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

[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.

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.

However, as a man devoted to serving God, he may be speaking from a perspective we are unable to understand completely.

Oh I think we understand him perfectly.

Showing Iraq that the monster has been rendered harmless is of course a very bad thing.

That is why it is spoken against so harshly in Isaiah 14:15-17

Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit. "Those who see you will gaze at you, And consider you, saying: "Is this the man who made the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms, Who made the world as a wilderness And destroyed its cities, Who did not open the house of his prisoners?'

Oh, Wait. It doesn't. In fact this is what God has planed for Lucifer. Just another biblical perspective.

Deacon: Let me hear more when you start saying Mass and hearing confessions. Not in your lifetime. Not in God's lifetime.

Bad enough that your bishop lets you serve in any capacity. Bad enough that Rome lets Delaney serve in any capacity. Yet you have the nerve to not only attack our best hierarchs like Archbishop Eldon Curtiss of Omaha and Archbishop John Myers of Newark (formerly of Peoria) and to join with some of the worst of anti-Catholic bigots on this site, but you also take cheap shots at JP II at every opportunity. Like Bob Dylan said: It don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.

Haven't heard your proof yet as to Martino serving as papal nuncio in the United States and there is a reason: He never did.

"Thank you Crusader for your clarity. If only the Vatican would recognize they are the prey, and Islam is determined in its efforts to destroy the Roman Catholic Church, and all other churches embracing Christ Jesus as their God."

If you read the Vatican article released on October 18th you would know that the Vatican is acutely aware of radical Islam's designs on the whole world, including the Catholic Church itself. You must also keep in mind that Pope John Paul II was shot and nearly killed by an Islamic terrorist, Ali Agca. He bled so profusely from his wounds that the doctors expected him to die that same day. His present suffering with Parkinsons and other physical miseries are the direct result of this assassination attempt on his life by an Islamic terrorist.

While I do not necessarily agree with this saintly man regarding Iraq, I do believe that Pope JPII is not really so much opposed to fighting a war with Islam as he is opposed to doing so before all other means have been exhausted. He is a spiritual leader, not the leader of a country, or of an Army. His purpose on earth is not the same as secular leaders. As the head and spiritual leader of the Catholic Church his patience and his faith far surpass the patience and faith of most of us. Personally, I believe this current Pope takes a much broader view of the world than most of us are able to, and he is primarily interested in peace on earth, as acheived by prayer and faith. It has never been in the job description of Saint Peter's successor to be impatient, fearful or bellicose - though some have been.

As the leader of the Catholic Church his title is "Vicar of Christ", (which means "face of Christ"). He understands that he must try to do exactly as Jesus would do in all situations, his job is not a game. He will never despair of God's Hand bringing justice to earth, including to Islam. He knows he must forgive as Jesus forgave, he knows he must not become fearful and loose trust in God, he knows he must work tirelessly for peace on earth, and must never allow his emotions to be a stumbling block to his calling as he lives out his purpose on this earth. But most of all, the Holy Father's faith is unwaivering in the face of evil and danger. He's a fearless man whose deep faith leads him to believe that nothing, absolutely nothing on this earth, will ever conquer Christ's Church. All the military power the U.S. can bring to bear on Islam is but a gentle breeze on a soft Summer's day compared to what God can do when He chooses His time and place.

Lastly, I'd like to say to you, and others who have doubts about the Pope and the Catholic Church, that when I began to study the history of the Crusades against Islam I came accross book after book after book that reamed the past Popes for their "unwarrented" and "bloody attack" on "peaceful Islam". There was not a Protestant author out there who has written a kind word about the Popes from the past who called for these wars against Islam. I even became discouraged myself and started to believe in this drivel, because it is so damned pervasive and hard to find books that speak the facts about the Catholic Church and the Crusades.

I challenge ANYONE out there to show me a non-Catholic book, written after the start of the 19th century, that treats the Popes or the Catholic Church kindly in dealing with the Crusades against Islam. They called the Popes every name imaginable, and insidiously cast doubt on the Church where none really existed, all because the Catholic Church to went to war against Islam. These American 'history' books called the Crusaders butchers, tyrants, self-serving mercinaries and treasure seekers. The popes were damned when they did, and are now damned when they don't. But alas, Jesus warned us from day one, "If they persecute me they will persecute you also".

Saddam is not a prisoner of war. He is being treated like a prisoner of war by courtesy of the United States.

You might want to check out the actual text of the Geneva Convention. Prisoners of war are defined in Article IV. The section that deals with insurgencies in occupied territories goes like this:

Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions: (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

If Saddam was taking any hand at all in directing the Baathist terrorist campaign, he is an unlawful combatant since the Baathist "resistance movement" obviously fails on points b, c, and d. Otherwise he is a deposed usurper -- a political criminal, not a soldier. I see nothing in the Geneva Convention that covers forcibly retired tyrants. Our captured soldiers were on the other hand indisputably prisoners of war according to the Convention.

Furthermore: there are acts which are inherently degrading (rape, torture, all Saddam's specialties), but there is also a range of acts which might or might not be depending on context. Showing a video of a small child being checked for headlice to all his friends would be degrading. Showing a tyrant, who worked for thirty years to convince the Iraqi people and the Arab world that he was a god, getting checked for headlice, like a mere mortal, is not morally repugnant degradation -- it simply does a little something to restore the balance after his decades of blasphemous posturing and inhuman cruelty.

The Cardinal spoke like a jackass. Speaking as a friendly-minded Protestant, and an admirer of the present Pope, I would point out that there has been braying heard from Rome before, but in the long run the deep moral and religious dignity of the Roman Catholic Church has prevailed. It will this time too. Your church is too big a thing to need a defence of every jumped-up clerical bureaucrat who runs off at the mouth in her name.

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