year-old son and daughter, who were in CIA custody.

As a Christian, I believe there is simply no way this is defensible.  The attempt to justify what Pope John Paul II has called the "intrinsically immoral" act of torture is precisely what Paul warns is damnable.  For a Christian, that alone should be enough to prohibit it.  But as an American too, I believe that to adopt the tactics of the enemy is not only to lose one's soul, but to strike a Faustian bargain, just as much as if Old Scratch were to appear and say, "If you will blaspheme God, I promise to completely eliminate Radical Islam tomorrow."  The thing about Faustian bargains is that they take your soul and give you nothing in return. 

The state promises us peace and safety if we will commit just this one grave sin.  But the state has also just granted itself power to declare pretty much any foreigner it likes an "enemy combatant" and indefinitely detain him.  And enemy combatants can be subjected to the "techniques" Congress legalized with one person deciding whether or not these techniques constitute torture: the president.

Not all are swayed by appeals to Christian morals, I know.  Still, prescinding from morality, think of your own skin.  If you think, as many people thought after Roe, this can never lead to unforeseen consequences such as the detention and torture of innocent people just as Roe has led to euthanasia, then I have a bridge to sell you.  Indeed, if you Google the name "Maher Arar" you will find it has already has happened.  These are but a few of the reasons torture is wrong always and everywhere.  May God consign it to the ash heap of history, along with the Soviet Union.

Comments

  1. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Allas, more articles on the Geneva Convention by those who don’t know what it even says. Okay, POW protections, such as the freedom not to be tortured, executed, ect., are given only to combattents whom:

    1. Where uniforms
    2. Carry their arms openly
    3. Follow the laws of war

    Any violation of either of these, and you loose POW status. It’s what you call an incentive. The Great Generation, those who actually faught scum like the Nazis in WWII, were very common-sencical. They knew the bad guys could care less about what a silly little signed document said. You need a way to enforce these rules. “Don’t kill innocent people, and we won’t torture you.”

    Of course, terrorists don’t follow either these rules. The Bush Administration and the Congress have been tossing the torture thing arround like a hot potato. Bush should just plainly declaire that he will enforce the Geneva Convention. That is, “We reserve the right to torture terrorists.”

    Mind you that the Popes have endorsed the Convention.

    Sorry if this is disturbing to any of you, but it says what it says.

    Oh, another note: all POWs may be held until the end of the war, yet must all be released when that war ends. Again, scum like Nazis and Islamists aren’t given the same privlages of an honorable soldier.

  2. Guest Avatar
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    Nor do these contemporary scum treat the honorable soldier any better than they would his kinfolk and neighbors.

    I do believe that Mr. Shea is right, as far as those whose culpability has not been established. Once known to be enemies, we have to know what they know. Even those covered by the convention can be rigorously questioned, if they have no obligation beyond ‘name, rank and serial number.’ Hence, too, being in no army recognizing one’s name, with thence no rank or identifying number, does sort of put one at a disadvantage at the mercy of one’s captors. He has little claim on human rights he ignores by ignoring the convention. Those rights granted him are very nearly a form of largesse. And, rights denied are operations on HIS terms as much as anyone else’s.

    I knew a WWII German POW (he was in Nazi-youth Volks-sturm) who elected to apply for citizenship after release to a visitor’s visa. He had succumbed to the Christian and freedom loving generosity of his American captors. Our current enemies consider our Christian ways and our defense of freedom weaknesses. I don’t know what besides a form of appeasement Mr. Shea offers about our real, and unscrupulous, enemies. In contending with them, any ounce of intelligence can save large numbers of OUR lives. It can seem that not giving strenuous interrogation is suggesting that perhaps some of our citizens can just be involuntary ‘martyrs’ much as our enemies would have them unwitting targets.

    Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or … yahoo.com)

  3. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    And yet, if we are to win the war for our Christian principles, we must follow them. We must love our enemies and pray for them. For our own sake, and that of our souls, we must not stoop to torture. No matter how difficult it may be, we must, like Caesar’s wife, remain above reproach.
    One of the most pernicious things about jihad is that it creates a pool of martyrs who inspire others to take up their fight in revenge, against those whom the “martyrs” were trying to murder in the first place.
    But a living victim of so-called American imperialism is far more dangerous than a silent grave, even if he is NOT an innocent victim. He can tell his tale, which will have greater impact for being personal. And we can be certain that both our news media and the enemy’s will carry it far and wide.
    As yet, I know of no effective way to fight this. All I can suggest is prayer for our leaders, and lots of it, that they may find effective and moral means to combat radical Islam.

