Posted on 01/02/2007 3:36:46 PM PST by Alex Murphy
The Vatican's official newspaper on Tuesday decried media images of Saddam Hussein's hanging as a "spectacle" violating human rights and harming efforts to promote reconciliation in Iraq.
The Vatican, which opposes the death penalty, was among the first voices abroad to denounce Saddam's execution Saturday, saying then that it was "tragic news," even in the case of someone guilty of grave crimes, and expressing worry that it could fuel revenge and fresh violence.
Also Tuesday, the Italian government said it will take "formal steps" in a renewed push for a U.N. call for a moratorium on the death penalty. The premier's office said Italy would seek the support of other countries that oppose capital punishment to put the issue of a moratorium to the U.N. General Assembly.
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema has said that Premier Romano Prodi's government would work for the end of the death penalty worldwide following denunciations across Europe of Saddam's hanging. Italy and all other European Union countries ban capital punishment.
Italy has lobbied unsuccessfully for U.N. action against the death penalty. Italy is now one of the rotating members of the U.N. Security Council.
The Holy See's daily, L'Osservatore Romano, lamented that "making a spectacle" of the execution had turned capital punishment into "an expression of political hubris."
Images on Web sites and TV stations around the world showed the ousted dictator at the gallows with a noose around his neck and other images from the hanging.
The execution "represented, for the ways in which it happened and for the media attention it received, another example of the violation of the most basic rights of man," L'Osservatore wrote.
The paper added that: "in a country ever more disfigured by every kind of violence, you don't need arrogant gestures but signals that go in the opposite direction."
The Iraqi prime minister on Tuesday ordered an investigation into Saddam's execution in a bid to learn who taunted the former dictator in his final moments and leaked a cell phone video of his death.
When Catholics say "Pro-Life" they mean "Pro-Life."
No abortions, euthanasia, mercy killing or capital punishment. Agree or disagree, the Catholics are consistent.
Has the Vatican also "denounced" the images of the dead, gassed Kurds, Saddam's minions dropping people into shredders, women being raped in front of their families in rape rooms, Iraqi's in torture rooms, limbs being chopped off, etc?
Has the so called MSM and enemedia?
It's history. It's Hitler's corpse being dragged from the bunker.
Somehow, they think "unpleasant" = "evil".
The Vatican is getting plain childish in their statements. There's no brains whatsoever in Rome, or in all of Italy.
*According to Jesus, right here.....
And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.
*Others disagree with Jesus
There is something kind of Eeeyyew about the pictures; it appeals to a side of us no one likes to admit. In that, the Church is not wrong. No matter how much the man deserved it, this kind of rejoicing does no one any good.
But I can see Pope Benedict smiling to himself a bit. "Oh, he's dead now? They did not get Our letter? Too bad!"
Please do not misrepresent the churches teaching on capitol punishment. Capitol punishment is not on the same playing field as abortion which is intrinsically evil.
2266 The State's effort to contain the spread of behaviors injurious to human rights and the fundamental rules of civil coexistence corresponds to the requirement of watching over the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime. The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.[67]
2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.
"If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
"Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender 'today ... are very rare, if not practically non-existent.' [68]
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