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.
Any one ever apologize after reading it?
...didn't think so.
If you haven't read them I recommend them to you. Many catholics seem to be choosing Nationalism over Catholicism.
So the Vatican defers to the United Nations for moral authority now?
I'm not thrilled about it either. But the Pope is entitled to speak his mind, as we all are. We're not obliged to blindly follow him in areas not pertaining to faith and morals, but his opinion should always be considered very seriously.
Some of the 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?
He's not in favor of abuse by homosexual priests. In fact, he's not even in favor of ordaining homosexual priests. But he can't make quick, sweeping public statements regarding such a sensitive pastoral issue, especially when the facts are difficult to obtain. Law's resignation was eventually accepted, but on the Pope's timetable. You can disagree with his judgement if you like, but keep in mind that we don't have access to the information he does.
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.
Absurd? No, not if you're familiar with the Just War doctrine. Mistaken? Maybe. At least that's what I've concluded. Anyway, believe it or not, we Catholics have come to expect "a little grief" regarding Church teachings and discipline.
Funny, I was just thinking that. Maybe four or five times?
Any one ever apologize after reading it? ...didn't think so.
There was one. There is hope!
I put it in my Outlook notes a while back with the HTML. It's come in handy.
Well, if you are a Christian, I would think that the word calumny would be familiar to you.
I found this encyclical regarding Americanism the other day.
Just had to make this another anti-Catholic hate thread didn't you? There is no doubt that the Catholic hierarchy has dealt with homosexuality in the priesthood ineffectively, at least in America. Only "froth at the mouth" anti-Catholics believe, however, that the hierarchy "allows and encourages the rape of children by homosexual priests".
It appears that any thread mentioning the Pope brings forth the haters like you. I notice that you are not yet banned. It appears that the anti-Catholic bigotry is tolerated around here for some reason.
Regards.
History backs you up on this. That said, we are well advised to phrase ourselves with care concerning treaties and "international law." Hitler called the Treaty of Versailles a "scrap of paper," and Saddam views his GWI terms of surrender with the same contempt -- that and his noncompliance with UN resolution requirements form the legal basis for making war on him.
v1. When thou goes out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them; for the LORD thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt...
v10. When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace upon it...
v11. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace , and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee...
v12. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it;
v13. And when the LORD thy God hasth delivered it unto thine hands, thou shall smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.
The Pope's envoy said: "... a U.S.-led war against Iraq without United Nations' approval would be "unjust and illegal." As we can see in the above Scripture, God commands governments to go to war in certain circumstances.
Verse 10 is a commandment to first offer peace to the enemy, which the United States has done with Iraq for at least the last twelve years. However, when the enemy refuses all offers of peace, then "thou shalt besiege it...when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword."
So maybe the Pope needs to familarize himself with the Bible before he makes declarations about whether or not wars are "unjust and illegal". That way, he won't risk being in a position of contradicting the God he claims to represent.
I couldn't of said it any better! Do you think he really knows what he is talking about ?
I guess you could not be expected to know this as these words seldom find there way onto the bumperstickers in your library.
Consider this, from Hobbes' Leviathan, in 1668:
Part III. Of a Christian Commonwealth.Chap. xxxviii. Of Eternal Life, Hell, Salvation, and Redemption.
[12] And first, for the tormentors, we have their nature and properties exactly and properly delivered by the names of the Enemy (or Satan), the Accuser (or Diabolus), the Destroyer (or Abaddon). Which significant names (Satan, Devil, Abaddon) set not forth to us any individual person, as proper names do, but only an office or quality, and are therefore appellatives, which ought not to have been left untranslated (as they are in the Latin and modern Bibles), because thereby they seem to be the proper names of demons, and men are the more easily seduced to believe the doctrine of devils, which at that time was the religion of the Gentiles, and contrary to that of Moses, and of Christ.
[13] And because by the Enemy, the Accuser, and Destroyer, is meant the enemy of them that shall be in the kingdom of God, therefore if the kingdom of God after the resurrection be upon the earth (as in the former Chapter I have shewn by Scripture it seems to be), the Enemy and his kingdom must be on earth also. For so also was it in the time before the Jews had deposed God. For God's kingdom was in Israel, and the nations round about were the kingdoms of the Enemy; and consequently, by Satan is meant any earthly enemy of the Church.
Part IV. Of the Kingdom of DarknessChap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness
Besides these sovereign powers, divine and human, of which I have hitherto discoursed, there is mention in Scripture of another power, namely, that of "the rulers of the darkness of this world," [Ephesians, 6. 12] "the kingdom of Satan," [Matthew, 12. 26] and "the principality of Beelzebub over demons," [Ibid., 9. 34] that is to say, over phantasms that appear in the air: for which cause Satan is also called "the prince of the power of the air";[Ephesians, 2. 2] and, because he ruleth in the darkness of this world, "the prince of this world":[John, 16. 11] and in consequence hereunto, they who are under his dominion, in opposition to the faithful, who are the "children of the light," are called the "children of darkness." For seeing Beelzebub is prince of phantasms, inhabitants of his dominion of air and darkness, the children of darkness, and these demons, phantasms, or spirits of illusion, signify allegorically the same thing. This considered, the kingdom of darkness, as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture, is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour, by dark and erroneous doctrines, to extinguish in them the light, both of nature and of the gospel; and so to disprepare them for the kingdom of God to come.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.