Do you really think that the "Vatican" should be in the position of endorsing war? I would be more than a little troubled if the Church engaged in sabre rattling because it should always prefer alternatives to war. That is the role of the Church in the modern age. The Church has actually been quite at odds with "its beloved United Nations" especially with regard to population control and even with the war in Iraq. It has recently asked that countries aid the United States in stabilizing Iraq even though it disagreed with the initial war effort. More than one effort has been made to kick the Vatican entirely out of the UN, even preventing it from sending an observer. The Catholic Church may see potential in the UN. Indeed, the UN used to be pro-life and anti-Socialist.
Endorsing war? No.
But dumping all over the United States? Hell, no!
The predecessors of the current Vaticanisti (I mean Cardinals Martino, Tauran, Hmao - and, to a certain extent, Sodano) were damn happy to see American GIs like my Dad marching up the Via della Conciliazione the day WE - not the Italians, not the Swiss Guards - WE liberated Rome.
And then my father's generation came home to enter the seminaries and marry the Catholic girls and build families and parishes and schools (the same parishes and schools that are now closing down) and to send American money - LOTS and LOTS of American money - to Rome for the Holy Father's charities.
Last year, Cardinal Hmao - a Japanese - had the unmitigated hypocritical gall to announce a Vatican sponsored "peace conference" to be held the weekend of August 6. The choice of date, he helpfully explained, was determined by the anniversary of the date on which WMD had been used against Hiroshima - by the US of course.
I emailed His Eminence suggesting that the date be changed to December 7, as I said in my email, "the day Your Eminence's cowardly country launched its sneak attack on our forces at Pearl Harbor. My father was liberating Europe between 1942-45, Your Eminence - what was YOUR father doing?????" Gee, no response.
The famous Tariq Azziz-Pope John Paul meeting just before the Iraq War, by the way, another anti-USA photo-op for one of Saddam's bloodiest henchmen was set up by one Father Jean-Marie Benjamin, a former UN Special Events director, who left the UN in 1988 and was ordained in 1991 and immediately began traveling as a confidant and protege with Cardinal Casaroli (then Secretary of State). This past year he produced a popular anti-George Bush CD in Europe and a documentary on Iraqi suffering (because of the US backed sanctions). The Duelfer Report names him as one of the many recipients of oil from Saddam Hussein - bribery essentially - 4.5 million barrels of oil to be exact.
No, I don't expect the Vatican to endorse war - but I sure as hell expect it not to sell its soul to the enemies of freedom and justice just for the sake of courting favor with Europeans or with that great peaceful religion that is currently killing our servicemen and women and beheading innocent civilians in Iraq.
By the way, that sound you didn't hear for 20 years from the Vatican that is so quick to criticize the USA was the Vatican's deafening silence in the face of Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses.