Posted on 11/21/2012 2:34:48 PM PST by Lera
Not a word was heard from the Vatican all the years Sderot babies were in mortal danger. They began noticing the violence last week.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Vatican Council for Culture, commenting on the war between Israel and Hamas, delivered a severe attack on the Jewish people: “I think of the ‘massacre of the innocents’. Children are dying in Gaza, their mothers’ shouts is a perennial cry, a universal cry”.
The Catholic Church high official equated Israel’s operation in Gaza against terror groups with the New Testament story of Herod’s slaughter of Jewish babies in his effort to kill Jesus.
(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
I can certainly agree that outrage of the Cardinal's wording, is not entirely outrageous, in and of itself.
The argument that “he wasn’t on the clock” rings hollow.
I don't know if anyone attempted that claim, in regards to Cardinal Ravasi. I myself though, did make some noises concerning Bishop Shomali's inclusion (his comments from last month in context of the graffiti sprayed on church buildings within his Patriarch).
That Bishop is right in the middle of much of this (not necessarily as to "fault" --- just to make myself clear to others) with previously his words in regards to bigotries coming from Torah-only Chabadnikim his own people face, being used again in the article as example of alleged anti-Jewish bigotry, turning things in some aspects, up-side down.
Though much of Israeli society is secular, more than religious, there is some polarity there too in regards to competition between another two schools of thought -- Israel for Jew & Goyim alike, or Israel for Jews only.
Bishop Shomali would know a bit about those sort of things, one can well enough imagine. It is difficult to speak of the extreme edges, and not have explanation & description of those edges, be taken as description and accusation of things more towards the middle, and of the far (secular?) edge. In recent experience, his words caused a kerfluffle, as spoken of here Bishop Shomali's disparaging statementes on Talmud are disturbing to friends of Christian-Jewish dialogue dated Oct. 7
The explanatory, Bishop Shomali clarifies negative statements about Israeli education dated Oct.16
As mentioned to another, even though this Bishop's follow-up response satisfies myself well enough, I can see how it may not others. Giulio Meotti the writer of the article heading this thread, doesn't offer much consideration at all towards Shomali though, neglecting aspects of Zionism with which that Bishop has been forced to contend.
I'd given the second link once before, adding it again to help any who might enter the thread, here. It's been a contentious thread, and few would want to wade through it, sifting for clues.
My thanks to you for having the patience to suffer through my previous too lengthy reply.
I did take notice that you have given indication you recognize more than one aspect of all of this. Not that much credit for that appeared forthcoming...
I see too, there is the usual attempt to drag it off into the bushes. Amazing how effective that is, once the "shoot the messenger" biz gets cranked up.
It's easier than tearing down the arguments, so each time, no matter how craftily the spitballs are made & aimed, know it's for reason of not being able to defeat the argument (or justifiable opinions) from neutral position of fact. But then again, you know these things. I only offer the idea as encouragement, acknowledgement, and continued thanks for all you have brought us, here.
This article has been picked up by a number of websites so there may be others trying to get to the bottom of the story. If you discover information which supports your views, post it. If Cardinal Ravasi issues a rebuttal or denial - or if you locate a transcript - post it.
>> If true, can’t blame Jews for not trusting Christians.
And what will you say the next time a Rabbi knocks Christianity?
I have not asked for this thread to be pulled or for its source article to be banned. I am not in favor of censorship because most adults are capable of handling rough language and even rougher ideas. Sometimes the best rebuttal of an idea is revealed in the excesses of its proponents.
In the body of this thread was a link to a site that I found to be equally objectionable to sites already banned. I only asked how it was any different. I still have not received an answer.
If you have a specific page you want me to review, send me the url by Freepmail.
Nor do you deny their humanity. God did not appoint you or me as the judge of anyone, He called upon us to love them as we love ourselves.
Jesus did not come to save the rightous, but to save the likes of Hamas. Jesus died for them every bit as much as He did for you and me. God will not destroy them, but He will permit them to destroy themselves just as he permits you and me to destroy ourselves through hatred. The hatred of Palestinians is just as sinful as their hatred of Israelis and is entirely un-Christian. I encourage you to work and pray for their salvation, not their demise as He has commanded.
Peace be with you.
I wish, if it were at all possible, individual threads could be approached with a clear and unbiased state of mind and that each FReeper could feel free to comment without others responding to their posts from a personal grudge formulated over months or years of previous interaction. Maybe it is a pipe dream, but I really think these threads could be so much more productive in terms of education and growth if such animosities could be forgotten and the slate wiped clean. Part of the reason this thread went off into the "bushes" so soon and barely addressed the actual subject - which was NOT a blanket condemnation of the Roman Catholic Church - was precisely because of past tussles.
It would be nice if we could start out the new year with a mutually agreed to "wiping of the slate" - forgiving others as we are also forgiven - letting go of past hurts and insults and deciding henceforth to discuss the subject at hand without prejudging others motives before a word is said. Maybe if we all tried to envision the other person sitting across the table from us, letting that determine our tone of voice and words we choose, these threads could resists heading off into those unproductive and damaging bushes and Free Republic could be a place where people know they can learn something without being offended by anger or stored up hatreds. I think we can do it, how about you?
