Catholics and torture

From the Wanderer, March 11, 2010.
"Morning's Minion at the popular, orthodox Catholic website, Vox Nova, demanded that the U.S bishops...remind Catholics that those who justify torture should refrain from receiving Holy Communion, under Canon 915. Criticizing a program on EWTN called "The World Over," and its host Raymond Arroyo, Morning's Minion wrote about a particular episode which hosted Marc Thiessen, who identifies himself as a practicing Catholic, and attempts to justify torture.
'I think the analogy is clear. Arroyo and Thiessen are both public figures, and Arroyo in particular is a TV personality on a Catholic TV channel, making the scandal all the more grave. They are clearly 'obstinately persevering' in support of an intrinsically evil act. Worse, they actually try to justify it on Catholic grounds. Thiessen has made it his life's work to claim that some forms of torture are virtuous...The Church's teachings on torture could not be clearer. Torture was condemned by the Second Vatican council in Gaudium et Spes, which declared:
'Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself...all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed.'"

oh no!

Oh no! Today I was driving down a back road, doing the speed limit, 35 mph, when a dear little bird, black and white and yellow, flew right down in front of my car! I hit the brakes but it was way too late. I didn't hear or feel even the slightest thump but when I came to a stop, there it was, in the grill, completely flattened. I couldn't even see the dear little head. All I could see were some delicate feathers in kind of an oval shape. It is sad when a bird lover like me hits a bird. No doubt some native, possibly threatened species. Why couldn't I hit a starling? Why didn't I see it coming?
It reminds me, though, of the poor people who have accidentally killed a person/people with their automobiles. How awful! And for some of them, their lives are over, with long jail terms, even though it was truly an accident.