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.
We have any number of dam*ed fools and idjits as laity, priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals. St. John Crysostom observed a millenium ago that the floors of hell are paved with the skulls of bishops. Among the twelve that Christ chose were Peter. Thomas and Judas, whose shortcomings are well-documented in Scripture. This is nothing new.
Scripture is infallible but you would be hard-pressed to prove it by the wide variety of personal interpretations applied by the thousands of "reformed" denominations, squabbling over the meaning of this verse or that.
Of course you did. You posted that I don't know what the RC church teaches (paraphrasing). Not knowing is "ignorance". You are stating something that you are assuming, but don't know.
I wonder where the Catholic press was all this time.
Why do you suppose it took the hated "Anti-Catholic" secular press to really get the ball rolling?
It is spiritual riches beyond the imaginings of those who have not been to that well. By comparison, and I say this as one who was raised a protestant and only became Catholic in his late forties, protestants are impoverished, subsisting on a few crumbs fallen from the banquet table.
If you stand today's average Protestant against today's average Catholic, ... I don't believe that it's the Protestant who will look spiritually impoverished."For most Americans, going to religious services means going to church, since 83 percent of adults in this country are Christians. Forty-six percent of Protestants attend church at least weekly, peaking at 52 percent of Baptists. Just over two-thirds of Baptists are in the South, far more than elsewhere (the Midwest is next, at just 17 percent). That's one reason church attendance in the South is higher than elsewhere.
Fewer Catholics, 38 percent, report attending church on at least a weekly basis. Men are the reason: As noted, 26 percent of Catholic men say they attend church that regularly, compared to 42 percent of Protestant men. There's no such difference between Protestant and Catholic women — about half in each group say they go to church at least once a week.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/church_poll020301.html
You don't believe. That is not a first in history.
When, in the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ told his disciples that they must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood to see God, many found it a hard saying and walked away (despite the fact that those walking away were in His Presence and acquainted with Him). Many still walk away from Him, as you know. Some level criticism at Him or His Church for the fact that they have left Him and the Church.
Catholics KNOW that we have the fullness of the Truth as no other Church does (save Eastern Orthodoxy?). If you disagree, you regard that as heresy, or as arrogance or as fantasy or whatever. You would be wrong. If you agree with that fullness of the Truth, you would be obligated to be Catholic. You are not Catholic. Nonetheless, your subjective disagreement with Catholicism based upon YOPIOS or whatever does not undermine or overcome the objective Truth of Catholicism.
It is your understanding of the terms which is an error...
It is impossible for mercy, charity, and generosity to contradict justice, for all virtues are united in God.
The fact that 'justice' is often viewed solely as retribution should not cloud your understanding of the term.
It is our problem to achieve the wisdom necessary by which we see 'justice' as another facet of charity, mercy, and generosity.
Why would a leopard deny his spots?
Arrogance (Pride) is a sin you know.
BE took a paragraph or two. I'll be pithy: It ain't bragging if you can do it.
SD
Yes, I am aware. I've seen "The Family Guy," though it is technically set in Rhode Island.
SD
If everybody read the Wanderer, things would be different.
SD
Oranges and lemons. He was not speaking of anything as pedestrian as mere church attendence. Those attending Protestant Churches are, in general, not being given the fullness of Truth and are not being fed sacramentally either. They present a piece as if it were the whole Enchilada. Nay, as if it were the entire banquet.
SD
Saying it (or typing it) doesn't make it so. It's still amounts to: "we are right because we say we are right". It might satisfy you, but it proves nothing.
Of course not. I didn't postulate that my saying something, any normal human saying anything makes it so. Jesus said it.
It's still amounts to: "we are right because we say we are right". It might satisfy you, but it proves nothing.
Again, Jesus said it. It is so. Whether your standard of "proof" is met or not, it remains so. Jesus started a Church and He has made sure she does not fail. How glorious is the Lord to not leave us to wallow in error and uncertainty, as you imagine He has done!
SD
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