In her usual insightful way, Amy Welborn hits right on the nose the seat-squirming uneasiness many of us feel when we hear various Church leaders, in the US and in Rome, speak on war and terrorism. It’s not so much that many of us outright disagree with them—hey, a good Catholic is for peace, not war—but that so often their observations seem to contradict what we see before our very eyes.
But there are many in the middle of that spectrum, who observe the world, listen to those prelates, reflect on Catholic teaching, and p[e]ace, ambiguous and confused. And I’d like to venture an opinion on what confuses and worries even those who believe that what the Pope says on this is to be taken more seriously than, say, his “prudential judgment” on whether it is going to rain tomorrow.
I think it is that in these statements, there seems to be a sort of distance from the reality raging around us. There is no direct engagement with the fundamental issues: the commitment to cripple the West and impose the radical, fundamentalist Islamist ideal in its stead. A total contempt for freedom and the intrinsic value of human life. And the determination and will to do this, by any means necessary.
Yes, what is most unsettling is that these bishops sound and act as if the radical Islamic terrorists can be reasoned with, as if we were negotiating a peace between nations and not dealing with modern-day barbarian hordes.
We want to follow the Pope, so we don’t understand
Technorati Tags:Catholic, just war, peace, pope benedict xvi, terrorism, war
I guess my biggest problem with a lot of those who support the Iraq War and are Catholic is that they are insistent on supporting it in the same way that the liberals don’t support it and think anyone who does was Satan. I see Hezbollah as a threat but I didn’t see Iraq as one. Does not seeing Iraq as one make me a godless liberal? Ann Coulter would probably say so. Do I think George Weigel is a lesser Catholic than me for supporting the war in Iraq? No. This is an issue there can be diversity on.
Israel has not exterminated Catholics in the Mideast. Most were driven out by their fellow Arabs who saw them and their “Western” religion as no different than Judaism and Jews, fit only for dhimmitude.
And this statement—“We are right. We are Americans. The Pope and his silly bishops and cardinals, in this situation, are colored by their standard European ‘anti-American’ blinders.”—is the classic rhetorical fallacy of reductio ad absurdum because no one here has said that. In fact, I specifically said in my original post that this isn’t true.
I would thank you and everyone else on this thread to read and respond to what I write, not the same boilerplate you carry from elsewhere.
“The fruit of abortion is nuclear war” Mother Theresa.
If you want to contribute to peace in the world, save an innocent child in your neighborhood today no matter what the cost to yourself.
Catholics, members of the body of Christ, are murdering or exterminating their own children right before our eyes so what hope is there of those who do not have the light and grace of Christ from killing us?
Even our bishops did nothing in the face of the greatest war in the history of mankind. They swept these holy innocent lives, unjustly put to death, under the rug while they preached to us of peace. Now their deaths in our Nation approach 50,000,000. I do not understand why Catholics are so concerned about war far away when there is one raging in our own backyard.
Stop the war against children in your neighborhood first and justice and peace will spread. If we continue to ignore the genocide of God’s helpless innocents we will definately witness our own distruction as we will reap what we have sown.
“The fruit of abortion is nuclear war”
Unless we begin doing every thing we can to save these innocent children, there will be no hope for any of us. As Pope John Paul II said, “A Nation that kills its own children is a Nation without hope”.
Save the child being put to death in your neighborhood today and tomorrow and the next day and pray that God will forgive us all because we refused to fight the war against our own children for thirty three years.
Isabelle
Straw man, Jason. I didn’t say that Muslims can’t be peaceful.
Also “development” is a reference to economics, not to democracy. It is incredibly condescending and paternalistic to say that Arabs can’t be democratic. In fact, John Paul quite often called for more freedom and democracy in all parts of the world.
And, despite the platitudes, sometimes war is the answer. It depends on the question.
Ja: You’re wrong. A nation’s embassy is sovereign territory in both international law and longstanding custom.
And frankly, I’d prefer to stop the terrorists in their own countries before they got into the US Unless their passports are stamped “terrorist” you’re going to have to stop every Muslim male from coming to the US.
Sorry, but I have no clue what you’re saying. Would you care to re-phrase that and explicate a little?
Lukewarm muslims can be peaceful because they are interested in money and can get along, just like lukewarm buddhists or lukewarm anything else. Devoted muslims are not because Islam is a vile and vicious lie and seeks to dominate everything else by force and violence.
Problem is that lukewarm muslim immigrants tend to have crazy devoted muslim kids on occasion and one of those berserk 2nd gen muslims can kill a lot of people. This is what is happening in Britain.
Moral of the story: Keep the bastards out of the country. Common sense. If we can’t learn from the English, we probably can’t learn at all and are destined to have the same problems. Hello.
Islam is an evil, something like satan worship, zombie chemicals or animal killiing in the basement. It needs to be viewed for what it is—repugnant and primitive. It is not compatible with life in society and must be shunned for what it is.
Dom, you said: “you’re going to have to stop every Muslim male from coming to the US.”
And your point is?
Stopping every single one would be perfectly OK with me. Stop every female and every child too. Do you know that muslim children are taught from toddlerhood to hate and believe that killing non-muslims is legitimate?? If you don’t know that, you should. It’s on Palestinian tv every single day.
What do you think those muslim religious schools are all about?
Carrie,
The European mindset is very different from ours. Remember that PJP2 was caught in the Third Reich as a young man. The personal reaction to that could very well have been a flirt with the opposite, which would have been Marxism. That doesn’t make him a full-blown communist for his whole life….any more than my being a atheist and democrat at 20 makes me one now.
In Europe, up until not long ago, it was often believed that communism was an inescapable feature of politics there. Indeed, many of the Church’s policies in the 50s-60s were designed to make it so the church could survive in such an environment. This was, reportedly, one of PP6’s motivations for being as wacky as he was. However, of course, communist rule didn’t happen totally in Europe.
There are stories about the voting blocs that put PJP2 in the papacy. I’m not sure how right they are, but they are certainly possible. PJP2 was the one who actually began to put some of this right—haltingly, yes,even sometimes weirdly—but he started the recovery in his own way.