Posted on 03/18/2003 3:43:49 AM PST by kattracks
March 18— VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said Tuesday that countries which decided to wage war on Iraq without the consensus of the international community were assuming great responsibility before God and history.
"Those who decide that all peaceful means that international law makes available are exhausted assume a grave responsibility before God, their conscience and history," said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.
Navarro-Valls comment was the Vatican's first official reaction to Washington's ultimatum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to go into exile within 48 hours or face war.
I take no great pleasure in saying this, but the Pope is an idiot.
It grates to watch people who don't give a damn about the Holy Father trot out the Pope's words as if he were always their staunch ally.
When the media characterizes papal statements they are almost infallibly wrong.
The Catholic Difference By George Weigel
When do we reach the just-war tradition's 'last resort?' That military force must be the "last resort" in resolving a conflict is one of the classic criteria that make up the "war-decision" law within the just-war tradition. The "Catechism of the Catholic Church" defines "last resort" like this: "all other means of putting an end to (the damage done by aggression) must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective." In his Jan. 13 address to the diplomats accredited to the Vatican, the Holy Father said that the resort to armed force should be the "very last option" taken in dealing with aggression.
How, then, do we know when we're at "last resort?" The question is neither idle nor abstract. For, in principle, one could always imagine yet another diplomatic initiative, another summit conference, another round of negotiations, in dealing with many threats to peace. Sometimes, as in the case of classic cross-border aggression, events irrefutably demonstrate that armed force is, indeed, the last possible resort; when Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, no Pole in his or her right mind imagined that another round of negotiations would be of any use.
But in many other cases, it's not always clear when diplomacy has ceased to be a morally realistic and politically reasonable option. Which suggests that if "last resort" is to have real meaning for statesmen, just-war theorists can't think of "last resort" mathematically, as the terminus of a potentially infinite sequence of possibilities. The world doesn't work that way. A piece of contemporary history may help us get a better intellectual and moral grip on "last resort."
In early June 1981, the Osiraq nuclear reactor, which French technicians were building for Iraq, was only weeks from becoming operational. On the night of June 6-7, 1981, Israeli fighter-bombers destroyed the reactor. The raid was carried out with consummate skill; the pilots took great risks to minimize civilian casualties; Iraq's nuclear program was derailed.
At the time, the "international community," including the United States, loudly condemned Israel's action. A few years later, things looked different. Iraq was engaged in a protracted and bloody war with Iran, a war in which Iraq regularly used chemical weapons and attacked Tehran and other Iranian cities with ballistic missiles. Had the Osiraq reactor been completed and a supply of fissile material made available to Iraqi scientists and weapons engineers, Saddam Hussein would have had a nuclear weapon ‹ and would likely have used it. Israel's air raid turned out to be an effective form of nuclear non-proliferation. The moral and political rationale Israel's leaders gave for acting when they did is also worth pondering. In circumstances like this, the Israelis argued, "last resort" cannot mean waiting until after the Iraqis have a nuclear weapon, and then trying to prevent their using it when they're about to do so. Failure under those circumstances is too awful to risk.
Therefore, the Israelis argued, when one is dealing with a man like Saddam Hussein, a regime like Iraq's (in which there is no internal constraint on the dictator's will), nuclear weapons (or other weapons of mass destruction) and ballistic missiles (or possible use of the weapons by terrorists), "last resort" is reached at the point where there is no option left but to forcibly deny the aggressor the possibility of obtaining the weapons before he gets them. That is what Israel did on June 6-7, 1981. And it seems probable that, over the past 22 years, the world has been spared a nuclear "resolution" of the Iran-Iraq war ‹ Tehran vaporized ‹ and a nuclear war in the Middle East because of what Israel did.
Who makes the call on when the point of last resort has been reached? Who decides that there is no option left but to use proportionate and discriminate armed force to prevent an aggressor from obtaining weapons of mass destruction?
The catechism is clear on these questions: "The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good."
Responsible statesmen make the call. The duty of religious leaders and theologians is to teach and clarify the principle at stake. Thinking about Osiraq helps in that necessary work of clarification.
George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Their intent is to hold the loss of innocent life to the minimum."
Yeah, but the article, rightly or wrongly, seems to imply that if we had UN backing (I guess that means France's backing), that he wouldn't have made that remark that we were "assuming...responsibility before God...
I don't know, mainstream churches in general, including Reform Judaism, seem to be embracing the Left and political correctness, I am getting kind of fed up with it. I don't really consider myself to be a "Catholic basher" or a church basher, I am kind of distressed at what is going on within their ranks. It sometimes seems as if a great force on the side of rightesousness has lost its way.
So that would mean if we had got the blessing of Camaroon and Albania we would be absolved of responsibility before God?????
That is very well said. I just hope that W, in correctly (and bravely) deciding not to stand idly by, but to act, has chosen the right course.
I'm concerned that the Vatican's statements may have a demoralizing effect on some who serve our country on the front lines. It's time for the church to step out of it.
I would hate to think that freepers were anti Catholic per se. I saw quite a bit of bashing, for instance, last week of the Epicopal bishop whose anti war statement was much more indirect.
I'd say that when the Pope, because of his stature, makes a statement, it has much more impact, and therefore, gets much more reaction, than other church leaders from other denominations. So I kind of don't think it is necessarily "Catholic bashing."
Here we go again:
"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...
Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.
Albert Einstein
Time Magazine, 12/23/40**************************************
The charity and work of Pope Pius XII during World War II so impressed the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, that in 1944 he was open to the grace of God which led him into the Catholic faith. As his baptismal name, he took the same one Pius had, Eugenio, as his own. Later Israel Eugenio Zolli wrote a book entitled, Why I Became a Catholic.
**************************************
"The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas... he is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all... the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism... he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace."
The New York Times editorial
12/25/41 (Late Day edition, p. 24)**************************************
"This Christmas more than ever he is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent... Pope Pius expresses as passionately as any leader on our side the war aims of the struggle for freedom when he says that those who aim at building a new world must fight for free choice of government and religious order. They must refuse that the state should make of individuals a herd of whom the state disposes as if they were lifeless things."
The New York Times editorial
12/25/42 (Late Day edition, p. 16)
My point exactly, can anyone say "Germany and WWII?"
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