What the war revealed (the vatican and the Iraq war)

Crisis Magazine ^ | 10-1-03 | David Quinn

[Torie]

Get used to it. You are a bad Catholic, and I am a bad near aetheist, because we both sometimes wish to use unilateral violence to kill those whom we judge to be "evil" based on our own moral compasses, to wit, we dislike mass killers and those that without any constraint, traduce the human spirit, and the most basic elements of human dignity, and we wish to punish them, and then punish them some more, and make no apologies about it.

[Agnes Heep]

Oh boy, another armchair prophet. Give us a look, oh great theologian, into the mind of God Himself.

If I were you I'd show a bit more humility. Was it God who authored the torture, mutilation and death of millions of innocent Christians that began the moment Christianity became acknowledged in the Roman world? Or was it the vanity of human beings?

God is what God is, and mankind is what mankind is.

[jwalsh07]

I'm sure the Holy Father is quaking in his boots. *rolls eyes*

Evidently your eyes are rolling in your head because you have suffered a seizure of some sort. Why would I or anyone want Pope John Paul to be quaking in his boots?

[Snuffington]

The Holy See's preference that the matter be referred to the UN should not be seen as an endorsement of world government ...

No it should not, but there were some statements made by holders of shockingly high Vatican positions which came very close to crossing that line.

I'm referring specifically to the statements suggesting that in the modern world war could never be justified without U. N. approval. The only way to square that with Just War theory is to assume the nation state is no longer a sovereign authority. Dangerous stuff, especially since it was sort of dumped out there without explanation or attempt to explain it in light of the soverign authority concept within Just War principal.

[Conservative til I die]

You were talking about your opinion of Rome over recent events. My response was that I bet the Pope is quaking in his boots at the thought that you're not too thrilled with im.

[Conservative til I die]

Again, oh great theologian and strawman builder, please explain to us the truth of Christianity. Obviously you possess some sort of special knowledge that allows you to discern between the truth of Christianity and the fakes.

[jwalsh07]

Evidently you are subject to routine seizures. The subject is not Pope Jon Pauls boots or quaking in them.

Why has Rome remained silent on the mass graves in Iraq?

[narses]

Ping.

[Agnes Heep]

The best part of Christianity is that it offers the essentials of Judaism for people who can't do without pork and foreskins. Because it springs from Judaism, its moral code is laudable. Apart from that, it's tainted by the twin lies of blood sacrifice and idolatry (both borrowed from the pagans long after its founder was gone). Because it's been so closely linked to politics over the course of the centuries, it has, like all other religions, been abused by those who interpret it in such a way as to justify all manner of evil--like the Episcopalians with their homosexual clergy and the Spanish Inquisition with its torture and execution of heretics.

Not that it's an issue, but for my part, I worship God.

[Conservative til I die]

You've got some really warped ideas about Christianity that really don't jibe with historical fact.

You took me to task for lack of humility. I think you need to have some yourself, because spouting these opinions (and you're not the first or last to come up with them) will get you laughed out of here in a hurry.

I'm no theologian, so I'll spare you the dissertation, but my brief response to your post is this:

1) You are mistaken that Christianity only exists because some Jewish people didn't want to be circumcised or prohibited from eating pork. Christianity existed because of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whom His followers -and myself - believed to be the Messiah, and God Himself. He founded His Church on Peter, and Peter and His followers naturally began building that Church on His teachings. They attracted both Jews and Gentiles (Christ did say that He had come for both His flocks). As with any institution in its formative years, there were issues about what to teach and how to teach it. In the early Christian Church, a lot of the divide was based on whether the Church should be exclusivistic and just another sect of Judaism or not.

Jesus overturned the dietary laws, as can be found in the Gospels. He taught that only what comes out of a man (words and deeds) can be unclean, not what goes into him. Also, circumcision was a sign of initiation. Baptism replaced it.

2) Blood sacrifice? I'm guessing you're referring to Christ's crucifixion or the sacrament of Communion. What do you want from us. Christ said to do this in remembrance of me, so we do it! Christ also offered Himself up on the cross for us. This is just the way things happened, I can't change that.