  4. Guest Avatar
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    Welcome to the light, Mark.

    I, too, once voted for Bush. Only once, though. I bypassed the Republicratic Party’s nominees/clones in 2004 and voted 3rd party. But I digress. Thank you for taking this stand. Along with the issue of Bush having the power to define “torture”, his administration also reserves the power to declare anyone an enemy combatant. Even though the recent Military Commissions Act imposes some limits on the government’s actions against US citizens, we are all still at risk from the growing “benevolent dictator” syndrome, led by Bush’s claim of the “Unitary Executive Theory,” meaning the President has any power not explicitly given to Congress.

    For people who doubt the dangers of the path Bush and Cheney are leading the nation down, imagine for a moment what President Hilary Clinton (blech) will have the ability to do against pro-life people when she assumes power after the Republicans deservedly lose the next election.

  5. Guest Avatar
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    It is a sincere disappointment to find that Mr. Shea has fallen victim to al-Qaeda disinformation. Arar’s story has no more substance of truth than what Ron Suskind says even if they both might be convinced of the validity of their cause. From the time that the unfortunate pictures of abuse by a few individuals at Abu Grahb became public, the playbook fo our enemy changed. They saw a clear weakness that could be exploited by the media powers to dilute the resolve of our nation in its stand against the New Caliphate and Islamic imperialism. This galvanized the George Soros and Moveon.org crowd to turn their hatred of a man who was unafraid to lead this country by his Christian convictions into action that has brought us to the day when Congress will soon let our allies die in the field. For the sake of the intellectual comfort of a misguided, misinformed, and malcontent mob who would not dare put themselves in harm’s way, we will not turn back the Mohammaden, but rather turn our back on our children’s future. Too bad Mr. Shea has appeared to have joined their rank.

  6. Guest Avatar
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    Continuing–

    The solution is indeed to pray with whole heart and mind for our sons and daughters in the field of battle, for strength for our leaders, and for ourselves as we face a dark time ahead. But we must not fall prey to the secularist media which would have us abandon the cause over an issue of “torture” which simply does not exist.

    May God Be With Us!
    Charles

    Father of four boys whose favorite prayer is to Saint Michael the Archangel

  7. Guest Avatar
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    A battlefield is a place where one is as Christian as his enemy permits him. When an American general who financially had raped the South to lead to the end of the War Between the States stated that ‘War is HELL!’ he was not kidding. An ordinary family guy from Ohio had turned his army into a destructive machine to end another destructive machine. As another American general in a more recent war put it, ‘it’s not your job to give up your life for your country, but to make the other poor s-o-b give up his life for his.’ War is all that either-or, that viciously black and valorously white. But, it isn’t ‘pretty’ or ‘Robert’s Rule of Order’ or ‘Marquis of Queensbury’.

    War is no thing of God and Church, but an extraction of pure evil. Goodness can fight evil with God on God’s terms if God has influence on both sides. If not, then what? The good Christians lie down and die? They fight with one hand tied behind their backs, to sort of morally even-out the enemy’s two bloody hands? The rules of engagement are all too often dictated by what an enemy does, not by what we would want to do.

    Corporately laying down is not an option. To do so would prostrate the whole world. And, it is because our alleged allies are morally bankrupt that has us ‘cops of the world’ – hardly because it is some moral or historical imperative.

    Yeah – with Bush defeated, in his re-election or in 2000, the Democrats probably would have sat on and dithered over any effort in Afghanistan and/or Iraq that would likely lead to worse and worse terrorism on American soil – indeed, it is unlikely even as the two wars have kept them at some distance for the while that they will not hit us again, given their base and dishonest ways They would hit and hurt again and again – until Americans demanded something so all-out as not to be imagined.

    Bush and company have bungled the post-war work in Iraq. We have to correct that before we leave, spending our forces to protect as we can and train as we must. Facing the hell in front of them, I don’t see our troops mutinying. They are hardly facing Christian rules of engagement, warrior to warrior. And, what they see happening on the streets of Baghdad, they want to keep on the streets of Baghdad – versus streets of Peoria or Fargo or LA – until it is defeated.

    Meanwhile, I am to worry over means of interrogation of such an enemy? I am to worry over the torture of a handful of the enemy who would torture cities-full of us as he could? I’ll call my morality one of defense, not some imperial assault as the enemy would have it of us, AND, when it is clearly their goal. (World-wide shari’a -what a look into ongoing hell!) In that moral-as-we-can-be defense, I may not like at all what we have to do. But, what else can we do? Wait until they use, effectively, a dozen or more planes, somehow?

    Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or … yahoo.com)

  8. Guest Avatar
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    While I agree with Mark’s point, that we should hold ourselves to a higher morality, I am not sure that we can divide these things up as simply as it might appear. For example, in war if we prolong the war because we don’t have the stomachs to face the horrors of war, are we in fact creating a more despicable situation?
    If we look to the Old Testament, we find that God told his people to deal quite severely with the enemy. Kill all the women was the command. The people didn’t obey and that was not received well by God. Ask yourself, would you be willing to kill all the civilian women?
    I don’t think it is simply a matter of whether we torture people or not. I think it is a matter of whether we have the stomachs to do what needs to be done. By participating half heartedly we may be in fact causing more harm than good. If we are going to fight a war, the Biblical model is to do it completely, not under some false pretense of “rules of war”.
    The question may be are we in God’s will fighting the war at all? But if we think we are, then anything short of total commitment to victory is an abomination. Think of all the innocent life that is lost because we aren’t willing to do what must be done. By prolonging the war because we will not face the grim truth of war we are in fact being more cruel and less righteous.
    Just something to think about.

  9. Guest Avatar
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    dschaertel,

    God was, to my mind, trying to make war as heinous as it is, but more dramatically so. He wanted us to use the Israelite experience to find war too reprehensible to continue to use for diplomacy.

    But, if we still fought and decided wars in that fully-all-out measure – the defeated die as a culture and nation – how long would making war last? Could any decide to chance defeat? Even if we didn’t put them to death but to faceless, nameless servitude?

    Yet, too, such fury would also force all – victors and defeated – to face needing God, going to Him, and prostrating themselves that war be no more, and demeaned servitude fall on all or none.

    Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or … yahoo.com)

  10. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Hmmm – – –

    Saint Paul wrote and evangelized during a period deep within Pax Romana – or, given that God so precisely chose the period for the Incarnation, more the Pax Christorum. Saint Paul had no cause to address war. Christ’s own life, mission, death and Resurrection fit within the same period – hence, Pax Christorum. He never had reason to address ‘that war over in Egypt’ or the like. In that Christ was born during a peaceful time – we haven’t had that many – is telling. That no New Testament writer had cause to address war adds to the quandary. For, the Old Testament God was quite war-like, to found His Chosen People in His promised land for them.

    So, where do we go today for inspiration on the subject of war? We simply must reflect that war tends to bring out the worst in the best of us in response to the worst in the worst. War makes us oh-so-human. There is my burr in my saddle, now.

    HMMMMM!

    That noted, we obviously need to look around for inspiration. And, though he is not thinking that he is revelatory – merely extending Saint Paul’s blunt admonition that what we call consequentialism kills as surely as any sin – good old Mark Shea is as good a prophet as any around. Mark Shea is meant by God to inspire – he is God’s voice today, about this issue.

    I apologize to Mr. Shea and to you, my CERT fellows, that I was so bold above. I was – (ahem) – quite ‘human’. I am caught up in God’s will simply because God is God and I am not. Mr. Shea has given light to God’s will, and I defer and I obey.

    I will keep my powder dry. War is war. However, no matter how many innocent bodies we endure, God’s way will hold to the very end – of a fact and in truth.

    Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

    Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or … yahoo.com)

  11. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Pretty hifalutin conversations being bantered about. Torture is a mortal sin… aren’t you gentlemen letting your hatred of an evil enemy color your Christian vow. From a moral standpoint, I totally agree with Mr. Shea. I, for one, do not want to account to Christ why I treated one of his children with such disdain. I’m reminded of Paul holding the cloaks of the stone-wielding killers.

  12. Guest Avatar
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    Uh – The brilliant Mr. Shea’s not nearly so old as good . . . (I think.)

    And, nezatda, as to greenknight, Arkanabar, Steve48224, cjm0316, dschaertel – do I humbly and deeply apologize . . .

    Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or … yahoo.com)

  13. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    This is a big knot worthy of much hard work. For what it’s worth, the President has repeated many times that the US does not condone torture.

    Plus, torture is mortal sin, yes. But —

    • Is making fun of someone torture?

    • Is having a female interrogate a male fundamentalist Muslim torture?

    • Is playing rock music loudly torture?

    • Is keeping the lights on in the prison cell torture?

