Cardinal Says U.S. Treated Saddam 'Like a Cow'

Yahoo! News / Reuters ^ | 12-16-2003 | Philip Pullella

[sitetest]

[LM's note: This thread is degenerating a bit into Catholic bashing and general flaming, and is in risk of being moved to the smokey backroom. Please stop. I've locked it once, and it has continued. Any more and it is gone. Thanks.]

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A top Vatican (news - web sites) official said Tuesday he felt pity and compassion for Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and criticized the U.S. military for showing video footage of him being treated "like a cow."

Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Justice and Peace department and a former papal envoy to the United Nations (news - web sites), told a news conference it would be "illusory" to think the arrest of the former Iraqi president would heal all the damage caused by a war which the Holy See opposed.

"I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures," he said.

"Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," he said in answer to questions about Saddam's arrest.

Martino was referring to the videotape released by the U.S. military which showed a grubby, bearded and disheveled Saddam receiving a medical examination by a military doctor after his capture in an underground hole Saturday.

Martino was one of the Vatican officials most strongly opposed to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (news - web sites).

"It's true that we should be happy that this (arrest) has come about because it is the watershed that was necessary... we hope that this will not have worse and other serious consequences," Martino said.

"But it is not the total solution to the problems of the Middle East," he said.

Martino said the Vatican hoped the arrest of Saddam "can contribute to promoting peace and the democratization of Iraq."

He added: "But is seems to me to be illusory to hope that this will repair the dramas and the damage of the defeat for humanity that a war always brings about."

The Vatican did not consider the war in Iraq "a just war" because it was not backed by the United Nations and because the Vatican believed more negotiations were necessary to avoid it.

Martino said the Vatican wanted an "appropriate institution" to put Saddam on trial but he did not elaborate.

U.S. forces were keeping the ousted 66-year-old dictator at a secret location for interrogation before he is put on trial in the months ahead. He could face the death penalty.

The news conference was called for Martino to present the World Day of Peace message, in which Pope John Paul (news - web sites) took a swipe at the United States for invading Iraq without the backing of the United Nations.

[Stop Legal Plunder]

"I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures," he said..."Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," he said in answer to questions about Saddam's arrest.

A couple of reality checks for the Cardinal:

(1) TV footage of a dental exam may not be beautiful, but it's hardly tragic. Calling such tragedy is to debase our appreciation of real tragedy, such as when an innocent, Jesus, is executed in place of the guilty. Surely this isn't news to our "top Vatican official"

(2) "Compassion" literally means to "suffer with." Dictionary.com provides this contemporary definition: "Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it." Neither definition applies here. The only suffering Saddam faced when filmed was shame at being caught by his enemy despite the boast to die fighting. I don't see how the Cardinal could have deep awareness of that; he certainly wasn't suffering with Saddam.

Such pious platitudes are, once again, in sharp contrast to the reality exemplified by Christ, who's compassion for his elect was expressed in his suffering with them by setting aside his glory to become a man and die by capital punishment for the sins of other men. If the Cardinal wishes to follow this example and take Saddam's place in the firing squad, then I'll grant him his claim to compassion.

In the meantime, he should keep his sympathy to himself rather than boast about it to the media, which he should recall aren't friends of the Vatican in the first place.

[HamiltonJay]

Well, Guess the Vatican just lost some funding from my pocketbook this year.... While I completely understand the need for compassion... doing nothing in the face of tyranny is a lesson that the Church should have learned the falacy of in the 30s and 40s, and standing up to tyranny was part of its aid in destroying the spread of communism. It is depressing to hear such rhetoric from the Vatican regarding yet another tyrant.

[oyez]

Where I come from cows are treated fairly well, except for the castration thing and the slaughter later on. Sounds kind of appropriate to me.

[Domestic Church]

"This guys definition of "peace" is being dead."

Very interesting interpretation...given the socialist highjacking of the word "peace".

[Wondervixen]

>>What can I say?

How about "Mooooooo"?

Someone at Vatican City needs to get over it. Hussein is being treated better than any of his victims ever were!

[Stop Legal Plunder]

This clown is not the Holy See, nor does he speak for the Holy See. He's just one of hundreds of functionaries.

If he's not fired or publicly reprimanded, he does speak for the Holy See. A Biblical principle of authority is that when a subordinate speaks or acts, if the person senior to him is silent, that silence is the same as agreement.

[Domestic Church]

"I can't even abide the phrase "Justice of the Peace" anymore. It's gotten that bad."

The word peace has become a major red flag.

Peace on earth means a totally different thing to the socialist mindset.

