By Eileen Connelly, OSU

ARCHDIOCESE — University of Dayton president Daniel J. Curran recently _became the first head of a U.S. Catholic university to sign a national petition calling for the President of the United States to reject cruelty and torture.

The petition, the "Declaration of Principles for a Presidential Executive Order on Prisoner Treatment" is from the Minneapolis-based Center for Victims of Torture. The center has mounted a nationwide effort as part of its "Campaign to Ban Torture: American Voices for _American Values."

CT/E.L. Hubbard

With University of Dayton president Daniel Curran looking on, Archbishop Daniel E. _Pilarczyk signs the Declaration of Principals for a Presidential Executive Order on Prisoner Treatment from the Center for Victims of Torture.

The university’s human rights studies program, under the direction of Mark Ensalaco, hosted the event in partnership with the Center for Victims of Torture.

The center, along with Evangelicals for Human Rights and the National Religious Campaign against Torture, is building bi-partisan support for the declaration around the country to preserve American ideals and regain U.S. moral leadership in the world. The center has enlisted Ensalaco to promote the signing of the declaration in Ohio. The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities’ (ACCU) peace and social justice advisory committee may consider endorsing the declaration as a board at its November meeting, Ensalaco said, or may encourage individual college and university presidents to sign.

"I see my role as promoting the declaration among Catholics," Ensalaco said. "It made sense to me as a Catholic at a respected Catholic institution of Catholic education to try to reach out to Catholics. Obviously, the church’s teaching on opposition to torture is unequivocal. There is nothing particularly controversial about the declaration. What is significant is the aim of the campaign to convince the next president to sign a presidential executive order that will have an immediate effect on prisoner treatment, so the Catholic voice is important. The signatures of Archbishop Pilarczyk and President Curran are especially significant _because their moral authority will carry great weight as the campaign moves _forward."

"UD intends to be at the forefront of this issue," Dan Curran said. "As a Catholic, Marianist university, we affirm the statement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that the use of torture must be rejected as fundamentally _incompatible with the dignity of the human person and ultimately counter-productive in combating terrorism."

"As a Catholic university it’s very clear that we should be engaged in this," Curran added. "There is a sense of social justice in the fact that this (the signing of the declaration) is occurring. It’s a moral and justice issue that we should be addressing."

Four former high-ranking CIA, Department of Defense and military officials — Peter Mansoor, Carl Ford, William H. Taft IV and Donald Gregg — participated in the event as part of a panel discussion to explain why they believe the president should issue a presidential executive order that unequivocally rejects torture and cruelty to prisoners. Ford was a U.S. assistant secretary of state; Taft was a legal advisor to the U.S. State Department under President George W. Bush; Gregg was a national security advisor under Vice President George H.W. Bush; and Mansoor was an advisor to Gen. David Petraeus, who served as commander of the multinational forces in Iraq. All have signed the declaration, which encourages whomever is in the Oval Office to abide by the "golden rule," the rule of law and the duty to protect all prisoners from abuse. The declaration also stresses that the president should adhere to constitutional checks and balances and should give all U.S. personnel the certainty the policies they implement are legal.

Curran said he appreciated the military and government officials’ take on the need to ban torture and cruelty saying, "They made it clear that it’s never part of what they do and that it’s been frowned on for generations. They don’t believe that torture provides accurate information. There are other forms of intelligence gathering that are non-violent and more effective."

Curran also expressed his gratitude for Archbishop Pilarczyk’s presence on the panel and the theological perspective he provided on the issue.

"Torture is not immoral merely because it hurts another. It is immoral because it intends to supercede the free will, the basic personhood of another with my free will, with my personhood," the archbishop said. "It’s an attempt to make the victim become the perpetrator."

"There’s a lot of evil around in the world. Torture is merely one kind," he continued. "But it’s good for us to be aware that these kinds of violence are linked by contempt for the human _dignity of the other and that the acceptance of one kind of anti-personal violence can logically and quickly lead to others. When human dignity is threatened, we are all in danger."