Posted on 03/06/2003 12:40:07 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON -- A Vatican envoy Wednesday carried the pope's message to the White House that a U.S.-led war against Iraq without United Nations' approval would be "unjust and illegal."
The stern words from Cardinal Pio Laghi, who met for 40 minutes with Bush, underscored the rift between the president, who considers himself a deeply religious man, and a number of Christian leaders over Iraq.
Pope John Paul II has regularly preached against the war and asked Catholics worldwide to pray for peace and fast on Ash Wednesday.
Several mainstream Protestant denominations also have come out against a pre-emptive strike by the United States against Baghdad.
But the dispute between the White House and the pope over Iraq poses an especially difficult political quandary for Bush, who has aggressively sought to woo traditionally Democratic Catholic voters to the Republican fold.
The meeting Wednesday did not appear to bridge the gap.
While Bush has signaled that he is prepared to confront Saddam Hussein even without the Security Council's approval, Laghi said that the Vatican believes a just war can be waged only with the United Nations' endorsement.
Laghi said before going to war the United Nations should take into account "the grave consequences of such an armed conflict: the suffering of the people of Iraq and those involved in the military operation, a further instability in the region and a new gulf between Islam and Christianity."
He said that any war without U.N. approval "is illegal, it is unjust, it's all you can say."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that Bush defended his policy to the Cardinal, telling him, "if it comes to the use of force he believes it will make the world better."
Officials said that Bush disagreed with the Vatican's contention that a war would widen the gulf between the West and the Muslim world. The president argued that U.S. efforts to expand educational opportunities for children in Afghanistan had brought the cultures closer.
Laghi, a former Vatican ambassador to the United States who was close to Bush's father, delivered a letter from the pope to the president, which concluded "I ask the Lord to inspire you to search for ways of stable peace -- the noblest of human endeavors."
The White House was clearly nervous about the publicity of the rift between Bush and the Vatican, particularly coming during a period of tense negotiations at the United Nations.
Laghi, addressing reporters at the National Press Club, said that administration officials would not allow him to hold a press conference in the White House. It is customary for visitors to field media questions in the driveway in front of the West Wing after they meet with the president.
The growing tension with the Vatican could undercut Bush's efforts to court Catholic voters.
Since assuming office Bush has twice visited the pope in Italy and has spoken at the commencement at Notre Dame University. The president also has appealed to more observant Catholics by opposing abortion and cloning.
But experts said Bush risks losing support from those voters by pressing ahead with war.
"Bush goes to Catholics and talks about how he is opposed to abortion. It is the same values that lead Catholics to oppose abortion that lead them to oppose war," said John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron.
Dan Bartlett, the president's chief communications adviser, rejected the contention that the pope's appeal may erode support among American Catholics for possible war.
"There are many Catholics who support," Bush's Iraq policy, Bartlett said. "I am one of them."
Recent polls suggest that so far the Vatican's influence has been limited in the United States.
A recent survey by the Pew Center for the Public and the Press found that about two thirds of American Catholics backed military action in Iraq -- similar to the overall backing for war.
The poll found the highest backing for war comes from evangelical Christians, who have long provided the backbone of Bush's political support.
And not surprisingly it is evangelical leaders who have broken with many Protestant churches on the issue of Iraq.
A practicing Methodist who was raised an Episcopalian, Bush speaks the language of evangelical Christians, according to a number of religious scholars who have studied his speeches.
The president laces his speeches with references to faith and citations from the Bible, often linking his religious faith to domestic and international policy.
"I welcome faith to solve the nation's deepest problems," he recently told a convention of religious broadcasters.
Bush's use of religious rhetoric, however, has troubled a number of secular and religious critics who say the president is unfairly endowing himself with moral authority to justify war.
As it has been for the last 30 years. The idea that Bush's status with Catholics will be adversely affected by his desire to defend the country is ludicrous.
Your source please? Pius XII saved the lives of 700,000+ Jews during WWII by issuing false baptismal documents and by hiding many Jews in Church buildings. The Pope also payed the ransom in gold demanded by the Nazi's in exchange for the lives of many Jews.
Pius XII drafted a letter for the previous Pope which was read in all German Catholic Churches prior to the war denouncing Nazism. When bishops in axis-controlled areas spoke out against the regime, Jews were killed in retaliation. Public declarations were halted. What else could the bishops do? They didn't have a lot of tanks.
Nevertheless, the chief Rabbi of Rome was so impressed with Pius' deeds on behalf of the Jews that he converted to Catholicism taking the Pope's baptismal name as his own.
Albert Einstein and the New York Times also hailed the singular efforts of the Pope on behalf of the Jews:
"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.
Albert Einstein
Time Magazine, 12/23/40**************************************
The charity and work of Pope Pius XII during World War II so impressed the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, that in 1944 he was open to the grace of God which led him into the Catholic faith. As his baptismal name, he took the same one Pius had, Eugenio, as his own. Later Israel Eugenio Zolli wrote a book entitled, Why I Became a Catholic.
**************************************
"The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas... he is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all... the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism... he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace."
The New York Times editorial
12/25/41 (Late Day edition, p. 24)**************************************
"This Christmas more than ever he is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent... Pope Pius expresses as passionately as any leader on our side the war aims of the struggle for freedom when he says that those who aim at building a new world must fight for free choice of government and religious order. They must refuse that the state should make of individuals a herd of whom the state disposes as if they were lifeless things."
The New York Times editorial
12/25/42 (Late Day edition, p. 16)
Example?
You're painting with a very broad brush.
Do you consider yourself a Christian?
Bump!
Or in bashing the Church.
Bump!
Because they see politics as power and prayer as folly.
I can see it now..."St.Pope John Paul II drove Panzer tank in 2003 attack on Iraq, groups lead coalition to block canonization."
I was born a Catholic and will die a Catholic, but not as a member of this buffoon-administered church.
Treaties are "laws" only to the extent that they are scrupulously observed by all parties; otherwise they are more useful in the breach than in the application.
That aside, I have yet to see a recent cogent explanation by anyone of exactly what the mythical term "International Law" means. It is used by the brainless constantly... and even they haven't a clue about what it means, or if it even exists.
But it sounds "good" and gives the useful idiots a false feeling of apparent authority.
Is that knee-jerk or a reading comprehension problem?
I did not criticize the Pope or his ilness, just those around him speaking in his name.
Just facts.
Denial is not a very useful state, in any venue.
Sounds like a nice boot to me.
Denial? Isn't that a river somewhere?
Is the problem NOT with the Church's hierarchy?
Why is the Pope all of a sudden quite vocal about the American Military, but remained relatively silent about the abuse cover-ups and the real problem of (not isolated) homosexuals within the orders?
This is NOT a Catholic bash, but when the head of the Roman Catholic church takes such an absurd, anti-American position, members of that church should expect a little grief, at least as much as is handed out to the "Council of Churches" anti-American leftists.
I disagree Byron. There is plenty in it worthy of serious reflection. However all that serious reflection has been and continues to take place. This letter seems to have been written in a vaccuum, which the events of the past several months failed to penetrate.
This Vatican message is more filled with secular European geo-politics than Church morality. And the moral parts of the message have been treated far more seriously and genuinely by the U. S. (and allies) than by any other nation currently spouting off on the topic.
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