Pope John Paul II may ask to personally address UN Security Council to stop Iraq war

AFP via Babelfish translation ^ | March 3, 2003

[My Favorite Headache]

Amen and agree with you 100%. Let him pray over the dead body of Saddam if he wants to take part....but let us finish what needs to be done.

[Just mythoughts]

Could it be that the man is being used as a front to call for "PEACE" "PEACE" "PEACE" and there will not be "PEACE" until the true Christ comes back to set things straight.

This "PEACE" calling business ought to give sight to those who are familiar with the WORD of what is part of the deception. Must look to our Heavenly Father not to men.

Common sense at what religions around the world do and say lets us test their fruit, and if they are producing bitter fruit, whatever church/religion all the better to be able to see and not be deceived.

[angelwings49]

I was born and raised Catholic, and have always had the deepest respect for the Pope... however, he needs to stay outta this! I started losing respect for him a few months ago and it looks like ALL respect is gone now, which is sad. He's so quick to chastise the US with the upcoming "liberation;" why didn't he chastise the pedophile priests with as much gusto???? I'm so disappointed in him.

[HAL9000]

From AFP English language service -

Pope mulls appeal to avoid war

Vatican City, Mar 3 - Pope John Paul II intends to make a personal address to the United Nations Security Council if an appeal this week to US President George W. Bush fails to deter him from going to war with Iraq, a Vatican diplomatic source told AFP on Monday.

The spectre of the frail pope, left almost immobile from advanced Parkinson's disease, making a dramatic personal plea to the UN emerged as his special envoy left for Washington to try to persuade Bush to allow more time for a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi crisis.

Cardinal Pio Laghi, an 80-year-old former Vatican ambassador to the United States and a personal friend of the Bush family, left Rome for a meeting at the White House, tentatively scheduled for Wednesday.

Laghi's visit is the latest element of a diplomatic peace offensive by the head of the Roman Catholic Church, who has emerged as the leading moral voice against war with Iraq.

"I hope to establish a dialogue with President Bush. Some say the war has already begun. We don't believe that this is so," said Laghi, after a weekend in which US and British intensified strikes on Iraqi targets in moves seen as clearing the way for war.

"The position of John Paul II and the Holy See is to avoid the outbreak of war," Laghi said, before boarding a plane for Washington.

But a White House spokesman said last week that Bush was unlikely to be swayed by the Holy See. The possibility of the ailing 82-year-old pontiff flying to New York to make what would be a dramatic 11th-hour appeal to avert war was raised at a meeting two weekes ago between John Paul II and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan", the Vatican source said.

Archbishop Renato Martino, the Vatican's former permanent observer at the UN, said on Sunday: "It's up to the pope himself to make such a decision."

If the pontiff does go to New York, he is also likely to pray at Ground Zero, the Vatican source said.

A papal pilgrimage to the site of the World Trade Centre, destroyed on September 11, 2001, would be much appreciated in the United States as a gesture that the Vatican, in calling so stridently for war to be averted, also fully recognizes US citizens' pain.

The Vatican's steadfast refusal to condone military action against Iraq as a "just war" has frustrated the White House, despite attempts by its ambassador to the Holy See, Jim Nicholson, to get the Vatican on its side in the moral debate.

Nicholson arranged a visit to the Vatican and a speech to diplomats and clergy in Rome by Michael Novak, a conservative US theologian who argued that war on Iraq was morally defensible.

The Vatican has repeatedly said Washington's "preventive war" would in reality be a "war of aggression" and therefore without moral basis.

Just one week ago, Vatican Foreign Minister Jean-Louis Tauran said: "A war of aggression would be a crime against peace."

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

"...I'm sure the Christian minority that lives in Iraq is thrilled with the Pope's helping of their tormentor Saddam Hussein...

See post #100....

[fishtank]

The RCC pretty much ignores the entire letter Paul wrote to them.

[altura]

What's anti-catholic about stating some facts about the failures of the church?

Both points made were true. The CC has been criminally negligent in dealing with aberrant and criminal priests. The CC was also woefully inadequate in tolerating Hitler.

I'm Episcopalian and I am very embarrassed by our current leadership which doesn't mean I don't love my church.

I just think we need to look honestly at the failures of our church leadership.

[Terriergal]

Ya know, I'm trying to figure out why you post ENTIRE articles as rebuttals to arguments when they should be posted as threads of their own. You're awfully good at copying and pasting but when it comes to forming your own arguments all you can do is lash out with incoherent figurative language.

[Terriergal]

I notice labelledamesansmerci replied to this post with an entire article detailing an example of others who do not care. Exactly how does that answer your question, have you figured it out yet? Cuz I sure haven't!

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

President Bush gave an explicitly Wilsonian speech the other night before the American Enterprise Institute. The speech deserved close and intense scrutiny on FreeRepublic as one of the few places where American conservatives can fight among themselves without having to waste time fending off the inanities of the New Left. I started a thread about it and it got heaved into the Hobbit Hole.

The attitude on this forum is one of sullen submission to the inevitability of American hubris, blindness and nemesis.

The silence around here on one of the most important--and, in my opinion, most chilling--foreign policy statements yet made by the President is deafening. But terribly, terribly enlightening....

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

"...without having to waste time fending off the inanities of the New Left..."

By the way, I clearly mis-spoke there. This forum is suffused with--one might even say dominated by--New Leftism.

[Notwithstanding]

Woopsie Patty-Poopsie: I am confident that your wiser, better self meant to post "they did such a good job toppling Communism"

[Notwithstanding]

Where does the pope state that NOTHING should be done in the face of this evil? (Hint: NOWHERE, NEVER)

Please stop making things up to smear someone. It is sinful (check out the 10 commandments).

[Notwithstanding]

'nuf said, petronski - well done

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Apostle Paul bump.

"Spiritus Gladius."

[Terriergal]

This forum is suffused with--one might even say dominated by--New Leftism.

Yes, and you're a great case in point.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

"Spiritus Gladius" bump for the Apostle Paul. (I really like that phrase.)

[safisoft]

JP's against anyone who may be pro-Israel - the heart of American foreign policy in the Middle-East. He has publicly declared on numerous occasions his shameful support of the blood lust (Jewish) murderer Arafat who praised children strapped with bombs who are driven by his hateful rhetoric to murder the children of Israel.

Thanks for this post. Everytime this comes up, everyone who questions JP's motivation is accused of "Catholic-bashing". Honestly, I am amazed that the inconsistencies are not evident to CATHOLICS. At least on the issue of abusers, they are consistent - let molesting "priests" continue abusing, let Saddam continue abusing... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD - and stand by Israel.

[Notwithstanding]

That JP2 is a real jew-hater. I understand all the vestments in his private chapel are made of human jewish skin and that he prefers the altar wine to be taken from booty of jewish wine cellars raided during WWII. In fact, for breakfast he sprinkles aborted jews on his cereal.