    • Is keeping a subject awake during interrogation torture?

    • Is forced (IV) feeding of an inmate who refuses to eat torture?

    There are many who say “YES!” to these situations. And so on. I’m not talking about waterboarding or Abu Ghraib here. And I’m not saying these things are nice, but are they torture?

    There is much room to disagree and discuss, but there are some very, very bad people who have demonstrated a very, very strong resolve to do very, very great harm to very, very many innocent civilians — as many as they possibly can. So it’s very, very important. And this goes beyond an academic discussion we are five and a half years downstream in this global war on terrorism for goodness sake!

    Are we going to define torture at all, or let the prisoners and their defense attorneys define it?

    How is our secular society going to tell those charged with the duty to protect the public to deal with these people?

  14. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    I agree wholeheartedly with Mark Shea. The Golden Rule should not be abrogated because of war. “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you” still applies. If it were one of my sons or daughter held captive I would hope and pray that they would be treated humanely.

  15. Guest Avatar
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    According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, CC 2297, Torture is said to be morally wrong. However, it does not specificly bring up interrigating for the use of gathering information, for example, to avert a terror attack. It also notes how it used to be seen as necisary to maintain cival order; enforcing the Geneva Conventions would be a good modern example.

    So, torture does not seem to be on the same plane as abortion or pornography, but more like the death penalty and war, and the Popes and bishops came to the conclusion that it is never neccissary. Many have come to that conclusion on the latter two as well.

    The only real moral and practical objection to Torture would be if it didn’t work in acheiving its desired outcome. In that case, we should have a Take No Prisoners policy.

    Oh, and on dschaertel’s coment on “killing all the civilian women,” NOOOO!!!!!!!

    A Christian soldier is bound by the Code of Chivalry. Women and children are not to be harmed. Unless such persons actively support the murder of innocents, or start picking up guns themselves, they aren’t to be touched. (Gaush, you’d think this stuff would be common-sence.)

  16. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    May I care as much for what happens to those who hate me as I would if they were my loved ones and not yield to the temptations of hatred.

    I pray to God that I will be like the good Samaritian and care for those who hate and despise me without expection of earthly reward.

    Lk 6:27-28 “But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

    ekbell

  17. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Mr. Shea makes a valid moral point about torture in general, and I agree that torture in and of itself is a mortal sin.

    But other things are also mortal sins. Stealing and killing for example. Killing can be justified, even by the Church, if its done according to some condition, like self-defense; a soldier or police officer killing to protect himself, his colleagues, or the general public, as is his job; or a duly appointed executioner of the state killing a condemned criminal who has been found guilty by due process of his or her crimes. The Church is very strict about meeting these criteria, but does allow killing if they are met.

    Likewise, stealing can be a mortal sin, but stealing a quarter from somebody who’s last name is Gates, Vanderbilt, or Rockefeller certainly isn’t as terrible as stealing the paycheck of a man who has five children and no other source of income.

    If one’s wife or child were being held for days in a 50-degree room while naked, it would be unspeakably evil, but one’s wife or child presumably has no formal military training. Terrorist organizations such as Al-Quaeda and Hezbollah put their members through grueling pseudo-military training to prepare them for such situations, and since these men are well-prepared to die for their evil cause, it’s doubtful that spending days naked in a 50-degree room, put on a rack over water, or spending a day motionless on their feet would emotionally phase these men they way it would one’s wife or child. In contrast, just imagine how General Patton would respond to those “tortures”.

    In the United States Marine Corps, recruits have to pass a rigorous training cycle called “the Gauntlet” before they are allowed to call themselves Marines. This includes swimming in a pool in full field gear, walking through a tear gas chamber without their gas mask, and crawling under barbed wire fences while black smoke pours over their heads, all with minimal sleep. The United States Navy Seals spend an entire week without sleep while they carry around a heavy life raft from training station to training station, and like the Marine Gauntlet, if the Seals don’t pass this training, known as “Hell Week” they wash out of the program. Like their terrorist “counterparts”, if these men were tortured, I would hope they’d hold out better than one’s wife or child. America’s fighting men and women voluntarily submit themselves to similar “tortures”.

    So, if the victim doesn’t consider it torture, is it?

  18. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Mr. Shea also speaks of women and children.

