[RobbyS]

Apart from the fact that you do know know what the pope "perceives", consider this analogy: a patient suffers from a cancer; a doctor decides against the will of the patient to cut the cancer out; a third party objects on the ground that the operation will kill the patient. The doctor may be right, but one thing is sure: the patient will be cut open. I happen to be on the side of the actual "doctor,"but I can see that evil consequences may follow, especially when the patient is operated on without painkillers and with dirty instruments.

[ultima ratio]

You and people like you are tiresome. Nothing will convince you of how wrong-headed this pope has been. He has said nary a word about Saddam's cruelties and tyranny. Instead, like all knee-jerk European anti-Americans, he has castigated the US through press releases and remarks by papal officials. All Catholics should be ashamed.

As for your phony analogy about doctors and cancer, you can stash that nonsense. We might have had a diplomatic solution had people like the Pope and Chirac been willing to put some bite behind UN threats. Instead, they tied Bush's hands diplomatically and assured a war would follow.

This Pope has been consistently and absolutely wrong about a lot of things--in this case too morally blinded by his anti-Americanism to hear the cries of Saddam's victims--cries which should have been audible to him twelve years ago when he also opposed Gulf War I. What was his excuse back then, do you suppose?