Posted on 04/10/2002 2:52:46 AM PDT by Khepry
The Vatican has issued a stern warning to Israel to respect religious sites in line with its international obligations, following a gun battle around Bethlehem's besieged Church of the Nativity.
Spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the Vatican was following events "with extreme apprehension" and trying to establish the truth about the fighting that flared early on Monday.
This is an act of indescribable barbarity, a violation of every law of humanity and civilisation
Father David Jaeger
Franciscan spokesman
Israel says its troops are under orders not to fire at holy places and blamed Palestinian militants for a fire near the church, which is revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus Christ.
Several hundred Palestinian gunmen and civilians fleeing Israeli tanks have been holed up in the church complex for nearly a week, along with a group of monks and nuns.
A spokesman for Catholic monks in the Holy Land said earlier that Israeli soldiers were guilty of an "indescribable act of barbarity".
Israel had broken its international obligations and risked "long-term and incalculable" consequences, Father David Jaeger said.
Christian clerics from Jerusalem were kept by Israel from entering Bethlehem on Monday
Speaking from Rome, he said monks at the church had reported damage to "sacred spaces" and evidence that Israeli troops had entered the church.
The Pope, who has urged people to pray for peace in the Middle East, on Monday described the violence in the Holy Land as having reached "unimaginable and intolerable" levels.
Click here for a guide to the Church of the Nativity
The Israeli army says Palestinian gunmen provoked a fire which broke out near the Church of the Nativity on Monday.
Gunmen had opened fire from a belltower, wounding two Israeli border policemen in a nearby rooftop look-out, an army officer told Reuters news agency.
Palestinian civilians in Bethlehem have to contend with an Israeli curfew
He said the Israelis returned fire and a smoke grenade started the blaze in a second-floor meeting hall overlooking the Basilica of St Catherine, adjacent to the Church of the Nativity.
One Palestinian gunman was shot dead in the battle, the Israeli source said.
But a priest inside the church, Father Amjad Sabbara, told the BBC that the Palestinian killed was a police officer who had been trying to douse the flames.
He said the blaze had burned for an hour, destroying a piano, chairs, altar cloths and ceremonial cups.
Father Sabbara estimated that there were 240 people in the church. Some were armed, he said, but they were "not using their arms".
The Mayor of Bethlehem, Hanna Nasser, told the BBC that mosaics inside the Basilica of St Catherine had been "affected by the bullets".
Staying put
The Israeli army has been conducting a major military operation across the West Bank for over a week, in response to a wave of suicide bombings by Palestinian militants.
The army will remain in their place and prevent them [the militants] from evading justice
Ariel Sharon
Israeli Prime Minister
"It really involves going through the cities and refugee camps and taking out the infrastructure of the terrorists: weapons, documents, explosive material, laboratories," army spokesman Captain Jacob Dalal told the BBC.
Israeli troops have been using loudspeakers to demand the surrender of the Palestinians inside the Nativity complex.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Monday that his soldiers would not "defile the holiness of the site as the [Palestinians] have" but added that the troops would remain in place until the gunmen inside were captured.
In Britain, Foreign Office Minister Ben Bradshaw described Israeli actions in the area as "totally unacceptable".
The Vatican is reported to be working out an agreement with the Israelis on safe passage for the Palestinians inside the church to the Gaza Strip.
the act of grabbing the altar for sanctuary went out a long time ago.
This is not a case of the Pope speaking "ex cathedra" or "from the chair. That is rare and only on matters of dogma of concern to Catholics. In cases like this and on things not concerning the faith or morals of the Catholic Church the Pope is just as fallible as any other man.
I don't agree with the Vatican statements either for all of the same reasons we all know.
Now I am weighing what you say.
As a Catholic I fear being a heretic.
Are the heretics on the inside looking out? Or the outside looking in?
Saw my first Tridentine Mass (as an adult, I had seen them as a three- or four- year old.)
Wonderful experience. Supernatural.
I am dumbfounded that the people of the 1960s went along with the destruction of the hardware and software of the pre-Vatican 2 Church, only to substitute it with the Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary, songs, the Hallmark card prayers, the utter dumbing down of the messages (some pretty obviously scary) of the Gospels, and the obvious pandering to the hipster, Madison Avenue secular world.
They should have put up more of a fight.
of course medina could be destroyed, and the arabs told that the next place would be mecca, and with no mecca, no haj, no haj, no fulfilling all five pillars of islam.
then what does that do to the immoral,death religion of islam(planes)into buildings for my demon god?
Yeah, and we all know how respectfully the Muslims treat Christian churches. This Catholic wonders what they're smoking in the Vatican. I don't know why I should be surprised at *this*, considering that the Pope actually kissed the Koran.
On what basis? What has changed in the past two weeks?
You think that the Vatican has been trying to deal with this for years, I say, no.
JP2 should have wholesale fired dissident bishops like Weakland, dissident priests like McBrien, decades ago. The homos and pervs should have lidewise been fired, but also, ratted out to the authorities.
