Telling the Truth about Torture | National Review Online

Telling the Truth about Torture | National Review Online

Just as a United Nations committee is set to release a post-hearing report on the Holy See and the Convention on Torture, University of Mississippi Law School professor Ronald J. Rychlak has published a helpful paper,Abuse of the Convention Against Torture: A Tortured Reading of the Law. For the sake of law, for the sake of freedom, for the sake of those who have and do give their lives for these values, this is not a news story to misunderstand or overlook. It’s about a new secularism that will use and abuse mechanisms meant for advancing human rights and the common good in dangerous ways. In this particular instance, instead of the U.N. working with the Catholic Church — learning the lessons it has learned and moving toward healing and protection, as U.N. peacekeepers have committed similarly abusive crimes — the horrific shame of scandal is being used as a political weapon. Rychlak​ talks with me about what’s going on and why it matters.