Posted on 04/21/2003 1:33:09 AM PDT by kattracks
The Pope sent a coded rebuke to Washington yesterday when he urged Iraqis to take charge of rebuilding their country while working closely with the international community.In the Vatican's diplomatic lexicon, the phrase "international community" normally refers to the UN. Before the conflict started, Pope John Paul II vigorously opposed the US-led assault and advocated resolution of the crisis in the UN general assembly.
"With the support of the international community," the 82-year-old pontiff declared in his 25th Easter message, "may the Iraqi people become the protagonists of their collective rebuilding of their country." The speech appeared aimed at putting pressure on Washington and London to involve the UN more closely in political reconstruction in Iraq and to speed up the handover to civilian rule.
In the months before the fighting, the Pope conducted a series of high-profile diplomatic initiatives, sending envoys to George Bush and Saddam Hussein and holding talks with Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, and with Tony Blair.
More recently, the Vatican has offered to help coordinate humanitarian aid through its embassy and dioceses.
Easter Sunday sermons from other Christian leaders also examined the war in Iraq, with the Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, calling on the international community to join forces to build the country's civil and democratic society.
He said: "Quite frankly, despite all the promises ... how things currently are in Kabul and Afghanistan post-war does not bode well as to how things might be in Baghdad and Iraq."
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said in his homily that the desire to cling on to comfortable ways of thinking had characterised the moral debate over the conflict in Iraq.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales, urged the faithful to pray for all victims of the conflict.
As you concede, you don't know much about the Catholic Church (and it shows).
The fact that you feel inclined to make an argument, doesn't mean that there is an argument worth paying attention to. I won't take you seriously if you claim that the sun appears to rise in the west either.
That's still not much of a quote and, before you jump to impertinent conclusions you ought to know more.
Vatican City is a nation. Vatican City is a quite moral nation, whether you think so or not. In fact, it is the standard, whether you think so or not.
While you are congratulating yourself on the notion that the US is a moral nation (which it certainly is as to the war) bear in mind the 45 million little folks slain by Roe vs. Wade and the virtual paralysis of our country. We could have killed more Iraqis than did Saddam. We could have killed them all. We did not and, in fact, we killed relatively few and did a darned good job of keeping the casualties low. And a darned sight better job than the presidents, the Congresses or the SCOTUS have done to minimize the turning of babies into bloody hamburger.
I would not put Saddam Hussein in the same league with: Mao Tse-Tung, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Leonid Brezhnev, Nikita Khrushchev (the butcher of Ukraine), Josef Stalin, Yuri Andropov and a wide variety of others, communist and non-communist alike or Herod Blackmun for that matter. Saddam was worth squashing like a bug but definitely a minor leaguer compared to those.
When you speak falsehoods against the pope, you are anti-Catholic. There, it's just that simple. That you make a mountain out of a molehill of an insufficient quote is your problem and that you ignore Tony Blair's remarks at the end of your second cited article (that he and the pope are in agreement) also speaks volumes. Was Tony Blair a good ally in this war, or what? You cited it. I didn't.
Finally, since I am in agreement with you (and maybe then some) on the war itself, you seem to be one of those guys who just can't take yes for an answer.
You continue the name-calling garbage and trying to slop anti-Catholic paint on me . . . now back it up with facts! Check every sentence of my ORIGINAL post and document by facts and links proving your claims that I stated falsehoods and anti-Catholic comments.
My simple and original post . . .
We didn't listen to the Pope before the war . . . I suspect we won't listen to him now. It still amazes me that the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis who were murdered by So-Damn Insane never fits into the supposed "moral-based" edicts issued by the Pope. I guess a war where hundreds of innocents were killed is more abhorrent than the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives before we got involved.
Sentence 1. Did the Pope talk us out of going to war? Nope. Anything false or anti-Catholic? Nope.
Sentence 2. Find me some facts and links documenting where the Pope considered the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis So-Damn Insane murdered before the Pope came out and said the war would be "immoral, illegal, and unjust." Anything false or anti-Catholic? Nope. If the thread had been about comments from a Methodist Preacher or a Mullah or a Satan Worshipper, my comments would've been the same.
3. Really just an extension of Sentence 2 . . . but if you want to break it down or, since you're obviously omnipotent -- at least in your own mind, tell me what I "meant to say" that made this sentence false or anti-Catholic, feel free. I know you like to hear yourself talk.
Only someone with a preconceived agenda can even IMPLY that any of my comments were false or anti-Catholic. And as far as my admitting I don't know much about the Catholic Church . . . some of us mere mortals aren't afraid to admit we don't know or care about things that don't affect us. But the arrogant can never admit a weakness.
Of course not.
The Pope should have put pressure on the U. S. (Bishops) decades ago before they went completely out of control!
Any Pope who couldn't return the Church to conform to the true meaning of "catholic" should keep his nose out of international affairs. It's not surprising that he feels the UN is good and the actions taken by the US to make America and the world safe from terrorist regimes are somehow bad.
Anyone who says this has no idea what Luther or any other Protestant taught.
Of course, you have decided that it is your business because, after all, you are entitled to a hearing because you say so. OK. First I am a bit old to learn new tricks and would not know how to post links if I had to which I do not. You have posted links and, as I have pointed out, I will be happy to rely on the last paragraph of your second link, the one on the normally non-Catholic and often anti-Catholic BBC says that Tony Blair says that he and the pope are in agreement on matters concerning Iraq. Unless you think that Blair is a closeted enemy of America in league and secret conspiracy with that nasty old Anti-American pope who seemed to get along quite well with Ronaldus Maximus as well, your own post of the BBC article refutes your claims. If you can't see that, there is no point in further refuting what amounts to invincible ignorance.
If pope-bashing and Catholic Church bashing are your chosen hobbies, bear in mind that the Church will be there long after you and I are gone. It is guaranteed on the Highest Authority (in Matthew).
At the very least, you seem soooooo disappointed that Pope John Paul II does not function under the authority of Colin Powell and the US State Department. Actually, he responds only to considerably Higher Authority, well above the White House. Post some more when you DO understand more about Roman Catholicism.
Buh-bye!
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