Shut the hell up, OP.Odd... you thought it an "embarassment to the Forum" when I used the hebrew common noun for "accuser" in reference to your deceitful posts about Ron Paul... but now you're telling me to "shut the hell up"?
Doublemindedness on your part, again.
Your childish attempts to stifle opinion are getting old. I am entitled to my opinion that Ron Paul is a flake. It’s an opinion shared by most of the people at this forum, by the way. Your hero is going nowhere in his candidacy. Deal with it.
I haven't tried to "stifle your opinion" in any way.... I have merely pointed out the UnChristian deceitfulness of your tactics. If you don't like it -- don't employ dishonest, deceitful, UnChristian tactics.
In point of fact, I can't stifle your opinion. Look, see -- no "Moderator" credentials.
And I've certainly never told you to "shut the hell up".
You can consider Ron Paul a "flake" all you want -- not much I can do about that. But if you Lie about him? Employ Half-Truths and "selective reporting" in order to deceive, like some Adam Clymer? That, I will call you on.
Don't imagine that you can "stifle" my intention of doing so.
OP: I have no interest whatsoever in debating the Roman Catholic faith with you. There are plenty of Catholics here willing to do so. I do not regard Catholicism as any of your business unless and until you cross the Tiber. I am also not interested in debating Calvinism with you. I recognize that you need desperately to find a hook, any hook, to get people to pay attention to paleoPaulie. You will have to look elsewhere.
Meanwhile, only because I said I would do so, excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church mostly on the question of just war. Accept them or reject them. I really don't care. I do know that paleoPaulie, paleoDuncan and paleoJones are irrelevancies who won't be on anyone's GOP national ticket next year or any year. Nor paleoHagel, Ted the Driver, George McGovern or any other of their foreign policy soulmates in surrendermonkeyism. If you are not even more delusional than is already apparent, you know that too.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (NYC: Doubleday/Image Books Edition, 1995); Indexed sections under "war" are asterisked (*):
"Peace:
2304: Respect for and development of human life require peace. PEACE IS NOT MERELY THE ABSENCE OF WAR (emphasis mine), and it is not limited to maintaining a balance of powers between adversaries. PEACE CANNOT BE ATTAINED ON EARTH WITHOUT SAFEGUARDING THE GOODS OF PERSONS, FREE COMMUNICATION AMONG MEN, RESPECT FOR THE DIGNITY OF PERSONS AND PEOPLES, AND THE ASSIDUOUS PRACTICE OF FRATERNITY. (emphasis mine) Peace is 'tranquility of order.' [St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 19, 13, 1; J. P. Migne, editor, Patrologia Latina (Paris: 1841-1855)41, 640) Peace is the work of justice and the effect of charity [Cf. Isaiah 32:17; cf. Gaudium et Spes, 78, Sections 1-2]
2306: Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, PROVIDED THEY DO SO WITHOUT HARMING THE RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF OTHER MEN AND SOCIETIES. (emphasis mine) They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risks or recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death. [Cf. Gaudium et Spes, 78, Section 5].
Avoiding War:
2307: The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war. [Gaudium et Spes, 81, Section 4]*
2308: All citizens and all governments are obliged tyo work for the avoidance of war. However, 'as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.' [Gaudium et Spes, 79, Section 4]*
2309: The strict conditions for legitimate defense by miltary force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time: ---the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain; ---all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; --- there must be serious prospects of success; ---the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition; These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the 'just war' doctrine. THE EVALUATION OF THESE CONDITIONS FOR MORAL LEGITIMACY BELONGS TO THE PRUDENTIAL JUDGMENT OF THOSE WHO HAVE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE COMMON GOOD.* (emphasis mine since this is the answer to the bottom line question)
2312: The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. 'The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties.' [Gaudium et Spes, 79 Section 4]*
2313: No-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely. Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus, the extermnation of a people, nation or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide. *
2314: 'Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.' [Gaudium et Spes, 80, Section 3] A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons---especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons---to commit such crimes. *
2315: The accumulation of arms strikes many as a paradoxically suitable way of deterring potential adversariesfrom war. They see it as the most effective means of ensuring peace among nations. This method of deterrence gives rise to strong moral reservations. The arms race does not ensure peace. Far from eliminating the causes of war, it risks aggravating them. Spending enormous sums to produce ever new types of weapons impedes efforts to aid needy populations; [cf. Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, 53] it thwarts the development of peoples. Over-armament multiplies reasons for conflict and increases the danger of escalation. *
2317: Injustice, excessive economic or social inequality, envy, distriust, and pride raging among men and nations constantly threaten peace and cause wars. Everything done to overcome these disorders contributes to building up peace and avoiding war: 'Insofar as men are sinners, the threat of war hangs over them and will so continue until Christ comes again; but insofar as they can vanquish sin by coming together in charity, violence itself will be vanquished and these words will be fulfilled: 'they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' [Gaudium et Spes, 78, Section 6; cf Isaiah, 2:4]*
2321: The prohibition of murder does not abrogate the right to render an unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. Legitimate defense is a grave duty for whoever is responsible for the lives of others or the common good.
2327: Because of the evils and injustices that all war brings with it,we must do everything reasonably possible to avoid it. The Church prays: 'From famine, pestilence and war, O Lord, deliver us.' *
2328: The Church and human reason assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflicts. Practices deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes. *
2329: 'The arms race is one of the greatest curses on the human race and the harm it inflicts on the poor is more than can be endured' [Gaudium et Spes, 81, Section 3] *
Note particularly the language I highlighted in #2309 which specifically notes that it is the government leaders and NOT Church leaders who have the responsibility for making the moral decisions on war.
For several years, we Catholics have been afflicted with an essentially renegade Euroweenie Renato Cardinal Martino who has been spending much of his time at the United Nations and is a reflexive knee-jerk antiAmerican and full blown internationalist wussie. He leads people to believe that his antiAmerican sniveling represents the pope. I would find that unlikely despite the offices that Martino has held. There is a reflexive favor among beauty queens and religious leaders for whirled peas that is hardly dogmatic unless peace is uderstood in the context of #2304 which does not protect the Islamofascisti in blowing up Orthodox Jewish school children, or using Islamic kids as bomb carriers or deciding which gang of Islamocriminals will be able to torture, murder and attaint which others. IEDs are not "the tranquillity of order. (2304).
Your question as to the pope is impertinent and, of course, irrelevant as to whether the US has the right to make war upon its Islamofascist enemies, but the pope is certainly qualified to teach on any matter Catholic. The catechism speaks for itself and reserves warmaking decisions to national leaders such as Dubya. On what basis do admitted Calvinist heretics presume to comment on matters of schism of those baptized Catholic who later apostasize into schism such as SSPX? Worry about your own in house squabbles among the Calvinists. Catholic questions are not your business even if you are allowed to post on them.
The language from 2304 and 2306 on "peace" are included as necessary context.
The verbiage about the applicability of international law to anything will change soon enough when Renato Cardinal Martino's false idol of a United Nations decides for whatever reasons that abortion and free ranging homosexual perversion is required of every nation. In any event, that is what I promised you. That is what you have gotten. If you want to continue to pose as an expert on matters Catholic, you will have to continue the discussion with Catholics who care what you may think, imagine or hallucinate.
