Posted on 07/02/2015 7:08:22 AM PDT by Gamecock
This week, Pope Francis informed an audience in Turin that gun manufacturers—and those invested in the weapons industries—were hypocrites if they called themselves Christians. Francis, who earlier this year accused weapons makers of participating in an “industry of death,” explained: “It makes me think of … people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn’t it?”
Well, not really.
This piece comes with customary caveat that English-speaking media tends to tweak the translation of the Pope’s messages just enough to mislead or strip it of proper context—or sometimes, miss the point entirely. But let’s just say his position is not compatible with the conventional American view that peace can be achieved through superior firepower. Of course, no one should expect the Pope to mollycoddle arms dealers (and I leave the theological discussion about his comments to those more invested in what he says) but, as a historical matter, the Pope may consider that some weapon makers can be a force for good.
For starters, if you consider that self-defense is a civil right— and, to some extent, most Americans still give this notion some lip service—a quick reading of European history tells us it can be perilous for minorities to be denied the right to bear arms. Being defenseless can be even more dangerous than owning an air conditioner, in some instances. And since the Pope brings it up, let’s consider the Jews, who were left without any means of defending themselves not that long ago.
Here’s the Pope on the topic in that Turin talk:
He spoke of the “tragedy of the Shoah,” using the Hebrew term for the Holocaust “The great powers had the pictures of the railway lines that brought the
trains to the concentration camps like Auschwitz to kill Jews, Christians, homosexuals, everybody. Why didn’t they bomb (the railway lines)?”
A thought-provoking question. Also mystifying, considering Francis’ other contention. If the Allies had disrupted the rail lines to concentration camps, wouldn’t those who manufactured the bombs that made saving them possible be engaged in a moral pursuit? One imagines the Jews, Christians, homosexuals, and everybody else involved, would have thought so. In 1948 and 1967, when Jews were armed (with weapons sold to them by predominantly French Catholics) they were able to insure that comparable cruelty was not visited on them again.
But let’s make it more personal, and point out that the Pope has been protected by the Swiss Guard since the 1500s— and those guys pack an array of high-powered contemporary weaponry to gets the job done. Because, unless everyone in the world retires their weapons there’s always going to be some malicious types with plans.
Then, of course, there is history that most of you are probably familiar with to consider.
More than that, Catholicism may have survived German-style fascism for a while, but it was their faith and an arsenal of extraordinarily destructive weaponry that saved millions of Catholics from falling under the atheistic tyranny of Communism. Without Western weapon makers, things may have turned out a bit differently for the righteous.
One the most famous naval engagements in history pitted forces of the Holy League, Christians supported by Pope Pius V, against the invading Ottoman Turks. It was the first major victory for a Christian naval force over a Turkish fleet, a victory driven, by, among other things, technological advances in weaponry. Here’s Victor Davis Hanson in “Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power”:
In truth, the six colossal oddities were recently constructed Venetian galleasses. Each carried nearly fifty heavy guns – bristling from starboard and port, shooting over the bow and from the poop deck, guns it seemed booming everywhere. Each of these novel monstrosities could deliver more than six times as much shot as the largest oared ship in Europe- and in terms of firepower alone were worth a dozen of the sultan’s galleys.
When the news of the military victory reached Pius V he offered a prayer in St. Peter’s Basilica and spoke of his hopes for similar victories in the future. Even though Europe ended up losing some ground later on, it was this victory that help consolidate Christian forces against the invading Muslims and, thus, helped save Italy from minarets.
For a few centuries, at least.
For two months a giant Ottoman army surrounded the Vienna before being repelled by armies of the Holy Roman Empire and others, effectively ending the threat of Muslim incursions into central Europe. One imagines that the Pope didn’t accuse Polish King Jan III Sobieski of being ‘the savior of Western European civilization’ because he was showering his enemy with goodwill.
Gibbons offered his famous counter-historical observation that Tours “rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our neighbours of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran.” Charles Martel— whose grandchild would be crowned emperor by the Pope— against a much larger Islamic army that would be have marched through France and, who knows, perhaps all of Europe. Instead, the Arab army retreated south over the Pyrenees never to come back. As Ed Creasy put it, “The progress of civilization, and the development of the nationalities and governments of modern Europe, from that time fort went forward in not uninterrupted, but, ultimately, certain career.”
The night before the battle with his Roman rival Maxentius, pagan Emperor Constantine is said to have seen a vision in which God instructed him to engrave Christian crosses on army’s shields. After an impressive victory, Constantine attributed his good fortune to God. Within in one year, he would allow Christians—and others—the freedom to practice their religion in the empire. Though Constantine did not retire his army. Since he, like we, still had enemies in this world. Someone needs to make weapons to help defend against them. The Pope should know this. After all, his own Church would be very different without them.
Dear Pope, Please take your meds and get some rest.
This Pope demonstrates just how dangerous and delusional it is to be a socialist.
At the time, the Venetian Empire was the center of the capitalist world and the leading power in the Mediterranean.
By the PC standards of today, it would be considered filthy rich and grossly unfair. Among other things, their capital city of Venice was filled with brothels and orphanages with the resulting thousands of offspring produced by those illicit unions. The famed composer Vivaldi was a Catholic priest in one of those girl's orphanages who composed some of his best works for the young ladies there taught to play violins and other string instruments, including his signature work The Four Seasons.
Other orphanages formed choirs, created great works of art or engaged in other activities to make Venice a great center of art as well as commerce.. It was a shining example of what could be done by training rather than aborting unwanted children.
How does this effect Saint Barbara, Saint of armourers?
I think he and Obama are two peas in the one world government pod.
I do think the Church is dying and this little anti-Christ type pope is attempting to be relevant.
Ping
Some of these victories prevented Arabic from being the home language of Europe.
Think about it.
I hear that's what he has requested for his upcoming trip to Bolivia .
It may be dying in Europe and North America, plus the more metropolitan areas of Asia. If you travel to Africa, South America, and in the less developed portions of Asia, you would find that Christianity is very much alive and doing quite well. There are more Baptists in the PRC today than there are in the US for example. Baptist house churches there are usually called “the healing places” and not churches.
Christianity has always been a counter-cultural theology, more at home with the downtrodden and poor than with those that have a prosperous life to manage, filled with luxuries to accumulate and hoard. A plain reading of scripture indicates that an attempt to fit materialism, gluttony, self-sufficiency, and the childish desire “to be happy” within authentic Christianity is a tall order. The American experiment in trying to do that may be coming to an end.
One could argue that the Christian church in the US essentially yielded its duty to feed the poor, care for the sick, and parent the orphaned to the government. In the process, it took the easy path of letting the bureaucrat replace the local congregations, pastors, and deacons in providing the social safety net. We Americans are fond of the easy path.
Simply put, if the church is no longer showing the love of Christ in tangible ways, it becomes little more than a social club (at best) or a clanging gong of loveless bible thumpers and a political movement (at worst). In Africa, the church is often the only thing between some inhabitants of a village and starvation, but the people of that village are actively engaged and living out the vibrant and active New Testament theology.
Most of those victories were against Muslims and we still battle them today.
I would argue that the weapons saved Western Civilization, and not just for the Christians.
O’Sullivan’s law states that any organization not explicitly conservative will turn liberal over time. I guess the Church is no exception.
I guess they wanted to pick someone that was 180 degrees from Benedict.......Liberalism is a mental disorder.....think he’s mental.
Charles Martel is Dead—Madam LePen—please answer the call on the Red Phone.
“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
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