Rick Santorum supports torture — a policy in direct conflict with the Catholic Church’s policy, yet the Pope has not denied him communion nor has anyone else. Andrew Sullivan notes this, and compares it to Senator John Kerry being denied communion in 2004 for being pro-choice.
Sullivan quotes a reader:
Like you, I have serious misgivings about a “moral” candidate for the presidency (i.e. Santorum) defending torture techniques. From the official Catechism of the Catholic Church (2297): “Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity.” What I can’t figure out is, why hasn’t a bishop come out publicly to deny Santorum communion? When John Kerry was running for president, no less than future pope Ratzinger stated that Kerry should be denied communion, which he ultimately was. Where is Ratzinger now? Where is Raymond Burke? Sean O’Malley?
Rick Santorum (and Gingrich, too) hold many more stances that directly violate the Catechism than Kerry did. Why do you think they’ve been silent on the two death penalty-endorsing, torture-praising, social welfare-cutting Catholics who could potentially be our next president?
Then adds:
The same can be said, and was, of pro-torture Catholics Rudy Giuliani and Marc Thiessen. And the answer, alas, is that the current Vatican has lost the forest for the trees. It obsesses about complicity with contraception – and plans a p.r. campaign months ahead of time – and yet cannot condemn an avowed Catholic defending torture and pre-emptive warfare – two moral enormities next to which the pill seems trivial.
Typical hypocritical Santorum.
In an earlier post last week, Sullivan noted:
I conscientiously dissent from the Magisterium on marriage equality, contraception, and women and married priests. But I publicly acknowledge that I am dissenting and this is not the hierarchy’s view and that I am not representing the Magisterium. Santorum, it seems to me, needs to be just as explicit in his statement that he dissents from his own church on the question of the inviolable dignity of the human person. He is advocating crimes “deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles”. He is proposing to “break” a human person, without even due process. He is standing as the publicly Catholic foe of human dignity.
And notice that, unlike, say, allowing contraception or gay marriage in a free society, the government that Santorum proposes to lead is directly involved in such activities. A lawmaker who allows free contraception in health insurance can only be accused of indirectly causing sin to occur; but a president who authorizes the abuse and torture of human beings is directly, intimately involved with that decision and bears full moral responsibility for it.