Torture?

Every so often, something in the news captures my attention and causes me to doubt that I understanding the meaning of a particular word.

I had that experience earlier this week when I read that the United Nations was accusing the Vatican of promoting torture. On the surface, the allegation was completely ridiculous. The only explanation I could think of was that I simply didn’t understand the meaning of “torture.”

So, I looked it up and the primary definition I found was “the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain.”

I couldn’t think of anything the Vatican had done that fit this definition, although there are some suggestions of rather bad behavior on the part of some clerics if you go back in history 1000 years or so. And I have received a couple pretty onerous penances during confession, although more than amply deserved.

After reading a few articles and reflecting a bit, I concluded that I understand quite well what torture is. The United Nations is confused.

It seems the world government folks accused the Vatican of torture because the Vatican – here is a shocker – is opposed to abortion. And the UN thinks that if you don’t allow a woman to have an abortion you are, in effect, torturing her.

Fortunately, the Vatican has a brave and solid soul, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, serving as apostolic nuncio in Geneva. He is the person who gets to respond to lunacy from the UN and he did so with courage, pointing out that if anything would qualify as torture, it would be abortion.

He is right. Think about obvious examples of torture:

• Burning someone at the stake.

• Drawing and quartering.

• Skinning someone alive.

• Being beaten until bloody.

Any form of abortion would certainly be as awful and painful – at least from the unborn child’s point of view. I can’t think of anything that would better fit the dictionary definition of abortion than the partial birth variety. You can get a complete explanation of this procedure from the Life Issues Institute – not for the faint of heart.

We live in a terribly violent world. Christians are being shot, raped, kidnapped, beaten, stabbed, beheaded and chopped in pieces by machetes around the world. Stopping such horrific bloodshed would be a noble goal for the UN. And, perhaps, the institution could issue a letter of gratitude to the Vatican for trying to reduce the carnage.