Tomorrow, we will address the morality of torture from both deontological and consequentialists viewpoints. Here I’d like to refer you to what a prominent relatively orthodox Catholic believes about the Catholic Church’s teachings regarding the morality of torture. The Catholic Church knows what of it speaks as it attempted to water-board” Jews into accepting the tenets of the Catholic faith in Spain centuries ago. Mark Shea writes this about the Catholic Church’s views on torture (I encourage you to read his whole post):
The Church’s basic teaching on torture is laid out in Veritatis Splendor 80 (followed by a discussion of what the Holy Father means by “intrinsically immoral” acts). VS cites, I believe, Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes (though I could be wrong and my memory is groggy this early). The Church does not define what torture is (leaving that matter to common sense and to the specialized knowledge of those whose job it has historically been to know such as police, judges, interrogators, philosphers, and other people of good will who operate in the field where interrogation and police work must be done).
The basic guidelines the Church proposes are pretty simple
1. Don’t do evil that good may come of it. [This is about as strong an injunction against consequentialism as is possible.]
2. Some things are intrinsically evil, meaning you *can’t* do them under any circumstance.
3. Torture is one of these things.
4. If you are confused about what “torture” is, then bear in mind the Church’s *other* command, which is that we must treat prisoners humanely, not merely “not torture them”. Aim for that, and you won’t accidently torture them.
5. Seek the intelligence you need while bearing in mind the above.Some of the basic attempts to justify the use of torture are:
Clouds, Clocks, and Sitting at Tables 
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