Priests hope to highlight torture issue during trial for trespassing

Published: 2007-08-21

SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) -- Though they face a possible gag order preventing them from discussing U.S. policy on torture during their upcoming trial, Franciscan Father Louis Vitale and Jesuit Father Steve Kelly say their rejection of torture is the prime reason they face jail time for an incident at a military base last November. "Our concern is that the issue of torture has become a major phenomenon in society," Father Vitale told Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocesan newspaper. "It's inhuman, but it's become acceptable." Father Vitale claims that, despite government assurances to the contrary, the recent record of U.S. conduct exposes torture as part of the Bush administration's interrogation policies. "What is happening is that, although they profess that they don't teach torture, what results is torture," he said. "We know the end product based on what goes on at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib." He was referring, respectively, to the U.S. detention facility in Cuba and the prison in Iraq that is run by coalition forces west of Baghdad. Father Vitale, 74, retired pastor at St. Boniface Church in San Francisco, and Father Kelly, 58, who worked with Redwood City's Catholic Worker community, both face charges in Tucson, Ariz., of trespassing at Fort Huachuca near Sierra Vista.

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