Gospel Reflections for December 14 2014
How are we to think about prisoners who were so harshly questioned by CIA interrogators years ago?
Notice I did not indicate what we should think, but how we should think about them. It would be great if we had a direct quote from Jesus about what to think about CIA interrogations, but we do not. However, there are guidelines in the first reading that can help us how to think. Jesus chose this very reading as a summary of His entire mission. He was sent to proclaim “liberty to captives and release to prisoners.”
His message rang true for His listeners because they knew He had personally lived for many years under very harsh Roman imperial domination. He knew what it was like to be a captive of a cruel regime. He knew the same context in which so many people lived. For thirty years He had walked in their shoes. In short, He had credibility.
So how are we to think about those CIA interrogators who harshly interrogated those prisoners years ago? For our credibility, how we see things means we must understand and live the same context that those CIA personnel had lived then, just as Jesus did in His time. That is the source of our credibility.
For example, what if you knew that a prisoner had information about an imminent attack on a shopping mall in the Conejo Valley during Christmas? What if you knew that your own family was frequently shopping in those Malls? What if you were in charge of getting that information?
Who did the CIA interrogators think were the actual prisoners …just those in Guantanamo? Not really. Perhaps they believed that their own families in the US and the Conejo Valley were prisoners as well, as we all have to live under the constant threat of a sudden and horrific terrorist attack that specifically targets innocent families Christmas shopping in malls. They wanted to free them from that fear.
How should you think about harsh interrogation? What methods can you morally use to get information from terrorists to safeguard your family in those shopping malls? What method is “torture” and what method is just “strong persuasion.” Are drone strikes against terrorist sites better? Well, it is actually hard to know. In truth, there is really no way to know for sure, since another person’s pain cannot ever be directly experienced by anyone else. Pain is an entirely subjective experience and cannot ever be felt by another person exactly as we actually feel it ourselves. In fact, the experience of pain is vastly different for every person. That is why we should be a little humble in declaring with such certainty what is torture and what is just strong persuasion. This may be a situation that is just completely unknowable, and so people of good will can certainly disagree.
I have not provided any easy answers here, because I believe there are none, but there is a way of thinking that is good and reliable, and that is the way of Our Lord, which is to walk in the shoes of the persons we are attempting to judge. Only then can “captives be freed and prisoners released.”
God Bless,
Fr. Dave
Jesus would never condone a torture culture and neither should we.
YEs, I agree, as long as we can be actually sure that torture actually happened. These days, it is so very difficult to get good information since almost every topic in the news is quickly brought into the usual Republican vs. Democrat battles. Everyone accuses everyone else for being biased. Some senior officials say torture was used, and some say no. I don’t think we will ever know what actually happened. We are left to make some sense of things with very little reliable information.
It is easy to play Monday morning Quarterback, in retrospect, when we have time to look at various information sources. The Interrogators didn’t have that luxury and we also don’t know what other information they were using to make a decision, that those of us in the general population are not privy to. Additionally, there is no way to point at a catastrophic event that did not happen, and say, “See, the methods employed justified the prevention of the harmful act”. We will never know. While “torture” is not a good thing and its’ definition can be different for different people, we as a Nation can not always expect to “play nice” with individuals who not only don’t play nice with us, but who have made a conscious choice to initiate harm against us and our citizens. Sorry to say, but if the so-called torture is what happened and its’ result was to prevent harm to our citizens (and most importantly, if it did), then, I’m not sure Jesus would be entirely against our actions.
Thanks for your comments. I agree. Another thing we can say about events of this week is that it will hopefully cause more people to think and reflect on all these issues.
The only torture that Jesus condoned was that of himself. He surely didn’t want it, but He felt that it was necessary. Love endures, hate fades. I submit that it is naive to .believe that we can get through our journey in life without tough decisions. Maybe that is the price of Free Will.
When faced with tough decisions, as were the CIA people after 2011, it is only with humble sympathy that we can forgive whatever they did.
