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gilliam
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Please don’t post in all bold. It is difficult to read
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Ani_Ibi
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It is hamstrung by its own ineffectualness, bureaucratic top-heaviness, corruption, and nonchalence.
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Ani_Ibi
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And in Rwanda.
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kelso
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Go bones, GO! While I am NO FAN of the United Nations (a more morally bankrupt organization might be hard to find), I do think it for once might have had an ounce of sense. Though, to be honest, I do concur with Baby Bush that it has become something of a debating society, and less of a real entity. But, again, I am torn.
In any event, YOU’RE RIGHT: there is no comparing the two men. One landed on third base and thought he hit a triple, the other is a man of great intellect, wisdom, and faith.
I wish AmCatholics would heed the Vicar rather than the Politician.
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Fitz
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?
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Matt25
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Does a legitimate State have the same moral obligation to behave decently as terrorists? I thought the States, and especially Christians, were morally obligated to behave better than notorious public sinners. The fact that wicked people do evil is never an excuse for good people to do evil back. If they do they cease to be good people.
Admittedly this is an otherworldly way of looking at things. But heck we are a transcendent religious faith.
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aimee
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I apologise for this remark…I guess I’ll take a break from the news forum
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Matt25
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This is factually incorrect. The Holy Father made his speech to the UN October 5, 1995*. *The facts about about Rwanda were well known by then. The Holy Father had indeed addressed them. vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/2003/documents/rc_seg-st_20031018_sodano-xxv-pontificate_en.htmlAnother fallacious argument. The Holy Father wrote this article without any knowledge of oil-for-fraud, nor had Sudan been named to the UN’s human right’s commission by that point. Also, I don’t believe the horror and failure of Rhwanda had occured.
Like I said earlier:
The first time, he did this in a completely unique situation, namely, the solemn inauguration of the special African Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, 10 April 1994. In the Homily of the Holy Mass celebrated in the Vatican Basilica, the Holy Father said: “The tragic news from Rwanda is causing us all great suffering. A new unspeakable drama: the murder of the Heads of State of Rwanda and Burundi and their entourage; the Head of the Rwandan Government and her family slaughtered; priests and Religious killed. Hatred, revenge and the bloodshed of brothers and sisters everywhere. In Christ’s name, I beg you, lay down your weapons, do not let the price of redemption be in vain, open your hearts to the Risen One’s imperative of peace!” (*ORE, *13 April 1994, p. 1). In the same Post-Synodal Exhortation, Ecclesia in Africa, published on 14 September 1995, John Paul II expressed all his concern for the tragedy of the war that was tearing Africa to pieces. With the same Fathers of the Special Synod for Africa, the Pontiff pointed out that the Continent “for some decades now… has been the theatre of fratricidal wars which are decimating peoples and destroying their natural and cultural resources… This very sad situation”, the Pope added, "in addition to causes external to Africa, also has internal causes such as “tribalism, nepotism, racism, religious intolerance and the thirst for power taken to the extreme by totalitarian regimes which trample with impunity the rights and dignity of the person. Peoples crushed and reduced to silence suffer as innocent and resigned victims all these situations of injustice’” (n. 117). Among the “external” causes that have added fuel to the African tragedy of fratricidal wars, the Encyclical Ecclesia in Africa clearly indicates also the trafficking of arms: “Those who foment wars in Africa by the arms trade are accomplices in abominable crimes against humanity” (n. 118).
BTW what does the alleged corruption of individual employee’s of the UN have to do with sovereign nations deciding to oppose the invasion of Iraq? Does financial malpractice at ENRON cast a shadow over the probity of George W Bush?
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Matt25
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The Catholic Church was opposed to the bombing of Yugoslavia so in that case the UN was in line with Vatican thinking. Re Rwanda try looking at the US record gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/press.html
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Arba_Sicula
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I’m not sure about the liar part, but I agree otherwise. Bush plays an interesting game. He tells the pro-lifers that he’s against partial birth abortion and in favor of parental notification, and he’s likely to deliver on those two issues. But, he also lets the pro-choice people know, primarily by his inaction, that he’s not going to do anything about abortion itself. He can cater to both sides, and his “exceptions” anti-abortion stance isn’t actually anti-abortion in that the “health or life of the mother” exception can be and is interpreted very broadly.
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gilliam
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The Church is also a Church of this world. We deal with the facts that are presented to us. In such a case as this, the US is obligated to try to pacify Iraq working within the international conventions. This places the US at a disadvantage, tactically, and many US soldiers have paid the price with their lives.
