Disclaimer:  At the outset, let me acknowledge Catholic college and seminary education, and earlier thoughts of the priesthood as a life’s calling.  As a recovering Catholic who hasn’t attended organized religious services in more than 17 years, I hold out no qualifications to comment upon a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey reported in today’s news other than my existence.

The survey was of just under 800 people comprised of white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated.  The subject of the survey was the use of torture.

The results tend to suggest that regular church goers are more likely to support the use of torture by our country to obtain information from prisoners.  Fifty four percent of those who regularly attend church services on a weekly basis said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed.

Apparently the fact that the use of torture is a crime matters not to those fifty four percent.  But, then again, if the teachings of Christ don’t matter, how can anyone be surprised by support for criminal activities?

Even those in the religious life when I was contemplating that same life for myself employed neat and tidy sophistry when it came to the concept of brotherhood and sisterhood – - with people we did not like, our prayer would be that God granted him or her their heavenly reward sooner rather than later.

No such intellectual acrobatics for these folks, though.  No pretense, either, which probably should be to their credit.  But it’s hard to reconcile the two seemingly incongruous positions.

On the one hand, we have the teachings that form the basis for the religious beliefs and practices of those church goers prescribing all of the New Testament teachings of Christ; on the other, we have the use of cruelty and criminal behavior.

While compassion and humility are among the most valued of human virtues, and certainly part of the spiritual teachings of the churches they attend, these folk apparently find they are of no value when it comes to the use of torture.  It’s probably fair to say that your most adored religious relic is true treasure, but you wouldn’t likely use it as a weapon . . . in battle, only a sword would do.

That’s pretty Old Testament-ish, as is the inclination to support torture, and it tosses out virtually all of the New Testament-ish teachings.  We often see those silly people asking their silly and rhetorical question of what Jesus would do, but perhaps it’s an appropriate question of those 54 percent.

One quarter of those surveyed did not support the use of torture under any circumstances, and that would seem to suggest an intellectual and spiritual consistency.  As for the others, though, well they’re at both ends.  It’s fair to ask them to reconcile those two ends and question the depth and substance of their spiritual beliefs.

Yes, life is difficult, and anger and fear and our will to live do drive us.  But so should an examined life.  Foundational values should count for something in that examination, and one either buys into one’s religious faith or not.  In for a penny, in for a pound should be more than just an old saw . . . it should matter in life.

Fifty four percent of the faithful say torture on.  They go to church each week, kneel in prayer, add a little something to the collection basket, shake the reverend’s hand on the way out, and feel good about themselves.  And then, at home,  when it comes to the criminal use of torture (not to suggest there is a non-criminal use of it), they say torture on.

I really don’t know what that means about the survey, or about the responses.  It just seems crooked and cockeyed to me, and I don’t understand it.  Do you?