The dissidents AmChurch bishops should have gotten beat up quickly by JP2, just as he cracked on the African Bishop. Fast, and hard.
If not, why not?
The Vatican response to this whole situation is beginning to look like a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome.
The status quo, people walking into public places and blowing up innocents, is as anarchic as anarchy gets.
If Israel sheds a little Pal blood now, it may prevent the loss of much more blood (on both sides) in the future.
Is this not a consideration in a just war?
I think it's time this boil got lanced, my friend.
Otherwise, we're just pulling a Neville Chamberlain.
Fortunately for us all, God is more merciful than you are. If he thought (and acted) the way you desire to act, Mankind would've been long extinguished...and *justly* so.
I want...all people to someday realize that all Men are Men, and that all Men are created in the image of God, and that God cares for each and every one of us...and has urged us to do likewise.
If we must destroy our fellow Man in order to ensure survival of that which we call good, then that is, I suppose, a necessary evil, but not one that should be undertaken lightly or with any happiness.
One of the worst results of technology is the ability to kill other people from afar with a push of a button.
Tuor
The New York Times editorials at the time praised the Pope for his courageous words and stance in support of the Jews. Romulus, do you have the dates handy so that dreadme can look them up at the library? Only those with an agenda against that particular Pope or the Catholic Church have been repeating the lie that he was silent. Granted he wasn't overtly explicit, but that isn't how diplomacy works and everyone at the time knew exactly what he meant. He was also concerned that if he spoke too forcefully, it would backfire and more Jews would be rounded up. It's too easy to armchair quarterback from 50 or 60 years out. Besides, actions speak louder than words and he did more to save actual Jewish lives during the war than ANYONE else. He even housed them in his papal residences.
Where is the condemnation of pallies raghead suicide bombers, and the rightous anger at such tactics?
If you read my post #91 on another thread, you can see that he does condemn the Arab terrorists. He even "lectures" the Arab representative to the Vatican, but there is no mention of a similar treatment of an Israeli representative.
Close, but I don't think there is any such thing as a Pope. Each man *does* have a relationship with God, but that is because they are Men, not because they are each one of them a Pope.
At least, that's how I look at it. Obviously, I'm *not* a Catholic.
Tuor
Of course, pedophilia and all the other scandals of the Church have troubled me in the past, and they have smoldered for a long time.
I am a Wanderer Catholic, so I know this stuff has been going on since V2 and before. Didn't think it was so widespread, though.
Now the corruption is three-, four- echelons thick, not just a few isolated pervs.
Monasteries where you have to be a homo or go along or you get persecuted and get a crappy assignment when you graduate as a priest. Institutionalized endorsement of homosexuality and pedophilia.
Feeling a little vertiginous these days, just from that.
Then, these utter satanist barbarian roaster heathen apes have descended to their depraved acts of 9-11-2001 and days following.
And the idiot Pals in the Church of the Nativity are IDENTICAL philosophically and morally (if not on the same payroll) as the a$$holes who perpetrated 9-11-2001. They are the same people.
And then, the Bush administration says, "Israel, knock it off!"
And the American Press says, "Israel, knock it off!"
And now the Church, which should basically shut up for a while because of its own problems, says, "Israel, knock it off!"-- AFTER THE BARBARIANS HAVE TAKEN OVER ONE OF THEIR PIECES OF REAL ESTATE AND THE ISRAELIS ARE TRYING TO GET IT BACK FOR THEM??!??!!!?
I am stunned.
Everybody's totally siding with the wrong team in the classic good v. evil struggle.
Does Satan rule the planet?
From Israel President writes to Pope on Bethlehem siege:
The Vatican newspaper condemned the killing of eight bus passengers by a Palestinian suicide bomber and violence in the Jenin refugee camp. "In the Middle East, there appears to be no bottom to the abyss that has been dug by hate," L'Osservatore Romano said in an editorial.
If they walked in, set down their weapons, and did just that, I would honor such an act. In fact, I made such a comment earlier without knowing that the Palestinians had *forced* their way into the Church, abducted and held as hostages the clergy of the church, kept their weapons (and fired them at any exposed IDF soldiers), and *not* asked for sanctuary.
Therefore, I think that if the Vatican were *really* serious about ending the situation at the Church, they should start sending priests, one after another. Each priest should walk straight into the Church and demand that the gunmen either repent, throw down their arms, and turn to Jesus, or they should *leave* the church. If he gets shot, send in another with the same demands. Send them until the church is so full of the bodies of murdered priests that the gunmen have no more room or until they leave.
Now, *that* would show the world something.
Tuor
Yes, he has done so for a long time. We are in enemy occupied territory (as CS Lewis said). We should never forget that fact. Yes, eventually God will come and retake what is rightfully His, but until then, we must fight the good fight and wait for His arrival.
Tuor
now if we could get the peaceful pallies to do so it would make a nice point.
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