Posted on 03/03/2003 2:46:58 AM PST by HAL9000
But I am compelled to point out that there may be a higher purpose in this, IMHO, "wrong" decision of the Vatican.
The terrorists, both Osama, the Iranian clerics, and Iraq's none-too-religious Hussein... all want the arab world to see this as a Holy War.
That's because they have no hope of energizing Muslims any other way, except perhaps with the Palestinian issue- which is why we see both bin Laden and saddam hussein and Imad Mugniyah all too willing to stir up the palestinians. They need some other issue to raise the rabble and get them to topple the authorities in these various Arab nations where they would like to see the current regimes overthrown. the issue remaining to them is Jihad, or Holy War, and they need to get the mobs out there to see not just the Israelis as a threat, but also Christianity.
Bin Laden has tried desperately to get Arabs to see America as a crusader nation, and he is having a hard time of it because many arabs know this country and want to come here because we don't have "religious police" and the Imams' fatwas have no power here. So bin Laden has to overcome the apathy or even the positive viewpoints people have about America in order to make the average Muslim feel as if he personally could become a target of "Crusaders" out to destroy their Ummah.
But how can he spin it to the Muslim world that Christians are waging a Holy War on them instead of the other way around, if the single largest Christian entity they know opposes America's policy? How can bin Laden claim that the crusaders are joining the zionists against Islam if America is in defiance of the Roman Catholic Church, a large chunk of christianity? And the average Muslim doesn't know the World Council of Churches is a joke and not reprisentative of all Christians, either, so if they see those jokers tsk-tsking us, it only undermines Osama bin Laden's message since it looks like America is in defiance of "the Church."
It may or may not be intentional, but that's the effect of the Pope's position. The Pope won't stop us from completing the Gulf War, since it must come to pass and it is right that it come to pass; but wittingly or unwittingly he is helping to deny bin Laden his Holy War by making us look like the loose cannon.
And by denying bin Laden this propaganda victory, he may be denying him new recruits and so, this war may be far less costly and a good deal shorter than if it turned into a full fledged religious war and drew in people who otherwise wouldn't feel threatened enough to fight us.
They did not control Hitler. They did not protect altar boys. This is a worldly function that the Vatican cannot perform.
It's the Pope's job is to tell everyone to let their enemies slap them on the cheek and take their clothes and smile, but it isn't the American way.
After you give all your money to the poor and become a missionary for Christ, you can take the moral high ground.
Until then, I reserve my right to be cynical about organizatons that call on US to give away our treasure while holding onto theirs and call on US to let megalomaniac dictators bomb and nuke us without trying to prevent it.
While I appreciate this Pope's fight against an oppressive socialist regime in his own native country, I am disappointed and dismayed by his appeasement of a more remote, but just as oppressive socialist regime.
I disagree with the notion that the Pope should be granted immunity from due criticism just because he was an anti-Communist. The enemy of my enemy is not automatically my friend. If we applied that logic, we would have to honor Hitler as a warrior against Communism--AND, at the same time, we would have to honor Stalin as a warrior against the Third Reich!
That said, I don't think we should look upon this Pope as a bad man--rather, we should understand that he is a well-meaning old gentleman who is, unfortunately, rather out of touch with reality, thanks mostly to the leftist European media. The U.S. administration should try to enlighten him and get him on our side.
The problem is that it also has an unfortunate side effect--to discredit the Catholic Church in the eyes of many people!
You can stick all that hot air where the sun don't shine, Patriciaruth.
The FACTS are that Pope John Paul II was a tireless warrior in the fight against Communism, so much so that the KGB engineered a hit on him. A very strong argument could be made that without his effort that virus would still be going strong. What's your track record for freedom, that you feel qualified to criticise a man like him? You made a cheap shot, you were called on it, and now instead of showing some character and apologising you're trying to bluster your way out of it.
Oh. You...disagree with that notion, do you?
Well, let me put another notion to you: that someone like you, hiding behind a keyboard and anonymously passing cruel judgement on John Paul II's lifetime of service to God and to Freedom, is nothing more than a gutless pissant.
I for one am very comfortable with that notion.
I think your analysis is quite astute. As an Orthodox Christian, I have had reason to mistrust some initiatives undertaken by JPII over the years (such as his recent visit to the huge mosque in Damascus Syria which used to be an Orthodox church 1400 years ago, I believe). But any attempt to reduce murderous "reprisals" by Muslims against Christians in the Middle East and Indonesia after a war starts can only be good.
Since most such Christians historically since 610 AD have been "Eastern" Christians (in the Orthodox Church, the extinct Nestorian Church, the Assyrian Church, etc. who used to number in the hundreds of millions where now there are but a handful), it only makes sense to make it clear that a secularized Western nation bombing a secularized Middel Eastern country is not a religious war as such.
I think that the primary reason that the British Empire made such a mess of things in the Middle East (militarily defending the Ottoman Empire's Muslim tyranny against the Orthodox Christians, such as in 1855-56 and 1878, for example) is precisely because there has never yet been a Protestant nation annihilated by the Muslim armies. They can feel safe behind the buffer. There will never be a "religious war" as the Muslims believe is already happening, until the day that a nuclear bomb or other horror takes out a Western European city.
And I said a certain number of Hail Mary's to convert Russia, too; but I'm still glad President Reagan believed in peace through strength.
Hate me because I won't genuflect. But I'm calling this as I'm seeing this. But if you'll start a thread on President Carter, I'll happily say much worse things about him.
It definitely was not my intention to "pass cruel judgment" on the Pope. Please point out in what way I did it, because I would like to avoid it doing in the future.
Thanks, KC.
What IS it, with our side of politics, that so many can never give fair credit to the heroes of freedom? Does it somehow ameliorate their insignificance, to snipe at their betters? It's not just the Pope: it's on nearly every day, here: Rush, Drudge, Hannity, Buchanan, even JR... why can't we save our shots, for the Left?
I don't think this is going to reduce them, but simply make the Islamics feel more powerful. Islamics have only been stopped, historically, when the Church has stood up against them, not when it has made concessions to them. Saddam is a secularist only loosely speaking; the man who built a mosque out of used rocket shells and had a copy of the Koran written in his own blood is obviously trying to show where his allegiances lie.
In a similar vein, Pius XII tried maintaining a low profile to avoid attracting the attention of Hitler to the Church. This didn't work, because Hitler hated the Church anyway and attacked any individual or organization within it that he suspected might not kowtow to him. It was known that he planned a full-fledged assault on Christians after he got the Jews out of the way.
The only thing Pius XII did was soil his own name and that of the Church, and subject Christians to many more months of fear and reprisals because he did not encourage them to stand up and reject Hitler en masse. They were not supported by the Vatican, not because it was anti-Semitic, but because it was cowardly.
You can't compromise with evil. Throwing that dog a bone just makes it hungrier.
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