Question: Is it possible to hit anyone and still have them maintain their dignity?
Pope Francis seems to think so. He said as much recently before his general, weekly audience in regard to fathers disciplining children.
Francis made clear that ?good fathers? certainly know how to forgive their children, but should also ?correct with firmness? without ?discouraging? a child.
Apparently, ?correct with firmness? means an occasional ruler across the knuckles or a switch along the backside, so long as the child does not feel demeaned or discouraged as a result.
What child, however ? what person ? would not feel such emotions after being beaten?
Granted, ?beaten? is a tough sounding word where others may choose to use a softer word through justification of corporal punishment, but if you hit your child light or hard, once or often, you are still hitting your child, no?
Francis stated:
?One time, I heard a father in a meeting with married couples say ?I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face so as to not humiliate them.??
Francis then shared his reply to the father with his audience:
?How beautiful. He knows the sense of dignity! He has to punish them but does it justly and moves on.?
So there is a distinction that a smack to the face is demeaning, but a swat on the rump or elsewhere less so, which makes a little sense in some regard, but doesn’t mean a child does not feel shame or discouragement from being hit elsewhere, especially if it is in public.
Interestingly, collaborator with the Vatican press office, Rev. Thomas Rosica, stated that the pope was clearly not recommending ?violence or cruelty? toward a child, only ?helping someone to grow and mature.?
But why, of the myriad of options available to the supposedly sophisticated, evolved, complex animal that is mankind, do we feel hitting a child is an acceptable means for ?helping someone to grow and mature?? And what right does anyone have to hit another, ever, outside of, perhaps, self-defense?
Certainly, anyone who’s ever been a parent would recognize the impulse to spank a child, but does that make it any more just? Does one have any more right to hit that child simply because they are his or her parent, than say, one does to hit any other person for angering them, or doing something ?wrong? in front of them? If that is the case, if that works so well, we could sure speed up the legal system and take care of the prison over-population problem in this country really quick by just giving all these offenders a good beating, right?
But we don’t do that, do we? No, we just lock them up and forget about them. Perhaps, if they are too bad, we’ll kill them ? that’s the closest we get.
And sometimes kids end up dead from corporal punishment gone too far, too, right?
Again, what right does anyone have to hit a child? Or anyone? And why does that logic of corporal punishment go away once people reach adulthood? Perhaps because most adults would not stand for such violence and disrespect directed toward them?
But children don’t know any better. They think they have to take it, and they are prisoners to their environment, and whatever backwoods issues any given parent feels is an offense worth a beating, whether it is stealing, or simply being gay. There is too much gray area, too few lines drawn, too much room for vague interpretation for the right to hit children, and the children have no say in it whatsoever.
Rosica stated in an email:
?Who has not disciplined their child or been disciplined by parents when we are growing up? Simply watch Pope Francis when he is with children and let the images and gestures speak for themselves. To infer or distort anything else? reveals a greater problem for those who don’t seem to understand a pope who has ushered in a revolution of normalcy of simple speech and plain gesture.?
Only last year, the Catholic church’s embrace of corporal punishment was under harsh criticism, too, when it was interrogated by a UN human rights committee following up on the implementation of a UN treaty regarding the rights of children.
That committee’s final report had to remind the Holy See that the UN’s treaty stated in no uncertain terms that signatories should take every step, including legislative, to stand up for protecting children from violence both mentally and physically, including from and by parents, themselves, and that includes education. Speaking before his weekly audience on behalf of a corporal punishment hardly seems like the type of ?education? the UN’s committee was expecting.
Like dealing with most other addictions, the Catholic church is arguing for moderation when it comes to hitting children. Apparently, that does not extend to pedophilia, however.
The committee recommends a change in legislation by the Vatican that explicitly prohibits corporal punishment, even within the family unit. It also urges the Church to get tough and begin enforcing bans on corporal punishment within schools and other institutions around the world.
Stories of corporal punishment abuse coming out of Catholic schools have long been so common they are clich? at this point, which is yet one more reason why recommendations have been issued in the committee’s report on the heels of yet more rampant physical abuse in Catholic schools, especially in Ireland. Abuse in Catholic schools in Ireland is being referred to as at ?endemic levels.?
The Vatican responded with a disingenuous play at helplessness, stating that it really had no means for enforcing a ban of corporal punishment in Catholic schools, where it claims to have ?no jurisdiction,? further stating that it could only really be sure to implement the ban within the confines of the Vatican City State.
While it is true and highly unlikely the Vatican will install officers to stand at attention in Catholic schools across the world in order to ensure corporal punishment is being avoided, the Pope could certainly reign his influence over the masses with a few key, direct words ? words that go in another direction from calling corporal punishment ?Beautiful,? as he did responding to that father mentioned above. A strong stance against corporal punishment by the Vatican would certain bear a ripple effect around the world that would, at the very least, help.
Part of the Vatican’s written response to the UN committee’s report stated:
?[Parents] should be able to rectify their child’s inappropriate action by imposing certain reasonable consequences for such behaviour, taking into consideration the child’s ability to understand the same as corrective.?
So the Vatican begs the question: Is hitting a child ?reasonable??
Roughly 39 countries throughout the globe, from Sweden to South Sudan, stand against corporal punishment under any circumstances and in any setting, but in the U.S. parents are legally able to hit their children as long as it is ?reasonable.? We even allow schools in 19 states to beat our kids for us, within ?reason.?
Are seclusion rooms reasonable, simply because a child is not hit?
Again, what is ?reasonable??
The UN proposal is being brought back to Rome for consideration by the Vatican’s head of delegation.
Discuss.
H/T: theguardian.com | Featured image: via Flickr