Communion was not borrowed from the pagans long after Christ died. The Church was doing it right after He died.

3) You mention the Church's political ties. Well yeah, of course the Church is going to have some relation to every facet of culture when everyone in Europe was a Catholic in the Middle Ages (except for those areas overrun by Islam or some of the more remote areas that practiced their old paganism). But like you said, people do interpret (or rather mis-interpret or intentionally pervert) religion to their own ends. But a look back at history will show you that in terms of the murders actually performed by the Church in the name of God, there are very few. Much of the killing was done by secular authorities in God's name. In many cases, the Church spoke out against it.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for all the information!

[Romulus]

I agree.

[Romulus]

What post number on this thread was all of that set forth on your part?

#30.

Where I said: "I remain convinced that the Vatican was right to call for an authentically communal response to Saddam's lawlessness."

My point of view is more catholic as it were.

Do you think so? We'll see about that after the political landscape changes, as it inevitably does.

[piasa]

NIGER FLAP : Forged Docs ... tied to Niger Embassy in Rome

[sinkspur]

I remain convinced that the Vatican was right to call for an authentically communal response to Saddam's lawlessness."

So, because the French sat this one out, but 49 other nations joined us, it was not a "communal response"?

If the Holy Father had spent his time encouraging the stinking French and Germans to join in a military response, there likely would have been no war, as Hussein would have been forced to fold in the face of worldwide pressure.

It will be proven, I'm certain, that the French will be implicated in selling illegal weapons to Hussein, in violation of the embargo.

It stuns me that the Vatican has still not acknowledged that a brutal dictator has fallen, to the betterment of Iraq and the entire free world.

Do you disagree, or should we invite Hussein back?

[Agnes Heep]

If you want to turn Jesus into God by relying on writings the veracity of which can't be confirmed, so be it. I don't really mind, because in the end it has made you, and billions like you, better people. The deification of Jesus didn't occur until long after the fact of his existence, and I think he would have been mortified to think people actually believed such things of him. After all, he was a Jew, and he upheld the Jewish beliefs, rituals, and law. His only qualification was that the law wasn't meant as a means whereby the Almighty tested the faithfulness of his creations, but as a gift whereby those creations would be enabled to live good and prosperous lives.

I've tried to retain my sense of humor in this series of posts, which started by you assailing me in an ad hominem way with your lip-thrusting sarcasm, but I've got to observe that, based on everything you've written, you've got just enough theology and religion in you to comprehend the hatred God has for mankind, but not the love. I wish you better than that.

[piasa]

Not that it's an issue, but for my part, I worship God.

Why?

[ex-snook]

The war was to defeat the main terrorist treat to peace. The Pope was right, it didn't. The alert flag is still in existence here and there is no peace in Israel. Point, set and match to the Pope.

[jwalsh07]

A minor cross to bear when one takes into consideration my ability to look myself in the eye while I'm shaving devoid of embarassment and shame.

[Zionist Conspirator]

There is an even darker and more sinister reason for the left/right consensus among Catholics in Europe against the Iraq war: anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism. The traditional hostility of even the mainline Catholic Church to a Jewish state in 'Eretz Yisra'el is little known to most non-Catholics and many Catholics as well. (The fanatical anti-Zionism of the far left and far right of the Church--allegedly for diametrically opposed reasons--is better known, but not as well known as it should be.)

What is interesting here is that it is the Catholic Church, whom anti-Israel "palaeos" consider to be the true cultural religion of "western European man," that is pushing the United Nations, which these same "palaeos" insist is an organ of the Zionist Conspiracy.

Of course, "palaeos" don't have brains (or at least functioning brains), because they insist this "universal church" is the guardian of "aryan man" and seem to think the Pope wants to run (Catholic) Mexicans out of the United States (in the interest of Catholics and Protestants of Northwestern European heritage). Idiots.

How do these people even look themselves in the mirror? Perhaps they don't have reflections.