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Posted on 11/11/2004 7:16:53 AM PST by SJackson
The Vatican has praised Yasser Arafat as a charismatic leader who struggled to win independence for his people, and repeated its support of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Pope John Paul, who last met Arafat in 2001, retreated into private prayer when he was told of the death of the Palestinian leader earlier on Thursday in Paris, a Vatican source said.
The Pope, who made a historic trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2000, sent a message saying he was particularly close to the Palestinian people "in this hour of sadness".
The 84-year-old Pope's message said he prayed that the "star of harmony" would soon bring peace to the Holy Land and that both Israelis and Palestinians could live "reconciled among themselves as two independent and sovereign states".
Earlier, a statement by the Vatican's chief spokesman called Mr Arafat the "illustrious deceased" and asked God to grant eternal rest to his soul.
"The Holy See joins the pain of the Palestinian people for the passing of President Yasser Arafat. He was a leader of great charisma who loved his people and tried to guide them towards national independence," said the statement by chief spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.
The official statement was bound to displease Israel because it made no mention of militant attacks, which the Jewish state blamed on Mr Arafat and insists must stop before the stalled peace process can get back on track.
In recent years the Vatican continued to recognise Mr Arafat as the legitimate leader of the Palestinians after Washington and Israel had written him off.
But Vatican officials privately criticised him for what one called "jumping off the peace train".
"There is no doubt that he was a towering figure for his people but his great mistake was not to sign on at Camp David," a senior Vatican prelate told Reuters.
"That was a great failure and a lot of problems stemmed from that," he said. "He missed his date with history."
At a US-brokered a peace summit in 2000 both sides came close to a final accord that would have established an independent Palestinian state, but the talks broke down over the status of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
Washington and Israel blamed Mr Arafat for the failure.
Over the past four years, the Vatican's improvement in relations with the Palestinian Authority coincided with a deterioration of relations with Israel.
The Pope repeatedly criticised Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories and last November, the Vatican was shocked when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came to Rome for several days but did not ask to see the Pope.
And to think, he was only responsible for the deaths of some 100,000 Lebanese Catholics, guess their lives count for nill.
Islam is no more a "great religion" than any other political ideology which attempts o justify mass murder and military conquest.
Correction, we are partly judged, the Full Judgement of Christ does not come until His Second Coming.
If you are incapable of seeing the difference between love your enemy and propagandize a mass murderer then that is a really sorry testiment upon your church.
While I agree with you the brevity of the Pope's comments is telling, I would rather not have to use term brevity to describe the Pope's comments. Non-existent would have been just fine.
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Long Live Arrafat, In the Fires of Hell. Piss be upon him. Terrorist bastard.
I really don't want to get into an interpretive battle here. I will concede that there is no explicit verse outlining this. But neither are all Christian teaching to be found explicitly in the text of the Bible. The teachings on the Trinity, for example, or the divinity of Jesus are not laid out in explicit fashion.
Rather we must gather bits of truth from various places in the text and contemplate them in order to put together a fuller picture.
Isaiah is taken to the presence of the Lord and the angels burn his lips with a hot ember to purify him. This establishes that the unclean can not enter God's presence. It also demonstrated fire as a tool for purifying.
The rest of the picture comes from an understanding of the reality of God's making us perfect by the power of Christ's Blood. We know that we sin today, though we try our hardest to avoid it. Though we may know we are forgven, we also know we are not fully perfected.
So there must be a transformation between our death and our entering Heaven.
SD
That's what kills me. His PLO virtually wiped out the ancient Christian population of Lebanon and without a bit of remorse from that monster the Vatican lavishes him with praise and attention! It really makes me sick. And very sad. The Pope is being manipulated by evil people.
Sure. But I didn't see the need to over-complicate the point.
SD
If you are incapable of seeing the difference between an expression of Christian sympathy and "propagandize a mass murderer" then that is a really sorry testament upon yourself.
What would you have had the Vatican say when a world leader such as this dies?
SD
The Swiss guards are only symbolic protectors of the Pope. The Pope also professional bodyguards similar to the Secret Service.
I agree that however misguided the Palestinian people are, that it is proper to show some degree of sympathy for them. However, that in itself is a lost opportunity. The Palestinian put their hope and faith in a murderer and terrorist who loathed christians as much as jews.
But for the Pope or Chirac or Katie Couric to grieve for this man, is nothing more than moral cowardice. It is right for him to be judged on earth as surely as he will be judged before God. As such, the Pope and his surrogates should have remained silent on the passing of evil personified. I do not grieve for this man, nor should any jew or christian.
Nothing.
The Pope doesn't write off entire populations. If one lamb is missing, the shepherd goes off to find it.
The Pope doesn't think of populations as "us" or "them." He is concerned with individual souls, wherever they may be. Turning a cold shoulder to the Palis and pretending they don't exist is surely a poor plan for bringing peace to the area.
As an American you may desire the extermination or removal of these people to other Arab lands. But a Pope has a different job.
SD
Pope:The "illustrious deceased" gets me, as does the "leader of great charisma."
"in this hour of sadness".
"star of harmony"
"reconciled among themselves as two independent and sovereign states".
"illustrious deceased"Joaquin Navarro-Valls:
"The Holy See joins the pain of the Palestinian people for the passing of President Yasser Arafat. He was a leader of great charisma who loved his people and tried to guide them towards national independence,"Vatican officials:
"jumping off the peace train".senior Vatican prelate
"There is no doubt that he was a towering figure for his people but his great mistake was not to sign on at Camp David,"
"That was a great failure and a lot of problems stemmed from that,"
"He missed his date with history."
You misunderstood my comment. I agree that the Pope and everyone should so some sympathy for the Palestinians this week. However, the lost opportunity is that for forty years, they were led by a terrorist and murderer and only in his death and after the deaths of hundreds of thousands of jews and christians are we able to reach out.
This is what is so sad.
He had great charisma? The Pope should just SHUT UP. Does the "Holy See" think Arafat had "great charisma" before or after he blew up men, women and children in Israel in order to "guide them towards national independence"????? Being old and dead should not automatically translate into "leader w/great charisma", etc., ad nauseum.
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