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2004-08-17 Iraq-Jordan
And are you heartily sorry for your sins?
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Posted by mercutio 2004-08-17 12:35:37 PM|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11134 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 If it wouldn't end with the poor guy getting killed, I'd say they should send a priest to oversee their conversions.
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-08-17 1:46:11 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com]  2004-08-17 1:46:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Man, they must really be getting their asses kicked if they've stooped to this.
Posted by tu3031 2004-08-17 2:18:24 PM||   2004-08-17 2:18:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 It means they've exhausted their own Islamic resources. No surprises there. It means that the Pope outclasses them in world-wide peace-advocacy.

Gee I wonder why.....?

Now, if I might channel the spirit of Father Guido Sarducci for a moment, I have to say this about the idea

Go Pope!

Posted by peggy  2004-08-17 2:53:31 PM||   2004-08-17 2:53:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Readers-and what did the Pope say about our military action in Iraq? Grain of salt, please.
Posted by jules 187 2004-08-17 2:53:59 PM||   2004-08-17 2:53:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 Reminder:

The pope has stated that war is "always a defeat for humanity" and that a preemptive war with Iraq would not meet the criteria for a just war.

http://www.coloradoan.com/news/stories/20030403/lifestyle/49840.html
Posted by jules 187 2004-08-17 2:57:29 PM||   2004-08-17 2:57:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 jules,

nahhhh. Look, the Pope's position on the war was completely consistent with his position on all wars and conflicts and its consistent with his position on the value of human life. The guy opposed the war on spiritual reasons and because that is just what a Pope should do. He should be the one who stands in opposition to the messes we get ourselves into.

Remember that as bad as Saddam was, he got a lot of help from many nations, including our own. At some point we had a choice to make about him that might have saved us a lot of lives and trouble. Someone has to be out there reminding us that no war is just one sides fault and that we are all guilty to some extent when we find ourselves involved in one. The Pope is not a secular leader, he is a moral one with an altogether different way of operating in the world.
Posted by peggy  2004-08-17 3:05:36 PM||   2004-08-17 3:05:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Peggy-I agree with this part of your statement:

...the Pope's position on the war was completely consistent with his position on all wars and conflicts and its consistent with his position on the value of human life. The guy opposed the war on spiritual reasons and because that is just what a Pope should do...

The problem is, if the Pope accepts this offer, he has exited the "spiritual reasons" realm and has inserted himself in the political realm. That can have deadly repercussions which I am positive he does not intend or realize.

Respectfully, where I disagree with you is the idea that "we are all guilty to some extent". That just isn't my philosophical or religious worldview.

Posted by jules 187 2004-08-17 3:15:52 PM||   2004-08-17 3:15:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Someone has to be out there reminding us that no war is just one sides fault and that we are all guilty to some extent when we find ourselves involved in one.

Historically, a statement so utterly untrue that I could dedicate an entire doctoral thesis to it. When the Mongols swept through Europe, they fought, defeated and slaughtered populations that 5 years prior they never had any contact with whatsoever. One would be hard-pressed to find the provocation that Denmark committed to earn the enmity of Germany in 1940; they just happened to be in the way.

Spiritually, it smacks of "blame the victim", but I'm willing to bet that you didn't intend that.
Posted by Dreadnought 2004-08-17 3:34:08 PM||   2004-08-17 3:34:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 The Vatican needs to square its shit away and start doing it's job.

Jesus said to turn the other cheek, but he never said to be a pussy.
Posted by Anonymous4021 2004-08-17 3:52:35 PM||   2004-08-17 3:52:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 One would be hard-pressed to find the provocation that Denmark committed to earn the enmity of Germany in 1940; they just happened to be in the way.

