|
|
 |
|
CNS Story:
|
BOXING-CIVILTA Oct-14-2005 (490 words) With photo posted Oct. 13. xxxi
Jesuit magazine calls professional boxing 'attempted murder'
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- An influential Jesuit magazine condemned professional boxing as "a form of legalized attempted murder," saying it has left more than 500 boxers dead over the last 100 years.
The magazine, La Civilta Cattolica, said in an editorial that the moral judgment on boxing can only be "gravely and absolutely negative." In addition to suffering tremendous violence, boxers are first exploited, then abandoned by huge economic interests and often finish their days punch-drunk and impoverished, it said.
The magazine's articles are reviewed before publication by the Vatican Secretariat of State and are thus thought to reflect Vatican opinion. The editorial against boxing appeared in the Oct. 15 issue, about three weeks after U.S. boxer Levander Johnson died from brain injuries suffered in a lightweight title fight.
The magazine called Johnson the latest victim of a sport that seems to accept the death of boxers.
"The dead don't count for anything in boxing. Instead, what count are the enormous interests that lies behind boxing matches," it said.
The magazine said boxers typically absorb more than 1,000 punches in an average fight, many of them to the head, provoking the certain death of brain cells that are not replaced. Victory consists in striking the opponent with such violence that he falls to the ground or loses consciousness, it said.
A knockout is often the direct result of damage inflicted to the brain, it said.
Unlike other sports that also include an element of risk, the violence of boxing is intended and inevitably provokes physical damage, the magazine said. For that reason, it goes against the basic commandment, "Do not kill," it said.
The magazine distinguished between professional boxing and boxing done as a controlled sport in a gymnasium with protective equipment, which it said can be morally acceptable and even useful.
Professional boxing, it said, is an industry controlled by powerful economic organizations which are often "pitiless and cruel," and for which the boxer is simply a moneymaking machine.
The economic aspects heighten the moral judgment against the sport, the editorial said. Another aggravating factor, it said, is that boxing matches often incite sentiments of violence among spectators.
The magazine said professional boxing is not reformable because of its intrinsically cruel nature. But suppressing the sport has been impossible to date because of the economic interests involved, it said.
The magazine said it was raising the issue of the immorality of boxing because "the human conscience cannot fail to rebel and cannot remain silent in the face of aberrations that are so contrary to human and Christian morality and gravely damaging to man, his life and his dignity."
"Nor can it be accepted that human life be subjected to the 'imperialism of money' or to the passion of spectators," it said.
It said modern boxing is reminiscent of the bloody and mortal combat of gladiators, but the ancient gladiatorial battles disappeared as Christianity spread.
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250
|
|
|
|
