Will Mark Shea be Consistent?

In case you haven't been following, there is a running controversy in the Catholic blogosphere over the subject of torture and whether the Catholic Church views it as intrinsically immoral. Appropriately described magisterial fundamentalists like Mark Shea have consistently been arguing that "torture" is intrinsically immoral and that any professed faithful Catholic who questions it or says otherwise is a fortiori an apologist for Satan. So much for meaningful discussion with Mr. Shea.

Anyway, the basis for the magisterial fundy position on torture basically comes from one paragraph (paragraph 80) in a papal encyclical called Veritatis Splendor:

The Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person, gives a number of examples of such [intrinsically evil] acts: "Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator".

Now, in addition to "torture," you'll notice that there are other things listed in the above paragraph like "deportation", "subhuman living conditions" and "degrading conditions of work..." With respect to these words and terms, so-called Apologists for Satan, such as myself, are of the position that they are ambiguous and, more significantly, undefined in Veritatis Splendor. As such, the above paragraph cannot, contrary to what the magisterial fundamentalists assert, be regarded as a doctrinal teaching of the Church. If it was, then how in the world can the Church Herself not be a tool for Satan in light of these reported charges against the Vatican's television station? (link via RelapsedCatholic)