Torture expert banned from speaking at Catholic church — because he’s pro-choice

On Sunday, May 4, Dr. Steven Miles was scheduled to speak at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, the progressive South Minneapolis congregation that has played host to hot-button speakers like Gloria Steinem, former Dominican priest Matthew Fox and antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan. But Miles, a professor in the University of Minnesota’s Center for Bioethics, won’t be taking the podium. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, with a little prodding from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, has told the church Miles can’t speak there, not because of the content of his talk — torture — but because he’s pro-choice.

Miles is the author of “Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror,” and on Sunday he was scheduled to speak more generally on the topic during the adult education time that precedes mass. With a chuckle, he describes the talk, “Torture and the Courage to Be Inconvenienced” [pdf], as “a serious church chat.”

“I was writing it for a religious context, so it’s not like a progressive editorial,” he said. “I do a lot of church chats, so I’m a little taken aback to find this one so controversial.”

The controversy isn’t torture (although St. Joan’s description of the talk said, “Polls show that American Catholics are more likely to endorse torture than the public at large”). In fact, archdiocese communications representative Dennis McGrath commended Miles’ work on the topic, adding, “We’re not anti-Steven Miles.”

Still, Miles notes a sad link. “The interesting thing here is that torture causes abortions,” he said. “Women who are tortured abort during the application of torture. Furthermore, women with PTSD choose abortion after they survive torture.” Plus, it is just the kind of “sanctity of life” issue the church often addresses.

But it’s pro-life or no deal, Miles says. “The position the MCCL is taking is that no voice can address any subject within the church unless that voice is anti-abortion, which would seem to cut the church off from a fair amount of social dialogue.”

In fact, that’s the church’s stated policy, too.The archdiocese’s official statement reads:

This decision was necessitated solely because of Dr. Miles’ public advocacy of abortion, which is fundamentally contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church. It is also consistent with guidance offered by a task force of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at a meeting on Faithful Citizenship in Dallas in 2004. This guidance states that ‘the Catholic community should not provide speaking platforms for those who act in defiance of our basic moral principles.’ The decision is in no way a repudiation of Dr. Miles’ commendable work in the area of torture and torture victims.

Reached by phone late Friday, McGrath acknowledged that Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life had a role in getting the talk shut down. Miles has an inkling, which he calls “pure speculation,” why the organization has it in for him. Several years ago, MCCL was instrumental in getting language added to the Minnesota Department of Health’s materials that linked abortions to the risk of breast cancer. “They got that through the Legislature essentially on a pro-life, anti-choice argument,” he says. “I got it taken out by restructuring the public discussion: that we need a credible health department and that it was too deep a price to pay to sacrifice the credibility of the health department for this political agenda, because of all the other issues we depended on them for for information.” He says Minnesota’s action in pulling the questionable information led several other states to do the same.

The talk will go on. St. Joan’s peace and justice coordinator Julie Madden called up another Catholic institution and asked to use their space. Next Tuesday night, Miles will give a presentation at the Carondelet Center, owned by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, in St. Paul.

Madden wouldn’t comment for this story, except to say, “I will do everything I can to ensure that Dr. Miles’ commitment to ending state-sanctioned torture is heard by as many people as possible.”