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Crossbones
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Ok, a few questions:
- Is a well-formed conscience necessary to exercise prudential judgement?
- How are Catholics supposed to use the Pope’s teachings when exercising prudential judgement?
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Lapey
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That made me
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Path_Finder
Guest
What do you mean “another reactionary”? Are you speaking about any individuals here? And if yes, whom?
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Path_Finder
Guest
What about the Lateran Treaty? addisvoice.com/2013/08/open-letter-to-his-holiness-pope-francis-i/
If the Vatican erred and approved some aspects of Italy’s incursion into Ethiopia, then are we to understand that we as Catholics would be compelled to follow this? This I know seems a bit off-topic however, this subject is brought up in in fact, a Catholic movie. I can’t remember the name but African Americans play basketball for an Inner-City Catholic School some many years ago and the topic is briefly discussed.
If the Vatican erred and approved some aspects of Italy’s incursion into Ethiopia, then are we to understand that we as Catholics would be compelled to follow this? This I know seems a bit off-topic however, this subject is brought up in in fact, a Catholic movie. I can’t remember the name but African Americans play basketball for an Inner-City Catholic School some many years ago and the topic is briefly discussed.
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Crossbones
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Yes, that makes sense. But why did you believe the Pope is wrong in the first place?That made me
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estesbob
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Yes
The first step is to differentiate between the Popes “teachings” and the Pope expressing his opinion. The are no Papal “teachings” on the justness of the Iraq war (of for that for any war in the last 800 years) Again this is a problem we run into continually with Protestants, who seem to believe Catholics are required to acquiesce to every utterance of the Pope.
That does not mean we should ignore his opinions-we should give them great weight. But since he himself said we could come to a different conclusion than him it obvious a Catholic could support the war.
A formal declaration by the Church that a war was unjust could not be taken lightly by a Catholic. It would mean that everyone who supported it and everyone who fought in it would be automatically excommunicated. For this reason the Church has rarely made such a declaration. I believe the last time it was done was in the 12 century.
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Lapey
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Because of the threats of WMD. I still think they were there and transported out of Iraq just before the war started. There were many reports then and pictures of ships and convoys leaving Iraq in the days and hours leading up to the war. I am far from alone in this thinking.
However, we shall know if our actions are just by the fruit; all I see coming out of anything we have done since the 60’s in foreign policy has produced nothing but rotten apples.
War begets war.
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Crossbones
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts. As usual, you have given me a lot to think about.
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Ridgerunner
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I don’t think it’s a matter of thinking the Pope was wrong. He did say, before it started, that he did not think armed intervention appropriate. He premised that on his belief that UN action could resolve the issues. What he did not know was how deeply the UN officials were corrupted by Saddam’s regime’s grant of “oil credits” to them under the “Oil for Food” program. The Pope couldn’t have known it because it was only discovered after the war began.
I have yet to see anybody produce a condemnation of the war by the Pope after it began.
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Dawnia
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I’m curious how anyone thinks a Pope could know without being privey to classified information used in making a decision to go to war that a war was just or unjust? It’s not like countries run these decisions past the Pope before hand. He’s stating his opinion based off of the information/misinfrormation that is available to most everyone. And just like everyone else, he has to sift through the info and decide what is likely truth and what isn’t.
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Crossbones
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From catholicism.about.com/od/thechurchintheworld/f/popes_on_iraq.htm
Cardinal Ratzinger also argued that “reasons sufficient for unleashing a war against Iraq did not exist,” in part because:
“proportion between the possible positive consequences and the sure negative effect of the conflict was not guaranteed. On the contrary, it seems clear that the negative consequences will be greater than anything positive that might be obtained.”
Not sure if that is before or after, but it is pretty telling (it was in an April issue, but may have been written before the invasion).
I would say that, if you supported the invasion, you felt the Pope was wrong. I just would like to know why you thought that.
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estesbob
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I thought it because he did not have the information available to him the people making the decision did.
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Ridgerunner
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It was written before the intervention.
First of all, I’m not sure I knew Pope JPII made the comment he made, and I certainly didn’t know then Cdl Ratzinger would become Pope. One does need to remember that Tariq Aziz made a visit to the Pope shortly before it began. The usual understanding of that visit was that he was asking the Pope to take a stand against renewal of the Iraq War. I know a cousin of Aziz and knew (and perhaps the Pope did) that Aziz, like all Iraqis, especially those close to Saddam, was under what amounted to a conditional death sentence every moment of his life, and his family too. I don’t know the content of that conversation, and I don’t suppose I ever will. But from Aziz’ standpoint it was pretty predictable. I don’t know if that had anything to do with Pope JPII’s statement and, as I said, I am not sure I even knew about the Pope making it. But had I known, I think I would have been skeptical of delaying further. One needs to remember the Pope counseled delay, not failing to do it at all.
