Letter to Senate from Bishop Pates Regarding GITMO, November 18, 2013

Letter from Bishop Richard E. Pates, Chairman, Committee on International Justice and Peace to the U.S. Senate Regarding GITMO, November 18, 2013

As deliberations over the FY 2014 National Defense Authorization Act are underway, I write to express my support for sections 1031, 1032, and 1033 of S. 1197 that deal with the issue of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.  These provisions, while still restrictive, would allow our government to take practical steps toward drawing down the prisoner population in Guantanamo Bay and eventually closing the detention center. 

As Chair of the Committee on International Justice and Peace of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I wrote earlier in support of the release of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on CIA interrogation practices, including those used in Guantanamo on detainees.  In a June 2013 letter to Secretary Hagel, I expressed concern over the situation of many detainees in Guantanamo held for years without trial, encouraged the release of the 86 detainees already cleared, and urged that steps be taken to close Guantanamo since it has become a symbol of indefinite detention without trial. Copies of those letters are attached.   

The Catholic faith views torture as an “intrinsic evil” that cannot be justified under any circumstance.  At the same time, our moral teaching says that the human rights of detainees must be respected and that “the identification of the guilty party must be duly proven.”  The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church calls for “trials (to be) conducted swiftly: their excessive length is becoming intolerable for citizens and results in a real injustice (No. 404).” 

letter-to-senate-from-bishop-pates-supporting-s1197-provisions-2013-11-18.pdf