Posted on 12/16/2003 5:54:51 AM PST by sitetest
Edited on 12/16/2003 7:13:44 AM PST by Lead Moderator. [history]
[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.
You're not that dumb. You know about Gramsci.
SD
Even the ones that are lies?
You don't know the history. Be careful.
You're not that dumb. You know about Gramsci.
Look at the context of his statement. He said that the inquisition was a response to an infiltration of the church. I'm asking him who the infiltrators were to which the inquisition was the church's response.
As time goes on, it appears that I was right.
William Shakespeare (also from Merchant of Venice)
Oh. I guess I'm that dumb. Happy holidays.
SD
You're pretty full of yourself. I detest arrogance. Thus, you are to me a distasteful and grating presence.
Deacon Sinkspur: Just because I do not inhabit and never have and never will the Kumbaya nightmare world of modernist AmChurch types does not mean that I am uncharitable. The Vatican must really be galling you and others like you by restoring Catholicism to diocese after diocese by attrition. Soon enough there will be a new bishop, maybe even a Catholic in Fort Worth.
It is NOT charitable to:
Undermine the faith of others in spite of undertaking minor orders in the Roman Catholic Church persistently betrayed by AmChurch;
Cheerlead the artificial shortage of priests created by the twin evils of birth control and destruction of theological orthodoxy;
Support despicable perversions of Western Civilization and of the Roman Catholic faith expressed in such elitist court decisions as Martin vs. Lawrence: The "approval of sodomy as legal in Texas whatever Texan legislators might say" case;
Relentless unjustified attacks on legitimate Vatican authority (not Euroweenie Cardinal Martino but real authority) emanating from the resentment of the Vatican's refusal to let you have your cake and eat it too in the form of ordination to the priesthood despite the fact that you chose marriage freely and willingly understanding the consequences of your choice;
Advocate "democracy" in the pews so that demagogy might produce rule of AmChurch by mob ignorance reflecting the theology of Ted Kennedy (hic!) to replace the real thing, the self-discipline of Rembert Weakland, the heretical views of modernists, the curious peccadilloes of the Bernardins and O'Briens and Pilarczyks and Pillas and Delaneys while we all hold hands and chant mantras of tender love for the flavor of the week in bizarre parodies of Catholicism, lifted On Eagle's Wings (or whatever)......
Rudeness?????? Truth! (Unvarnished/With the bark on!)
Hag sameach!
BTW, lies, what lies?
LOL
The diaconate is a major order.
As I mentioned earlier, I wonder if the Cardinal would've expressed his "compassion" for Saddam if it were his loved one tortured and then placed in industrial shredders. And anyway, knowing how controversial this statement would become, the Cardinal should've at least made in clear that his compassion also extends to Saddam's victims and their families. His silence is very telling.
The Cardinal’s concern is not with our medical treatment of Saddam, but with our videotaping it
Taping Saddam was necessary to show the millions of Iraqis who've suffered under his brutal regime that he was in fact dead. Many may not have believed it otherwise.
By defending Saddam's human rights, the Cardinal is opposing the philosophy practiced by Saddam.
Does Saddam have the "right" not to be checked for lice and given and medicial exam? How is this violating his human rights? The Cardinal knows full well we're not torturing him, so why express outrage over standard (and ethical) procedure?
The fact is that this Cardinal has been decidedly against any military action taken against this brutal regime since the git-go, and now he's looking for a way to vent his anger at America's overwhelming success. I only wish he and the others (including the Pope) were just as angry about the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis Saddam tortured and killed as they are about the the fact that we're videotaping the SOB getting de-loused.
the Christian goal is the salvation of evil humans.
Let's me and you pay Saddam a visit. I nominate YOU to attempt to convert him to Christianity. But after you fail, allow me to put a bullet between his beedy eyes.
And you're the one who started the unpleasantness, bub.
I had no idea you were such a grouch.
The same Jesus Christ Who created this Roman Catholic Church guarantees it to the very end. He's wonderful. He can do anything!
Judas served the Beast, even more than Martino. Why was he an apostle? Thomas denied Christ's resurrection Why was he an apostle? Peter denied Christ three times. Why was he an apostle and a scribe of Scripture and the very first pope? Because Jesus Christ said so! Is that so hard to understand? God has to understand God's plan. You and I don't. We just have to obey.
Despicable though Nazism was, don't you think that Marxism-Leninism which killed 100 million or more was even a tad worse?
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