God bless, and Merry Christmas!
Wes
Well said! Humble sympathy is a good summary of my article.
December 14, is my 76th birthday, and happily, though his feast day is ‘liturgically submerged’, the words of St. John of the Cross, splendid Carmelite Doctor of the Church, and most dear to my heart, come to m,ind: (and perhaps this is paraphrased) “At the end of our lives, we will be judged on love..”
This, of course, is true, and those words were formerly reiterated endlessly by St. John the Beloved Disciple: “Love one another”, etc. Therefore, since the end does not justify the means, as we have been taught since we were very young, it would seem to be true, subjectively and objectively, that we must always strive for the ideal, though of course this is a ‘stretch’ for most of us most of the time. Nonetheless, we have Our Lord to remind us, as we reflect daily on the gospels, that we must avoid evil, and do good. Torture is never, not ever, justifiable, not by our country, nor by any other country, and yet it is an ever-present weakness in our human nature that we ‘sink’ to disreputable methods, either with subterfuge, or with more overt methods, such as torture. May God have mercy upon us!
Yes, I agree, it is just so very difficult to define those terms. What is torture and what is strong persuasion. God asks us to use our good judgment, intelligence, and common sense to arrive at just decisions, which are by definition, educated guesses. That is why the church places so much emphasis on our intentions and what our motivations are. Is our intention precisely and only to inflict harm for punishment reasons or to get information to save lives. The intentions are very important. It is also important to have a spirit of humility when one person attempts to gauge the morality of another since it is so difficult to read another person’s mind.
If I had a gun pointed at the head of a terrorist about to blow up an entire shopping center full of innocent people, I think everyone would understand that the principle of justifiable defense/just war would permit me to pull that trigger…..right? So……..if I have a prisoner who likely knows the location of that same terrorist about to blow up that shopping center, isn’t it reasonable to use non-leathal means, i.e. water boarding, to learn the informaton that will allow me to locate the terrorist and stop him? I would hope so! Many deaths are avoided and even the detainee lives!
Yes, I agree. In fact, just this week in Kabul Afghanistan, a teenager attended a school play in a auditorium filled with students and proud parents, and blew himself up, along with everyone else. I am sure those parents wished they might have had advanced warning about that horrific attack.
When did Jesus become a pacifist? It seems Christianity for many, is about attempting to understand evil. By not stopping evil we are condoning it. We cannot reason with fanatical Islamists.. In order to protect the innocent, these CIA agents did what was necessary to get information to save lives. I am grateful for them.
Hello! In fact, Jesus was quite firm in resisting evil, as he faced down both the money-changers in the Temple and with great courage confronted Pontius Pilate at His trial. His is a good example for us all.
Well said!
I saw the new movie Exodus with my daughter this weekend. There are great similarities between the current world events and the Biblical times of Moses. The Hebrews were held captive by Pharaoh and Egypt. Egyptians worshipped false gods and the Hebrews were tortured to build their monuments of the gods. Moses was called by God to set them free. The movie graphically depicts the violence that was necessary for the Hebrews to inflict on Pharaoh’s army. God also allowed for the horrific plagues to the Egyptian people. The most upsetting and cruel was the Angel of Darkness taking the first born sons.
The ultimate outcome was the Hebrews were free to worship God and live by the Ten Commandments.!
Hi Father Dave,
I’m all for waterboarding these vile hateful men…THE CIA should be protected for if it wasn’t for men like them
we also would be beheaded, Today they killed 141 Christians … The Taliban went to a Christian school and burned all the lady teachers cut the heads off the men teachers and shot all the children students… Talk about
war on women… The perfect world won’t be here until Jesus returns…The Taliban is a vile satanic group that should be wiped out… It seems that the United States is so worried about being politically right that their dodging
the truth…God forbid that this should happen in the United States, and it could if we as a human race don’t stop
these monsters…Pray for all the good men that keep our country safe…
Well said!