[Askel5]

=== Certainly the Cardinal can find a more sympathetic character than Saddam for whom to seek "peace and justice."

And, quite frankly, I don't think the making public of a cursory medical exam for a murderous, thug despot is the zenith of injustice but, rather, shows a modicum of charity as found in the rules of behavior which govern the just treatment of prisoners.

I do hope that -- should Saddam receive due process and a speedy trial (in international court as Ziggy B and others are arguing) -- we might consider doing the same for the poor SOBs we're holding in Gitmo, none of whose crimes come even close to those committed by Saddam.

[Stop Legal Plunder]

Cardinal is a leftist from Spain and a very very very liberal social justice cardinal. He does not speak for the Catholic Church!

Roman church polity, unlike nearly all Protestant churches, is top down. So the pope either appointed this Cardinal directly or had to approve of his appointment (unless he's been there longer than the pope, but even in this case, the pope could still fire him). So claiming this guy doesn't speak for the Roman church will only be believable if he's publicly fired for his pro-Saddam comments.

[AAABEST]

I saw you tried to ping me to the other thread, this guy is a major a-hole.

Gosh I wish we could remove the liberals and fags from our midst.

[tomahawk]

If the Pope and the Catholic Church had their way, Saddam would still be ruling in Baghdad, the torture chambers would be operating, and millions of Iraqis would be under the rule of a mass-murdering despot.

[Domestic Church]

"This is one of the clearest examples of the degree to which the Church hierarchy is out of touch with reality."

Maybe they are trying to form "reality".

[GWB00]

As a comitted Catholic, these comments have me more angry than you can imagine. I have sent the following note via fax to the Cardinal.

Renato Raffaele Cardinal Martino

Pontifical Council for Justice and PeaceCardinal, President

00153 Roma, Piazza S. Calisto, 16; 00120 Citta del Vaticano

Fax: 06.69.88.72.05

Dear Cardinal Martino:

I read with great regret the comments that you made regarding the capture of Saddam Hussein by the coalition forces in Iraq.

As a committed Catholic, I find your comments outrageous and unfounded. I only have to remind you of the fact 400,000 human beings, God’s creations, have been documented to be murdered under this man’s orders.

Please let me stress to you again, FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND HUMAN BEINGS WERE MURDERED AS A RESULT OF THIS MAN’S REGIME and you sir make the claim that the U.S. has treated this Saddam Hussein like a cow?You are out of your mind and I pray with all of my heart to the Lord our God that the Church blesses us with more thoughtful leaders than yourself. It is disgusting that you would make this claim and to do so dishonors the 400,000 souls that have perished in Iraq under the hand of this man.

I also find it is ironic that you are heading up the Council for Justice and Peace for the Vatican. Despite your objections on how the war was conducted, Saddam has been brought to justice and he will be fairly put on trial for his crimes. There could be nothing more just than that.

If you were to have your wishes on how the situation was handled in Iraq, this homicidal maniac would still be in power. There is no justice or peace under that scenario.

My prayers and compassion go out to all of those that have suffered because of this man. My prayers also go out to you and that you may one day recognize who are the real victims in this world

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Moooo!

[Domestic Church]

"This just disgusts me."

As it was calculated to do.

[Stop Legal Plunder]

"So my expectations are low that anything will actually change this time."

Okay, well, I'm a Catholic, and I say the guy is getting no worse than he deserves.

A belief in individual's liberty to disagree with formal church positions is fundamentally Protestant... you may go to mass, but you've already converted... =)

[kedd]

I have one question.......where was this bum when all the kids were being molested by priests. If he thinks Saddam was humiliated, what the hell does he think the little boys who were raped by priests felt like? These pigs make me ashamed to be Catholic.

[Aliska]

Well, I suppose I'll ruin my day here, but I felt pity for him, too. As I feel horror and pity for his many victims.

Sometimes I get so mad about the way those cardinals turn blind eyes on things, I wish they were dragged out of holes like that. Then when someone like Law and Geoghan get dragged out of their holes, I feel pity at their public humiliation.

I would rather these people be stopped before they perpetrate such horrors on humanity.

Right now, there are some democrats I wouldn't mind seeing dragged out of a hole. Then if it happened, I would probably feel pity for them. What a paradox.

[OpusatFR]

I still say it met the criteria for a just war.

[St.Chuck]

I think the cardinal was mainly criticizing the military for showing the video of Saddam's exam. I guess he doesn't equate the humiliation of the perp with compassion for the victims. Go figure.

Having read many of the responses, you'd think that the American government and military had attained the Church's state of indefectiblity and infallibility.