Though I’d seen billboards for tattoo conventions, I’d never been to one. Then, of a sudden, I was in the middle of one. There it was, in the lobby of the hotel where the American Maritain Association was holding its annual conference. Every day we’re all seeing more tattoos. Pew Research reports that 32% of Americans are sporting at least one, and more women than men are “inked.” Butterflies can be cute, right? And just tune in to an NBA game! Most players are emblazoned with a tattoo “sleeve.”

But here, gentle reader, I hope to offer only a modest defense of “body art.” Forget the garish, the ghastly, and the grotesque. (Even worse are gang insignia.) Such corporeal graffiti, much in evidence at tattoo conventions, approaches self-mutilation. Nonetheless, there are other tattoos that merit a modest defense. Research shows that 69% of Americans with tattoos say their motive in having them is to honor or remember someone; many others answer that their motive is to highlight an important belief. Of course, some folks regret their rash tattoos. Ink in haste, repent at leisure. But G.K. Chesterton, in his essay “A Defense of Rash Vows,” argues that critics of marriage vows misunderstand what it is to be human. We are not simply shifting aggregates of desires. Rather, we are enduring persons. It is you and I who act, not our untethered consciousness. Chesterton puts it so well: “The man who makes a vow makes an appointment with himself at some distant time or place. The danger of it is that he himself should not keep the appointment. And in modern times this terror of one’s self, of the weakness and mutability of one’s self, has perilously increased, and is the real basis of the objection to vows of any kind.”

It is because of our weakness that the Lord assures us, “I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:16). Might such an inscription serve as a metaphor for a tattoo? Later in the same passage, knowing our deepest fears, we read, “I will contend with those who contend with you and I will save your children.”

My modest defense of tattoos, then, is an apologia for tattoos that truly honor the beloved or affirm a heartfelt belief. Such tattoos are lasting signs of the constant worth of a person or a personal credo.

Here, though, I ask forbearance. Please allow me to pivot from a modest defense to an immodest proposal. I have often proposed a specific penal role for the tattoo. Many say that we have too long fought, and now manifestly lost, a war on drugs. Not so. We must continue to fight a war that we dare not lose. A small part of that fight should be the tattooing of convicted manufacturers and distributors of methamphetamines and fentanyl. I suggest that we tattoo their foreheads with a bold MM for “meth murders” of FM for “fentanyl murders.” The tattoo would be in addition to heavy fines and long prison terms.

Scripture (Genesis 4:15) tells us that God employed “the mark of Cain” to prevent anyone from killing Cain in revenge for his murdering Abel. We do not know what the mark was, but many assume that it was visible, perhaps on the face. Whether the murderer is Cain or the street-drug manufacturer, repentance and forgiveness is possible. It is possible as well for all of us who harbor murderous thoughts. As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, the chief sign of God’s power is His ability to forgive us. “God’s omnipotence is particularly shown in sparing and having mercy, because in this is it made manifest that God has supreme power, that He freely forgives sins.” (ST I, q. 25, art. 3, ad 3)