Bingo, Dreadnought. This "we are all guily to some extent" bullsh!t is precisely how Americans have been persuaded to believe that we in someway deserved the 9-11 atrocity. That sort of pansy-@ss thinking needs to be flushed down history's toilet, pronto.
Posted by Zenster 2004-08-17 4:11:13 PM||   2004-08-17 4:11:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 I know! Send Cardinal Jimenez...
Posted by mojo  2004-08-17 4:26:07 PM||   2004-08-17 4:26:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Maybe Mookie will ask the Pope to arrange for the Sadrites to be transferred to the Church of the Nativity where they could desecrate a Christian holy site. That wouldn't bother the Muslim world at all.
Posted by Tibor 2004-08-17 4:29:14 PM||   2004-08-17 4:29:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Someone has to be out there reminding us that no war is just one sides fault and that we are all guilty to some extent when we find ourselves involved in one

Actually, it is just one sided. If the Iraqi insurgents would lay down their arms, we could send our army home. If Sadar came out with his hands up, we wouldn't shoot him.

We learned what happens when you have a war and nobody comes...you get Darfur with massive rape and genocide. Your wishing that not to be true doesn't make it any easier for those watching their 14 year old daughters get raped and hacked to death.
Posted by B 2004-08-17 4:31:48 PM||   2004-08-17 4:31:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 We went to war with Saddam. We were attacked on 9/11 there is a difference.

War is something conducted by both sides with the consent of both sides. Attacking and slaughtering a peaceful civilian population as in your specific examples is not war. Its a criminal act.

That said, those who fight back against an enemy who has invaded out of nowhere and without provocation have may have good cause but they can't avoid guilt in the Christian sense. No Christian should be against protecting and saving the defenseless who are in danger of immediate harm but it is a core teaching that we all contribute in some way to perpetuating the sad state of the world. In this way there is no escaping the guilt no matter what we do. Christians have always generally accepted that given the fact that since guilt cannot be avoided, one might as well err on the side of justice and fight in defense of the helpless. The fact that there is guilt does not generally cause us to avoid doing what we gotta do, it just means that we don't believe that we get off the hook by fighting or dying in a just war any more than we believe that we get of the hook for fighting in an unjust one. Contrast this to what the Muslims believe that one can cleansed of all sin by fighting or dying in a just war.

This is what I mean by there is always guilt on both sides between any two groups who fight each other. I dont believe in blaming the victim anymore that anyone else here, but I don't believe that its possible for any adult with the power of choice to be entirely innocent. This doesn't mean that anyone deserves to be butchered. Its just a fact.

While the Pope can do little to change our overall guilt, it is his job to nonetheless hold us to a higher standard. The constant challenge that the modern day church represents to us is absolutely neccessary to the maintenance of our civilization in that it makes us properly reluctant to go to war. This is one of the reasons why we are different from the muslime who seem to find it way too easy to find "good" justifications/excuses to go to war with the rest of the world. The church was fundamental in forming our moral conscience in the West and it still functions rightfully as a voice of conscience against war in our modern society.

I for one am glad that the Pope was against the war even though I supported it. I am glad for his voice of dissent in the matter.
Posted by peggy  2004-08-17 6:10:55 PM||   2004-08-17 6:10:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 I've never been a fan of "do as I say, not as I do". If you can't do, you shouldn't say.
Posted by B 2004-08-17 7:10:10 PM||   2004-08-17 7:10:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Omg a dissenter that is actually coherent well call me suprise :)
Posted by djohn66 2004-08-17 7:11:39 PM||   2004-08-17 7:11:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 While the Pope can do little to change our overall guilt, it is his job to nonetheless hold us to a higher standard.

How sad it is that the Pope's own minions didn't feel too compelled to uphold "a higher standard" while they were buggering little boys and girls. The Catholic church has a lot to answer for before they can run around condemning others.
Posted by Zenster 2004-08-17 8:42:45 PM||   2004-08-17 8:42:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 The people in the Vatican should see this for exactly what it its: a political ploy.

As for the Pope - it was a Papal opinion to oppose the war, not a disciplinary matter (which is not binding but requires serious resons to overcome), nor part of the doctrine or dogma (fundamental items of the Faith).

As such it was not binding on Catholics, unlike the Church's stand on Abortion and Euthanasia (both Doctrine).

As for "Just War", its not that the war was neccesarily unjust, its that it was unclear if it met all the standards for a Just War.

