Good shepherd

While the Catholic bishops of the United States keep their stony silence about our government's "extraordinary rendition" of terror suspects to torture-friendly countries, a Church of England bishop is taking Western governments to task, according to the BBC. The bishop of Lichfield, the Right Reverend Jonathan Gledhill, likened Western governments use of torture to the worst abuses of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.

His warning: "We might become the thing we hate - killing the innocent, alienating people of good will, imposing our will wrongly on other nations." In other words, we're behaving a lot like the "brutal dictator" we deposed in Iraq.

What's better is that Gledhill's salary is paid by his government--the Church of England is established after all--so you'd think he'd tone down his political rhetoric. If he doesn't feel constrained, what's keeping our bishops from denouncing this outrageous attack on human dignity? If being prolife doesn't mean being against torture, I don't know what it means.

Yet by and large U.S. religious leaders are silent while our government keeps company with the devil.