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vern_humphrey
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Says the poster child for hebephrenia.Oh, look. Vern is being childish after being called out on his methods. Bless his l’il heart. How dear.
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Ender
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I think everyone accepts that the pope was opposed to the war. It is a mistake to conclude, however, that his personal opposition is the same thing as a declaration that the war was immoral. The pope opposed the war; he did not declare it to be immoral.
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vern_humphrey
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It is the Pope’s duty to oppose war – one could understand Pius XII asking Roosevelt not to go to war with Japan. But the Pope ever declared this war immoral, and in fact said we have a moral obligation to stay until the job is done.
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Ridgerunner
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No, there are more options than that. Another is that the Pope had pretty good intelligence of the whole thing and that he did attempt a diplomatic solution which failed because of the intransigence of Saddam Hussein and the U.N., which had been corrupted by Saddam’s bribes. It’s possible that he learned from Bush the conditions that the U.S. felt were safe and would prevent future aggression by Saddam. It’s possible that his people communicated those to Saddam and that Saddam rejected them.
Another, of course, is that he did not know the U.N. was corrupted by bribery and kept expecting definitive action that never came.
It would never be my belief that the Pope was, or could be, “neutral” on any war. As Pope, he would naturally want no wars at all, anywhere. He would also know some wars are just and that some are unjust. I would expect him to declare one unjust if he thought, for sure, that it was. Neither JPII nor Pope Benedict has shrunk from or pussyfooted around what to them are clear moral wrongs. Neither Pope ever said that about U.S. involvement in the Iraq war. Inferring such an intent from their diplomatic attempts to resolve the issues would be as wrong as inferring their active “support” of the war from their failure to directly condemn it.
If the Pope condemned the invasion of Iraq before the event, I would, at very minimum, have expected Poland, at least, to remove itself from the “coalition of the willing” before it ever started. But it didn’t. He had more channels to Polish leaders than one could count and could have communicated it; a communication that would have doubtless been persuasive.
I think those who are against the war can make their arguments whether it is “just” or “unjust” according to Catholic doctrine, and that’s fine. But I think it’s disingenuous to claim that the Pope has declared himself on that, because he hasn’t.
But just for the record. As between two presidential candidates, one of whom supports the continued legality of abortion but opposes the Iraq war (leaving aside who “really” does) and one who would appoint prolife justices to the Supreme Court but would continue the war, who gets your vote?
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frankadams
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I guess it depends. Will the candidate who would appoint “prolife” justices be like the Republican presidents who appointed 6 of the 9 justices who gave us Roe in 1973? Or would he or she be more like the the Republican presidents who appointed 8 of the 9 justices that upheld Roe in 1992?
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frankadams
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Actually it is not a Pope’s duty to oppose all forms of war. It is his duty to examine possible military action in light of traditional Catholic teaching on war. The very same Pope John Paul II put military action on the table as a means of preventing “ethnic cleansing” in Yugoslavia. When addressing that situation in 1994, he said…
“In the moral teachings of the church, all military aggression is judged to be morally wrong. Legitimate defense, by contrast, is viewed as admissible and sometimes obligatory. The history of our century has confirmed this teaching numerous times.”
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vern_humphrey
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So in other words, your claim that the Pope “opposed” the war – in the sense of morally condemning it – is dead wrong.
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frankadams
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No, Vern, he did oppose the war in Iraq. He did, however, allow for the possibility of war in Yugoslavia.
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vern_humphrey
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Riiiight – he threw gasoline bottles and carried a picket sign in front of the White House.
As always, he tried to find a non-violent solution – and once the contest was joined, he said we had to stay and finish the job.
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frankadams
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No, Vern, he didn’t throw gasoline bottles and carry a picket sign. He did express his opposition.Riiiight – he threw gasoline bottles and carried a picket sign in front of the White House.
As always, he tried to find a non-violent solution – and once the contest was joined, he said we had to stay and finish the job.
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vern_humphrey
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As he always does.
