Pope says weapons manufacturers can't call themselves Christian

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Where has he done this? I have not seen any report where the Pope has thrown anyone under a bus.
How about Christians who make weapons?

How about people who believe that capitalism is the best method for decreasing poverty?

How about those of us who believe that burning fossil fuels is a benefit to the poor?
 
That’s what I am asking.

What is a bad pope? I’m not concluding anything, just pondering.

He is supposed to represent all Catholics. It seems he is throwing some of us under the bus.

Previous popes(in my lifetime) have been very measured and cautious in their statements, realizing that there are many prudential issues about which good Catholics may disagree.
I personally, don’t think his views make catholics look bad (Is this what you mean by throwing you under the bus?)
But I think he is voicing a nuanced view of the role weapons manufacturers have in this world. And yes, I know that weapons manufacturing is a business, and morality doesn’t necessarily have a place in corporations. But he is after all, speaking from a christian perspective and I am not at all surprised at his conclusions. For example, if you consider yourself a christian would you sell weapons to some countries knowing that it will eventually be traded to terrorists etc.?

Now to be clear, I am not saying I agree with him that these manufacturers cannot call themselves christians (The popo doesn’t get to decide that). I am just saying I can see how he could arrive at that conclusion as a christian. In the same way I would not be surprised to hear that he thinks manufacturers of artificial birth control etc. can’t call themselves christians.
 
Some people use weapons to hunt for food and for a living. Weapons arent only for wars. Or does the Pope have a forthcoming vegan encyclical in mind?
 
I personally, don’t think his views make catholics look bad (Is this what you mean by throwing you under the bus?)
But I think he is voicing a nuanced view of the role weapons manufacturers have in this world. .
The problem is the statement is not nuanced, but about a broad a brush as you can paint.
 
Why would anyone use yahoo to report on anything religious?
To pour their hate on the subject and trash religion, or distort it to serve their secular leftist agenda. I don’t generally trust yahoo and the Huffington Post to provide proper coverage on the Pope and the Catholic Church, because their coverage is 100% radical leftist propaganda.
 
To pour their hate on the subject and trash religion, or distort it to serve their secular leftist agenda. I don’t generally trust yahoo and the Huffington Post to provide proper coverage on the Pope and the Catholic Church, because their coverage is 100% radical leftist propaganda.
Feel free to google the topic. It was reported as described by every major news source.
 
Feel free to google the topic. It was reported as described by every major news source.
Anybody know if there’s a full transcript available? Reading what the Pope says from these sources is often incomplete and biased.
 
OK, so this is what he actually said,

"
Vatican City, 22 June 2015 (VIS) – The first day of the Pope’s apostolic trip to Turin concluded with his encounter with the young in Piazza Vittorio. Francis answered to questions from three of them regarding the meaning of love, trust in life and the importance of sharing ideals, setting aside the discourse he had prepared. The following is a summary of the Holy Father’s answers:

“Love, life, friends: … these three words are important for life, and they share a common root: the desire to live. … Love moves on two axes: first of all, love is found in actions more than in words: love is concrete. … God began to talk about love when he was involved with His people … when He made a covenant with His people, He saved His people, He made gestures of love, acts of love. And the second dimension, the second axis on which love turns, is that love always communicates itself, that is, love listens and responds, love is found in dialogue and communion. Love is neither deaf nor mute, it communicates itself. … Love is very respectful to others, it does not use them, and therefore love is chaste. … It considers the life of the other person to be sacred: I respect you, I do not want to use you. … Forgive me if I say something you did not expect, but I ask you: make the effort to live love chastely. And a consequence derives from this: … love sacrifices itself for others. Love is service. When Jesus, after the washing of the feet, explains this gesture to the apostles, He teaches them that we are made to serve one another”.

“Very often we breathe an air of distrust in life. There are situations that make us think, ‘But is it worth living like this?’. I think of the wars in this world. At times I have said that we are living a third world war, but in pieces. There is war in Europe, there is war in Africa, there is war in the Middle East, there is war in other countries … But can I trust in a life like this? Can I trust world leaders? When I go to vote for a candidate, can I trust that he or she will not take my country to war? If you trust only in men, you have lost! Think of the people, leaders, entrepreneurs, who say they are Christians and then produce weapons! They say one thing and do another. Hypocrisy … But we see what happened during the last century: in 1914, or rather in 1915 precisely. There was the great tragedy in Armenia. Many people died. I do not know how many, but certainly more than a million. Where were the great powers of the time? They looked away. Why? Because they were interested in war: their war! And those who died, they were second class people, human beings. Then, in the 1930s and 1940s, the tragedy of the Shoah. The great powers had photographed the railway lines that carried the trains to the concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, to kill Jews, and also Christians, Roma, homosexuals, to kill them there. But tell me, why did they not bomb them? Interests! And soon after, almost at the same time, there were the lagers in Russia: Stalin … how many Christians suffered and were killed. The great powers divided Europe like a cake. Many years had to pass before reaching a certain ‘freedom’. There is the hypocrisy of speaking about peace and producing arms, and even selling weapons to this one, who is at war with that one, and to that one who is at war with this!”

“I understand what you say about distrust in life: today, too, we are living a culture of waste. All that is not of economic use is discarded. … And so, with this culture of waste, is it possible to trust in life? … A young person who cannot study, who does not have a job, who suffers the shame of not feeling worthy because he does not have a job, does not earn life. … How often do young people commit suicide? … Or how often do they go to fight with terrorists, at least to do something, for an ideal? … And this is why Jesus told us not to place our security in wealth, in worldly powers. How can I live a life that does n destroy, that is not a life of destruction, a life that does not discard people? How can a live a life that does not disappoint me?”.