    Last time I checked, nobody’s spouse or child was being tortured by the United States. Torture or no torture, the detainees (not P.O.W.’s, as Mr. Shea alludes) were all men, and in each case, the United States had very just cause to suspect that these men were terrorists. Where were there women and children at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Garaib? By the way, the United States was also justified in detaining them, regardless of how they were or weren’t treated. All you have to do to see this is visit lower Manhattan and gaze down that huge hole where the World Trade Center once stood.

    Because of the way that U. S. criminal law is written, and because of Miranda vs. Arizona, accused criminals are set free if the police don’t follow certain procedures, such as informing the accused of their rights. It doesn’t matter if three credible witnesses saw you shoot someone or beat them to death, you still walk. It’s the “don’t punish the bad guys” mentality.

    In the minds of many people in America today, this translates into the crime never having happened, unless, of course, you’re O. J. Simpson.

  19. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Interrogators of one waterboarded recalcitrant was told his two kids, in our custody, would be killed if he did not talk. I think that even he realized it was a bluff, even as he said they would go to heaven.

    Shoe on the other foot? I think that he’d kill a captive’s children to get him to talk.

    We shouldn’t, we mustn’t, surely.

    BUT – BUT – enough assaults on Americans on American soil, and we seem to be haading in that direction with our appeasement ignoramuses, and the Americans will so demand powerful, definitive and decisive responses that I do not exclude even atomic responses to Islamist and/or Iranian/Syrian sponsored terrorism. We have nuked two enemy cities before. Now, we can pinpoint leadership conclaves and military and nuclear facilities.

    If they are covertly operating to bomb us, upping the ante may be precisely what is called for, no matter who shrieks ‘FOUL!’ Waterboarding will surely look very tame, then. ANY torture will seem child’s play.

    Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or … yahoo.com)

  20. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Congratulations, Mr. Shea. You have opened quite a can of worms, today. I do hope you live in a place where birds spend the winter: they’ll be delighted.

    My response is primarily for those who were horrified by the idea that God commanded the killing of “civilian” women (and children, too)in war. This order of God’s–and, it was an Order–was not given often, but the most dire consequences accrued to Israel when they disobeyed. Go back and read the record.
    The reason God ordered such annihilation was that these people worshipped gods like Molech (and others)who “commanded” human sacrifice, particularly the sacrifice of their sons and daughters. Does this sound familiar? If the men were killed and the women and children allowed to live, what would be the outcome? Wouldn’t the women teach their children about their own god and his laws and precepts, thereby preserving the “disordered” worship? And too, wouldn’t the women have instructed the children about who had made them fatherless, thereby instigating future wars against Israel?

    As a reference point, the Law also commands that children in Israeli families who repeatedly refused to obey their parents should be stoned to death. Can we imagine what life would be like here under a law like that?

  21. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    I realize I have a LONG way to go to becoming a Real Christian. But, I don’t be lieve that God expects us to be Stupid. Knowing that the goal of the radical Islamists is to see every one of us dead, or converted – God forbid – then, while I support contining to pray, a lot, we should face the fact that we and our children WILL all become “martyrs” or converts if we don’t approach this war with Patton’s determination to win. Sorry, I know I’m offending man of you, but either we win, and soon – before the media convinces all of us that we are unworthy, and deserving of every evil thing we get – or die, and not without torture, I’m sure.

  22. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    PS: Mr/Ms ekbell,
    May your resolve be as strong on the day of your death at the hands of Muslims, as it is on this forum. God Bless You

  23. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Mr. Shea is talking of torture, not war. We have every right to defend ourselves. Notice that in Luke, chapter 6, that Christ exhorts us to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” – but not lie down and die for them. One lays down his life for his friends, not his enemies.

    {([Christ is that magnificent exception, of course – dying for our sins, dying for effective enemies – yet, He calls us His friends. What a lovely, loving Guy, our God-man!])}

    I stand by my warning to Islamists, etc. Americans may be so awfuly blind even with eyes, and deaf even with ears; and, no doubt, of its amoral materialist consumerism. BUT, one large-scale attack on American soil and/or Americans anywhere may well be awareness-opener enough to cause them to direct our leaders to break all hell loose on those who attack us. They will line up in millions at recruiting centers more or less demanding ‘Let ME have at them!’

    Mr. Black, I have this feeling that if such Muslim martial success caused them to attempt convert-or-die actions with us, Mr. Shea, ekbell, Green Knight, you, I, etc., will not just be standing around waiting his or her turn to die. As I have posted before, one can as surely be a martyr with sword in hand defending his beloved and himself as to meekly stand exposed before ravenous lions.

    Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or … yahoo.com)

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