For one thing, I didn’t give a lot of credence to Aziz’ assurances, given to the Pope. He had no choice. I give absolutely zero credence to anything the UN does or thinks or says or proposes, regardless whether any given Pope believes in it or not. As a Catholic, I’m free to distrust the UN, and I do.
Now, was then-Cdl Ratzinger correct in his assessment of the “balance”? I’m not sure what he expected the war to be like, so I couldn’t say whether his assessment, given his assumptions which are unknown to me, was correct or not.
Given that the allies did not cause many civilian casualties (most were caused by foreign Islamist fighters) and given that the U.S. really did hold the peace after it ended, and at the request of all three major groups there, I would say I do not disagree with Cdl Ratzinger’s statement of the potential danger in the abstract, but neither do I believe he knew what the U.S. armed forces could do with so few casualties. Few did.
As to the post-2008 aftermath, that’s all Obama’s doing, and I never agreed with Obama’s snatching defeat from the jaws of victory for a single instant. Our withdrawal was a terrible betrayal of people who trusted us to keep the peace and fight off foreign fighters.
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estesbob
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And Cardinal Ratzinger was very careful to state that his opinion and that of JPII were not binding on Catholics. He did this specifically because the usual suspects were trying to claim a moral equivalence between supporting the war and supporting abortion.
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stinkcat_14
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Can you link me to where he said this was his motivation?
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mary_bobo
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I have said numerous times before an I repeat, what was in the convoy leaving Iraq and crossing the desert into Syria? More nations, besides the US, and their intelligence agencies
believed that Sadam had WMDs. Could they all be wrong? I don’t think so, but each of us is left to draw our own conclusions.
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estesbob
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Just my opinion.
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Crossbones
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You presented it like it was a fact, not your opinion. Do you do that often?
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Crossbones
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I think Pope JPII was very clear when he said “There is still time to negotiate; there is still room for peace, it is never too late to come to an understanding and to continue discussions.” which occurred two days before the attack begun. To suggest that he was under the influence of the Iraqi government is silly, a bit of verbal gymnastics if you will. I can understand not being aware of comments like these, but your continued defense of the war in the face of overwhelming evidence that the Pope was right is strange to me - like you’re absolutely unwilling to consider the idea that you might have been wrong.
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Ridgerunner
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Again, what the Pope did not know, and could not have known (Aziz wouldn’t have told him) was that the UN officials had been corrupted by Saddam. He couldn’t have known because nobody knew that for sure until after the war started and documents were found evidencing it. You might remember that even the son of the UN president was involved in the corruption.
I did not say the Pope was under the influence of the Iraqi government. All I know is that Aziz visited with the Pope shortly before. But if, indeed, Aziz represented to the Pope that a peaceful solution was possible, I would not have considered it worthy of belief because I knew Aziz’ life and that of his family was on the line in presenting whatever Saddam wanted him to present.
I also know the Pope did not condemn the war after it started and never said Catholics could not morally participate in it or support it. Did something change his mind? I don’t know, and I’m reasonably confident you don’t either.
I do defend the decision to take down Saddam, and on a number of bases. But let’s look at the easiest for a moment. Would you, if you could, put Saddam Hussein back in power, knowing he killed about a million people, gassed his own, bombed his own, put people in acid baths, had rape rooms, killed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children and started two aggressive wars, in at least one of which he used WMD? Would you put him back in power? Tell us.
If your answer to that is “no”, then you may look at what the situation is now. Saddam was actually worse, during his reign, than ISIS has been so far. Would you favor resisting ISIS, or would you be content to see them behead some more, murder some more, starve people some more, commit genocide some more, kill children wantonly some more? Are you content with that?
If you are not content with that, with what would you be content? How about an Iraq in which the factions still didn’t much like each other but lived in peace with each other; an Iraq in which the Sunni were not fighting the Kurds, the Kurds were fighting nobody, and the Shia were fighting nobody? Would that be worth armed struggle to you, or is nothing worth it to you if put in the balance?
Well, that peace is exactly what Iraq War Phase II accomplished. Exactly. The Sunni leaders, the Kurds and the Shia all begged us to stay, and why? It wasn’t because they suddenly liked each other, but because we guaranteed the peace, that’s why. Because we fought off the fighters from all over the Islamic world, that’s why; people like ISIS and including ISIS’ current leader.
If you don’t think that state of peace was worth killing largely foreign Islamists; ISIS types, to keep them from doing what they’re doing now and which was evident even back then, then tell us that would be your choice.
Even the generals who conducted the war and the peace after it agreed that we should not have cut and run from Iraq. That was Obama’s decision, and everything that has happened with ISIS, the war between Iran and the Sunni, is due to that decision, not to the decision to topple Saddam. And that decision to leave Iraqis in the lurch will have a lot more bad repercussions than we have seen so far.
Hmm. Looking back, it seems we have gone far afield from the topic.
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