“We must go ahead with our plans to build, and this life does not disappoint. If you are involved in a plan for construction, to help … that sense of distrust in life goes away. Be active, and go against the grain. For you, young people, who experience this economic and also cultural, hedonistic, consumerist situation with its soap bubble values, with these values it is not possible to go ahead. Do constructive things, even if they are small, that bring us together again, that unite us together, with our ideals: this is the best antidote to this distrust of life, against this culture that offers you only pleasure. … The secret is clearly understanding where you live. In this land … at the end of the nineteenth century there were the worst possible conditions for the growth of the young: Freemasonry prevailed, even the Church could do nothing; there was anti-clericalism, there was Satanism. … It was one of the worst times and one of the worst places in the history of Italy. But in that period, many saints were born. Why? Because they realised that they had to swim against the tide of that culture, that way of life. Live in reality, and if that reality is glass and not diamond, I find an alternative reality and make it my own, a reality that is of service to others”.

vis.va/vissolr/index.php?vi=all&dl=e7af6e27-aa7a-ab01-1563-5588188efb1c&dl_t=text/xml&dl_a=y&ul=1&ev=1
 
What’s wrong with profit? Aren’t workers worthy of their wages?

None of which was foreseeable in 2002. How do you determine before a war is fought that it will result in a “greater evil”? No plan survives contact with the enemy, or as Mike Tyson said more colorfully, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.
Workers are entitled a fair wage, but I’m not talking about the workers on the assembly I’m talking about the corporate executives and CEOs.

It’s hard to determine if a war would lead to a greater evil, but it still a requirement for a war to be seen as just under Catholic dogma. Furthermore, I’m not entirely sure you can claim that it was entirely unforeseeable. People voted against the Iraq war after all, either because there was no real proof that he had weapons of mass destruction or because they believe that American involvement in the Middle East tends to make things worse - a thought that wasn’t exactally unheard of pre-9/11.
 
Intent is the important thing here. Weapons manufacture’s goal to provide guns for hunting and protecting families is very different from the weapons manufacture who makes weapons of mass destruction and who lets them get into the hands of people who would abuse them. Also, the maker of armor piercing rounds (aka Cop Killers) have ONE goal when they make those… Kill people.
The term “cop killer bullets” is needlessly inflammatory and misleading. Most pistol and rifle rounds used for medium or larger game hunting will pierce standard body armor, making even the standard NATO 5.56mm round (used in AR-15 and their military equivalent) a “cop killer”.
 
OK, so this is what he actually said,

“Very often we breathe an air of distrust in life. There are situations that make us think, ‘But is it worth living like this?’. I think of the wars in this world. At times I have said that we are living a third world war, but in pieces. There is war in Europe, there is war in Africa, there is war in the Middle East, there is war in other countries … But can I trust in a life like this? Can I trust world leaders? When I go to vote for a candidate, can I trust that he or she will not take my country to war? If you trust only in men, you have lost! **Think of the people, leaders, entrepreneurs, who say they are Christians and then produce weapons! They say one thing and do another. Hypocrisy **… But we see what happened during the last century: in 1914, or rather in 1915 precisely. There was the great tragedy in Armenia. Many people died. I do not know how many, but certainly more than a million. Where were the great powers of the time? They looked away. Why? Because they were interested in war: their war! And those who died, they were second class people, human beings. **Then, in the 1930s and 1940s, the tragedy of the Shoah. The great powers had photographed the railway lines that carried the trains to the concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, to kill Jews, and also Christians, Roma, homosexuals, to kill them there. But tell me, why did they not bomb them? Interests! **And soon after, almost at the same time, there were the lagers in Russia: Stalin … how many Christians suffered and were killed. The great powers divided Europe like a cake. Many years had to pass before reaching a certain ‘freedom’. There is the hypocrisy of speaking about peace and producing arms, and even selling weapons to this one, who is at war with that one, and to that one who is at war with this!”

vis.va/vissolr/index.php?vi=all&dl=e7af6e27-aa7a-ab01-1563-5588188efb1c&dl_t=text/xml&dl_a=y&ul=1&ev=1
:confused:
 
I think his Holiness’s speech was not as simple as condemning arms manufacturing. My interpretation is he was condemning those who make profit from human misery and war, and perpetuate unjust wars (like World War I, which the Vatican deemed unjust under Pope Benedict XV) for profit, but refuse to intervene militarily in circumstances which would be just, like the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, because it would not be profitable for them do do so.

Please correct me if my interpretation is mistaken.
 
Workers are entitled a fair wage, but I’m not talking about the workers on the assembly I’m talking about the corporate executives and CEOs.
Corporate executives aren’t entitled to their wages? Don’t they work?
It’s hard to determine if a war would lead to a greater evil, but it still a requirement for a war to be seen as just under Catholic dogma. Furthermore, I’m not entirely sure you can claim that it was entirely unforeseeable. People voted against the Iraq war after all, either because there was no real proof that he had weapons of mass destruction or because they believe that American involvement in the Middle East tends to make things worse - a thought that wasn’t exactally unheard of pre-9/11.
The situation in the Middle East up until 2008-9 was relatively stable. I’m not sure how George Bush or anybody in his administration could have foreseen how badly his successor would bollox things up.
 
IMHO, he is pointing out that what Eisenhower called the ‘military industrial complex’ does not have a good track record of acting like Christians. Instead they are after their own power and monetary gain at the expense of the poor, persecuted and down trodden. Yet that same group calls themselves Christian. Well, I think he is saying, if they call themselves Christian, they need to act the part; and so far they are not.

It is a very traditional Christian message.
 
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