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thestickman
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Now I see. You’re not pro-UN or even pro-Vatican. You’re part of the “Everything is America’s fault” crew. Glad that was cleared up
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bekalc
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I personally disagreed with the war on Iraq. Don’t get me wrong, I think Hussein is a horrible man, but I feared we were playing into Hussein’s hands. Hussein and Al Queda had different aims, and in fact were kind of enemies. It was in no ways in Saddem’s best interests to give them weapons of mass destruction, or to use weapons of mass destruction on us. ITs far more likely for Al Queda and the Iranian government to get along better. We gave Al Queda what it wanted, they wanted us to take down Iraq. (Get rid of their enemy Saddam, and give them a focus point in the Middle Eastern War.) If we were to be worried about a country it should have been Iran. (While the Iranian people are nice, they have nuclear weapons, and according to the 9/11 commission Iran does have ties to Al Queda (they allowed the terrorists to go through their country on the way to New York.) right now, our troops are being over extended, and the rest of the world looks at us as the big bullies.
There’s also just the precedent of the type of war we got involved in. Bush’s excuses was that Saddamm has weapons (which he shouldn’t have) that Might attack us someday. As far as I’m concerned that is not good enough reason to go to war with someone.
There’s also just the precedent of the type of war we got involved in. Bush’s excuses was that Saddamm has weapons (which he shouldn’t have) that Might attack us someday. As far as I’m concerned that is not good enough reason to go to war with someone.
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Matt25
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Not so. The Iranian government is Shia. al Quaeda are Sunni’s who think Shia are heretics.
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estesbob
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The whole permise of this thread is false. There is no “Bush vs Benedcit” The article linked to provided all sorts of pithy info as to why Benedcist name proves he’s against the war and other speculaion on what the last two Popes thought of the war **BUT **the article lacks the one thing all those who claims this is an unjust war have never been able to provide. A statement by either B16 or John Paul the Great that this was is unjust. Of course many in these forums and elsewhere have went through all sorts of mental gymnastics trying to prove this is the case-the specualtaion over the meaning of Cardinal Ratzinger picking the Name Benedict being the most humorous.
If either John Paul the Great or B16 beleived this war to be unjust they would have said so. it really is that simple.
If either John Paul the Great or B16 beleived this war to be unjust they would have said so. it really is that simple.
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Arba_Sicula
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Not actually. The Popes tend to speak in nuance when politics is concerned, and I don’t think any Pope has either endorsed or condemned any war in the last few centuries.
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Matt25
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Cardinal Ratzinger said, as the US troops entered Baghdad “it was right to resist the war and its threats of destruction…It should never be the responsibility of just one nation to make decisions for the world, so we must still work with the U.N.,” zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=34068
It cannot be right to resist a Just War therefore the then Cardinal could not have believed that that is what it was.
It cannot be right to resist a Just War therefore the then Cardinal could not have believed that that is what it was.
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Trad
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You might be right. Are you willing to change your mind if the facts warrant?
We have to be careful when we make sweeping statements like yours. There might be a problem with linguistically limiting your claim to ‘unjust.’
Popes, if we take only the last century, have continued to press for peace of a kind unfamiliar to supporters of the War on Terror.
There is rather a long a history of them doing so.
Off the top of my head, in 1965 Paul VI even cried out, “War no more, war never again!”
On the immediate fate the then-looming war in Iraq, Pope John Paul II The Great said, “When war, as in these days in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is ever more urgent to proclaim, with a strong and decisive voice, that only peace is the road to follow to construct a more just and united society. Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of man.”
Do either men use the trigger word ‘unjust?’ No. However, the above statements go pretty well against your post’s import.
In an interview with an Italian news agency, then Cardinal Ratzinger stated the war “has no moral justification” and “[d]ecisions like this should be made by the community of nations, by the UN, and not by an individual power.”
Cardinal Ratzinger also said “There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a ‘just war’.”
And he made this statement many times: “the concept of preventive war does not appear in The Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
Supporters of the War on Terror, and linking Iraq to it, usually won’t argue whether JP2 and B16 were against the war. It is fairly obvious Rome’s Bishops found President Bush’s policies lacking.
Those who disagree with the pontiffs will generally make points about whether or not pontifical statements about the war are binding on lay Catholics in the United States.
Bush supporters have chosen to ignore papal warnings in favor of political allegiance.
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thestickman
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Hmmm so Cardinal Ratzinger was speaking thru the infallibility of his office then? Also, one nation didn’t decide anything for the world. Who was this nation? There were over 50 nations in the coalition when Saddam’s reign of horror was ended so I’d love to know who this one nation was. Btw, your argument at the end is fallacious as can be.
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bekalc
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Yes, they are shia which does provide some form of disagreement between the two.
However, the Iranian government is probably one of the largest supporters of terrorism. Plus, They allowed AlQueda to go through their country before 9/11. According to 9/11 commissin, Iran had more to do with September 11 then SAddam.
Plus, Saddam was a secular ruler. The Baath party is secular; it was even started by a Christian and Christians were a protected minority under Saddam’s regime. Saddam wasn’t a radical fundamentalist, and he represented the type of ruler AlQueda wants to get rid of in the Middle East.
In contrast, while it may be Shia, the Iranian government does impose certain religious laws on their people. There is far more in common ground between their goals, and Al Queda’s then Saddam’s goals and AlQueda.
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