Did he call on Catholics to not support the war? Did he do a Jane Fonda and call on service members to disobey orders?
Or did he say, once the conflict was joined, that we have to stay until the job is done.
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frankadams
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No, Vern, he called on Catholics to help prevent the war. And no, Vern, he did not call on service members to disobey orders.
You have as much access as I do the Papal statements after the war began. If I were like you, I would demand that you find a document in which he says we “have to stay until the job is done.” and when you failed to find that phrase, declare a rhetorical victory. But I choose to debate like an adult.
Prior to war, you can find a multitude of statements from the Pope, the Vatican, and the USCCB saying that our country should not invade Iraq. You, on the other hand, believed that our country ought to have invaded Iraq. You have gleefully pointed out on numerous occasions that you are free to disagree with the Pope, the Vatican, and the USCCB and still remain in full communion with the Church. I agree with you.
But licit or otherwise, your Church opposed this war and you did not.
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SoCalRC
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Actually, no, he joined the USCCB in calling for the US to accept its moral responsibility for the refugee problem that the invasion created, particularly the persecution and plight of Iraqi Christians. Those recommendations, including establishing safe havens in the north, have been ignored. Instead, we began aiding the Sunni militia who, in turn, temporarily lowered violence in their areas by doing more persecution and ethnic cleansing.
Benedict has increasingly called for an end to the conflict in Iraq in public statements since Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul was found murdered in March, which the Vatican appears to see as an example of the continued environment of Christian persecution that the US has created:
Doesn’t seem like “stay the course” to me…
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vern_humphrey
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No, it did not.
But it did say once engaged, we had to stay and finish the job.
Now, do you say we should pull out before the job is done?
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frankadams
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Your Church opposed this war. You did not. As noted, you are free to disgree with your Church on war. But if you look at Papal, Vatican, and USCCB statements on war and somehow draw that they did not oppose the war, you are either in stark denial or simply delusional.
Your own allies have acknowledged on this post that the Church opposed the war.
Fox News, that bastion of anti-war sentiment, expounded at length on the Church’s opposition to the war.
Michael Novak, a strong supporter of the war, and maybe even a bit smarter than you and I, acknowledges that the Church opposed the war.
Literally thousands of articles detail the Church’s opposition to this war.
All that is left is for you to face reality.
Your church opposed this war.
You did not.
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vern_humphrey
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When were you there?
When he said that, was he addressing the US Army?
No, he was addressing the terrorists and sectarian militia.
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SoCalRC
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I take the Pope’s appointed spokesman at his word.
Security and civil order are the responsibility of an occupying force.
Conversely, if a country provides aid to militias, it is morally complicent in their acts.
One of the biggest problems with your response is the concept that there are even clearly identifiable ‘sides’ in Iraq. Us and Them plays well on Fox News, but bears no relationship to the complex, multi factional reality of violence and conflict in Iraq.
Take the recent Shia/Shia conflicts. The simplistic view would be, Us backed ‘good’, Iran backed ‘bad’. But that has not been the reality. All Shia groups get aid from Iran, the US was actually backing the group with the strongest ties to Iran. Not really intentionally, but because we got forced into pre-election power play by our current would-be sock puppet.
When you look into US/Sunni relationships, it becomes more convoluted still. As with some Shia groups, we are aiding and arming groups who, in turn, attack US troops, often with the more sophisticated tactics we just taught them.
Small wonder that 5 years and $750M a day and we still cannot secure the fortified Green Zone or the short road to the airport. It makes Pope John Paull II’s warnings look all the more astute.
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Ridgerunner
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leftistdestroye
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Left wing, huh? OK HERE is your left wing in action:
democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=129008&mesg_id=129115
Here are your Obama supporters. Soak it up. Taste the venom from them. Rember it. Because if you vote for NObama, well, this is what you get.
democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=129008&mesg_id=129115
Here are your Obama supporters. Soak it up. Taste the venom from them. Rember it. Because if you vote for NObama, well, this is what you get.
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frankadams
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