1) The damage inflicted by the agressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain.

2) All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.

3) There must be serious prospects of success.

4) The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgement of those who have responsibility for the common good.

(straight from the Catechism).

Point 1 - its fairly obvious that if you consider the "nation" to be the people of Iraq and the region there - its obvious that the damage Saddam did met the criteria, and based upon the *best* intelligence we had (and the Pope had no access to this, which explains why he may have been mistaken), there was certain grave danger for the community of nations in the region, and given the results of our failure to preemptively act before 9/11, there were dire conseqeunces. After the fact, this may be where the "failure" might be, because someone takes a differing view on the graveness or the immediate danger from Iraq to the US.

Point 2 - 10+ years and a ton of UN resolutions and all kinds of failed inspections, that pretty much spells "impractical and ineffective"

Point 3 - obvious.

Point 4 - This is the debatable part, in that we failed to sufficiently provide for post-war security. But prior to the war, this was an "obvious" point in that the depredations of the Husseins was quite obvious a great evil, and their repressions produced almsot genocidal actions against minorities like the marsh arabs.

As for "proper authority" - that rested fairly with Bush, not with the Pope, given the disparity in ability to gather intelligence in the region.

I believe the Pope was ill-served by the Vatican staff, and the Bush Whitehouse staff did not do a good job of taking the case for a Just War to the Vatican.

And Zenster, the number of pedophiles in the Catholic Church is smaller than the public in general according to one of the latest studies I saw - its just that the Church hid it away and amplified the crimes by doing so, acting according to worldly concerns instead of for the betterment of the Church's mission. This is one place I do fault the Pope's judgement: he should have demanded the immediate "retirement" of that Boston Archbishop/Cardinal and prosecution of any wrongdoers. Render unto Caesar...

But also, let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
Posted by OldSpook 2004-08-17 10:00:53 PM||   2004-08-17 10:00:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 Old Spook, I agree with your point by point analysis.

Because I do not stand in a pulpit, I take a dim view of those who abuse such a position. Regardless of how the rate of abuse within the church compares to external society, the fact remains that those carrying the church's flag knowingly paraded under false colors.

This is an affront to their own faithful and people in general. The Catholic church's lethargic and often flat-out concealment was heinous. The huge numbers of cases where known pedophiles were transfered to another unsuspecting parish is simply criminal.

While it might be argued that insurance is paying out the settlements in these cases, where did the money to buy that insurance come from? I'd wager from the collection plates. Money given in good faith to do good works was therefore invested against a most serious form of wrongdoing by the church's own servants.

Better that the College of Cardinals and the Vatican itself have their enormous budgets shorn of the settlement costs than to have congregations faced with bankrupt Archdioces. Does anyone think that the Catholic top brass will face any curtailment of their perks despite signing off on the program of concealing these offenses?

The faithful have taken it in the shorts yet one more time, as they too often have all through the Church's history. Such tremendous wealth and power as the Church possesses has been defiled and desecrated by its own ministers and there should (literally) be Hell to pay.
Posted by Zenster 2004-08-17 10:50:22 PM||   2004-08-17 10:50:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 I didn't know the pope meditated - won't do much good. Aum...
Posted by Anonymous6104 2004-08-18 8:47:37 AM||   2004-08-18 8:47:37 AM|| Front Page Top

#21 Zenster,

No the Pope isn't perfect and neither is he perfectly consistent on moral issues, but he is in a position of moral authority. I think our point in defending him is not based on his being perfect in all ways morally, its based on his being consistent with the value that he places on the human life ie that we shouldn't destroy it physically. He properly utilized his office and issued a correct opinion in keeping with his church's teachings.

Unfortunately, we can't ignore someone's moral opinion because they aren't perfectly moral. If we did so then no one, absolutely no one, would have any grounds to protest anything on moral or ethical grounds. No one could challenge another person to rise to a higher standard. Where would we be if this was the case?

"let him who is without sin cast the first stone" Amen.

Posted by peggy  2004-08-18 10:40:30 AM||   2004-08-18 10:40:30 AM|| Front Page Top

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