The Pope is extremely naive.
Posted on 05/13/2004 11:32:21 AM PDT by Shermy
ROME (AFP) - Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II is expected to warn President George W. Bush when the two men meet on June 4 that his policy in Iraq is wrong and the actions of US troops are damaging efforts to bring religions closer together, a senior Vatican official revealed.
Cardinal Pio Laghi said the US-led occupation force in Iraq should be replaced by "a multinational presence which is not dominated by those who wanted and fought the war."
It was not enough for a military force in Iraq not to be under US command, "it must not even give the impression that it is," he said Thursday.
Laghi was the pope's envoy to Washington last year in a fruitless attempt to persuade Bush not to invade Iraq against the wishes of the majority of the United Nations and its 15-member Security Council.
Referring to revelations this month of torture and humiliating mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers, the cardinal asked "how is it possible to remain in Iraq if these abuses continue?"
Laghi said he liked the United States and "could not have imagined that this madness was possible". He said he was "astonished" at the behaviour of US troops and called for "all light to be shed on this affair, justice to be done and guarantees given so it does not happen again."
Bush is due to meet the pope on June 4 before travelling to France for ceremonies commemorating the 60th anniversary of the allied landings on the Atlantic coast on June 6, 1944, which began the liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation.
Laghi said Bush had been very anxious to see the pope and had changed his schedule to make the meeting possible, but said he did not think the president wanted to make political capital out of it before the election due to take place in November.
"If ever there were a difficult time to ask for an audience with the pope it is now," he said.
The cardinal said he also expected the pope to tell Bush that his policies in the Middle East in general were not helping the cause of peace.
"We must above all build cultural understanding between peoples and I do not believe that our American friends are doing that," he said.
"Bombing mosques, going into holy places, putting women soldiers in contact with naked men shows a lack of understanding of the Muslim world which I can only call surprising," he said.
"We must build bridges with Islam, not dig trenches between us," he went on. "And we must give top priority to the Israeli-Palestinian question, which is the root cause of terrorism."
The pope would tell Bush that "the fight against terrorism must not be purely repressive and punitive but must also proceed from the elimination of its causes, which are rooted in injustice."
Bush and the pope have met twice before, but the June 4 audience will be their first since the start of the war in Iraq.
The goal of Islam is world domination under Islamic law.
The goal of Christianity is to spread the Gospel to all nations before Christ's return.
The goals are mutually exclusive. One cannot happen if the other does happen.
Beauty is in the eye of the believer.
I have no idea. I am quite happy with, "you stay on your side of the fence and I will stay on mine." We can talk but no way am I going to change my way of belief in any way shape or form. If I didn't think it was the right way I wouldn't be doing it this way.
If you want to join me fine, if you don't also fine. As long as you are not actively trying to hurt me we have no quarrel. But don't expect me to endorse your way I won't, I can't because it would be a lie.
(I am using you in the general sense not the personal.)
Facts are facts.
This was a Catholic grammar school, I take it?
That's exactly what Joe Stalin said.
Old Joe and communism bit the dust, the Vatican is still here.
Why do they care what the Pope has to say? They're not going to listen anyhow.
Given the Vatican's pro-Palestinian, pro-EU, pro-UN, anti-U.S., weak-on-Islamofascism stances, is that a good thing?
They were good at teaching the fear of God, but not very good in teaching spelling.
Why don't we care what the Pope has to say, you ask? What does it matter what the Pope says, I ask.
The Pope is extremely naive.
Seems to me we don't need to worry about the Vatican, this country's doing a great job destroying itself.
I just can't understand why people post their nasty comments about the Pope and he hasn't said ANYTHING to the president yet.
If the Pope is as bad as everybody on this thread says he is, how come Bush wants to visit with him and get his support?
I'm wondering the same thing.
I'm pro-life too, thank you. And I'm not anti-Catholic. I just don't care what the Pope has to say about the War on Terror.
I'm concerned about Muslim ghouls slitting the throats of my loved ones; the Pope wants to "build bridges" to those sub-human cut-throats. The news today is that Berg was building his own bridge to Islam. And a lot of good it did him. Sorry, but the Pope has Neville Chamberlain syndrome. In my opinion, the man (and yes, he's just a man) is naive.
By the way, don't lay any of that Vatican moral superiority on me. Tell it to the altar boys.
If you build a bridge with Islam, Islam will cross it and chop off your head.
I don't think it has anything really to do with the Pope himself.
You had better hope the Pope's opinion doesn't matter to the President. If the Pope convinces Bush to withdraw from Iraq -- and that is precisely what the Pope wants us to do -- our enemies will view that withdrawal as weakness, a la Somalia, which will serve only to embolden our enemies. And there will be even more hell to pay.
Of course, the Pope takes an eternal view of the world -- where are we all going in the afterlife. Well, I share his concern about that; but I have yet to find a biblical scripture that says we have to adopt Vatican policy to hasten our departure from this world. If you know of one, please let me know. I've got my bible here ready at my side.
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