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By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON -- The dignity and respect of the human person is the cornerstone of the U.S. bishops' new study guide on torture as a moral issue.

The guide, titled "Torture: Torture Is a Moral Issue, a Catholic Study Guide," looks at church teaching as it relates to the use of torture by government authorities around the world and mixes in biblical passages that evoke Jesus' call to "love your enemies."

Though the sexual revolution of the 1960s was almost as half century ago, some Catholic commentators are now finding that our culture is suddenly rife with sexual immorality. Many of the practices these commentators decry have been with us for some time now, and yet the Church has not chosen to address these as if they portend the end of Western civilization. These include the widespread practice of artificial contraception by Catholic couples and the cohabitation of heterosexual couples prior to marriage.

It was brought the the bishops attention that a request was made in writing, that he should change the address information of the diocese Pastoral Center. For years now, the name of our deceased bishop still is shown as the bishop of our diocesan Pastoral center. To support that request, the bishop was reminded (as if the bishop needed to be reminded) that our deceased bishop was listed publicly as one of America's 10 worsts bishops, having moved a number of abusive priests from parish to parish without warning the assigned parish that the priests had abused children. The culpability, for every child abused because of an abusive priest, to continue victimizing other children, has to be shared by any responsible bishop. In addition, as a result of the bishops failure to do the right thing, he compounded the tragic sexual abuse crimes which ultimately caused the diocese to go into bankruptcy because of the financial settlements. Several months has gone by and the bishop has failed to reply to that request. The failure to indicate what action the bishop is planning to do or not to do and his reason why, leaves 350,000 with a mixed message. The name of our late bishop and the diocese involved has not been revealed because of obvious reasons.