Pope Francis speaks out about removing suspected terrorists to torture centers

Although former Vice President Dick Cheney is not Roman Catholic, I'm sure he's feeling the brunt of a statement by Pope Francis about "renditions".

Certainly, no one wants to presume to put words in the mouth of a Pope. Nevertheless, when the subject a Pope speaks about is clearly directed to the actions of the George W. Bush administration, and VP Cheney and torture....well.....seems like the Pope was pretty clear who he was talking about.  

In my opinion, the Pope's comments specifically had Vice-President Dick Cheney in his salient message. It's a bad day for Cheney, regardless of his personal religious beliefs.

Although Pope Francis is frank in his opinion against "renditions", the fact is, the tactics of bringing Al Qaeda fighters to camps where they were exposed to torture has not improved US national security. Regardless of how people may feel or respond to the use of torture to obtain intelligence information, the fact is, the cruel tactics have never been proven to work. Now, Pope Francis is singling out the practice as cruel, in remarks reported in Newsmax.

Pope Condemns Extraordinary Renditions in Law Talk

Rendition: The legal procedure or process of sending a suspected criminal to another country to be interrogated or detained, usually for law-enforcement purposes.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rendition?s=t

Pope Francis has condemned the practice of extraordinary renditions used by the CIA after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

In a speech to the International Association of Penal Law on Thursday, Francis also called life prison terms "hidden death sentences" and denounced the use of preventive detention as a "hidden, illegal punishment."

He urged all people of good will to fight against the death penalty and to work to improve prison conditions overall so that inmates' dignity is respected.

Francis urged the international community to stop renditions, saying it was an "abuse" for countries to allow suspects to be kidnapped from their territory and transferred to torture centers. He said the principle of the dignity of each human being must prevail over everything.

Dear Vice President Dick Cheney - I can't justify your support for torture under any circumstances, but now the Pope is speaking out about renditions.  Finally.......Pope Francis, a man who clearly has a higher calling than anything political, is calling you out. Amen.