In presenting Pope Benedict’s most recent book, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, did comment on the following phrase “In our own day, the mothers’ cry to God continues unabated” (The Infancy Narratives, p.113). In doing so, he elaborated with humanitarian concern and in light of the news of recent days:“This cry of the mothers who have lost dramatically their children has returned again and again throughout history, and has done so again in these days in Gaza.”
None of this in anyway equates to the headline on this thread "The Vatican on Gaza: Israel is a Baby-Killer". The Vatican never said those words and neither did Ravasi. Those are words put into his mouth by a plagiarist. A "journalist" who lifts quotes without attribution and who also places words never uttered in the mouths of people with whom he disagrees.
While the deaths of children caught in war may be of no concern to some, they certainly are to the Catholic Church which is always and everywhere, pro-life. I can only assume the deaths of these children are of no concern to Meiotti or his apologists because they're Palestinian.
Peace be with you
I think you have long been further along that road than I. Seriously. My own grudges do exist, occasionally rising up strongly within, particularly when I see personalized attacks (which then tempts me to do the same, of course) I will confess. No confession is needed from others for that same to be seen to be true for many others (but minus open confession of it).
Still, repentance is enough. The "penance" idea (that word being much freighted with meanings differing from simple "repentance") isn't necessary, in fact can take strange twists, leaving a "stop doing that" to be enough & simply best.
I do not expect broad change to occur anytime soon. The feeding and fortifying of grudges is glaringly evident. The grudge being used as shield, rather than simple faith [used as shield].
The anti-Catholic crowd don't care what the truth is, nor do those who swear they're not anti-Catholic but rush to lick the boots of anyone who spreads anti-Catholic lies. Such folks only care that they had an anti-Catholic headline to post because they know plenty of people will digest the headline and never bother with any post that proves that headline was a lie.
Furthermore, no one is a Christian when they routinely side with and defend those who say that Christ is false god and all of Christianity is a lie. By whom a man is overcome, of that same also is he the slave.
The anti-Catholic crowd that use the exact same tactics as the democrat propagandists do so because they serve the same master.
That is too harsh. The anti-Catholics are not necessarily evil, but like the executioners on Calvary, they are deceived.
"For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another." - Titus 3:3
They do evil, but believe they are doing good. We are all guilty of this at times.
"For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing." - Romans 7:19.
If they’re like Christ’s executioners they wouldn’t be claiming to be Christian while attacking major portions of what Christ Himself said.
Going back to the twitter feed you supplied link for previous, with my own copying of the statements there from bottom to top, resulting in the order of them inverted compared to how they were found at that link, running that through Google translator (from Italian to English) is the following;
Rachel is every mother who sees her son deprived of the future (life) who leaves home for the arrogance of power unfairly.
"the cry of the black mother who was going to meet his son crucified on the telegraph pole?"
eminence thirst for prayers in a few moments ...
Rachel = Gaza, can it be?
Obviously, Ravasi did leave the impression he said such & such. Leaving me to wonder if the good Cardinal did not unfortunately reach for a bridge too far, himself being well swept up with the Ratinger description of "four keys" that are to be used to open the doors of understanding [to scripture].
Towards that, another portion of his statement concerning Ratzinger's book, (google translator again):
Auto-referential oracular esoteric...ok. That has long been recognized.(in more ways than one and I AM smiling when I say that) "Certain theological or philosophical unreadable". But Ratinger has four keys. Did Ravasi put the right key in the proper door (to borrow his own description of Ratzinger's description of said "keys") or did some unintended else appear, including hint of the Israeli's own bigotries towards the "others", those not born Jewish, even as Israeli society itself has long been split over their OWN self-recognition of such bigotries, examined and discussed [amazingly!] while they themselves are surrounded with the bitterest of bigotries and hatreds found today on earth?
That much in the way of similarly difficult open introspection be harshly prohibited among the Middle Eastern Muslim population, all but goes without saying, for it can be punished by penalty of death, and frequently by spontaneous extra-judicial means.
Returning to the Cardinal's intro;
The self reverential introduction resulted in some inconvenient repercussions, difficult to unravel, to say the least.
Otherwise somewhat overlooked among Ravasi's comments {and not touched upon, above), but found jarring to myself --- paraphrasing;
"the Gospels not for children, [only] for adults"? (huh?) maybe Ratizgers book is best for adults, adults in faith and that would be all fine and well enough...
(as to the Gospels again) "not for sentimental rhetoric"...ok, to that last, but how much concern for children in Gaza, is sentimental, when war is being stoked up by leaders in Gaza, even immediately after this latest ceasefire?
Though I think I understand Ravasi's comments in context, it remains too, that the intro can also be seen to come across as all too much "classical scholar philosopher" even riding the Pope's coattails in display of how Ravasi is hip to it all. The timing couldn't have been much worse, for it helped lead to the willful distortions found in the article, with it's lopsided, inflammatory headline, upon which we are commenting.
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