Is boxing sinful? Two Roman Catholic moralists are slugging it out over the issue, while Italy roots at the ringside. In the staid church fortnightly. Palestra del Clero, Jesuit Alfredo Boschi has been conducting a campaign against the sport as a violation of the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." "Professional boxing can not be justified from a moral viewpoint but must be condemned as something gravely illicit in itself," he wrote. "It not only produces but aims to produce serious injuries which can become permanent and can lead to death."
The Vatican's official Osservatore Romano answered back, but not exactly wholeheartedly, with...