A few thoughts about the Pope and Our Fearless Leader

See, since it came out, I’ve been stuck on this article. Let’s examine, shall we?

Their relationship was bumpy at times. Pope John Paul II openly criticized President Bush about the war in Iraq, stem cell research and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

But the two powerful leaders also forged a bond.

There used to be a saying in journalism, before it became a career path for the upwardly mobile: Your mother says she loves you. Check it out.

What exactly is the backup for that interesting statement?

On Monday, Bush lavished praise on the late Catholic leader, and this week he will be the first U.S. president to attend a papal funeral.

“He spoke to the poor; he spoke to morality. And of course, he was a man of peace,” Bush said at the White House. “And he didn’t like war, and I fully understood that and I appreciated the conversations I had with the Holy Father on the subject.”

In that meeting, the pope lectured the president against promoting research on human embryos, saying such practices “devalue and violate human life.”

Bush later announced a compromise U.S. stem cell policy that restricted research to existing cell lines.

OK - so Mr. Bush says that he was real impressed by the Pope. Not for nothing, but lots of people were. Was the Pope impressed with him?

Well, as I am neither Mr. Bush nor God, I do not profess to know the hearts of others, but we do have a fair idea what the Pope thought of Mr. Bush’s political leadership.
On the war in Iraq, which he fought fiercely against and which Mr. Bush fought fiercely for (in that limited sense of the word “fought” which Mr. Bush is capable of bringing to US Military action), this was what the Pope was doing during Our Fearless Leader’s rush to war

Leaders of world religions have appealed to believers to work to averting a conflict in Iraq as anti-war protests gather pace around the world.

“As conflicts divide neighbours and nations and the threat of war hangs over us like a shadow, too many people see and employ religion as a force of divisiveness and violence. Rather it should be a force for unity and peace,” the representatives said at a weekend symposium.

The Vatican-sponsored meeting was attended by representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and Sikhism.

It concluded as demonstrators staged one of the biggest waves of global anti-war protests since the United States and Britain began pouring warplanes, ships and troops into the Gulf region.

The 38 leaders from 15 countries who attended the three-day meeting appealed for diplomacy and persuasion to correct injustices and respond to international threats.

“Opting for peace does not mean a passive acquiescence to evil or compromise of principle. It demands an active struggle against hatred, oppression and disunity, but not by using methods of violence. Building peace requires creative and courageous action,” the statement said.

The US has threatened a war on Iraq to force Baghdad to come clean on its alleged nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes. Iraq denies that it has any.

Pope John Paul has put the Vatican on a diplomatic collision course with the United States by condemning the possibility of a war, saying it is avoidable and will be a “defeat for humanity”.

He said conflict always had to be the very last option.

Days later, a Vatican-sanctioned journal attacked the US, saying it was motivated by economics and that a war would spark a wave of terrorism and destabilise the Middle East.

Then he talked to international diplomats

I have been personally struck by the feeling of fear which often dwells in the hearts of our contemporaries. An insidious terrorism capable of striking at any time and anywhere; the unresolved problem of the Middle East, with the Holy Land and Iraq; the turmoil disrupting South America, particularly Argentina, Colombia and Venzuela; the conflicts preventing numerous African countries from focusing on their development; the diseases spreading contagion and death; the grave problem of famine, especially in Africa; the irresponsible behaviour contributing to the depletion of the planet’s resources: all these are so many plagues threatening the suvival of humanity, the peace of individuals and the security of societies.

3. Yet everything can change. It depends on each of us. Everyone can develop within himself his potential for faith, for honesty, for respect of others and for commitment to the service of others.

It also depends, quite obviously, on political leaders, who are called to serve the common good. You will not be surprised if before an assembly of diplomats I state in this regard certain requirements which I believe must be met if entire peoples, perhaps even humanity itself, are not to sink into the abyss.

First, a “YES TO LIFE”! Respect life itself and individual lives: everything starts here, for the most fundamental of human rights is certainly the right to life. Abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, for example, risk reducing the human person to a mere object: life and death to order, as it were! When all moral criteria are removed, scientific research involving the sources of life becomes a denial of the being and the dignity of the person. War itself is an attack on human life since it brings in its wake suffering and death. The battle for peace is always a battle for life!

Next, RESPECT FOR LAW. Life within society – particularly international life – presupposes common and inviolable principles whose goal is to guarantee the security and the freedom of individual citizens and of nations. These rules of conduct are the foundation of national and international stability. Today political leaders have at hand highly relevant texts and institutions. It is enough simply to put them into practice. The world would be totally different if people began to apply in a straightforward manner the agreements already signed!

Finally, the DUTY OF SOLIDARITY. In a world with a superabundance of information, but which paradoxically finds it so difficult to communicate and where living conditions are scandalously unequal, it is important to spare no effort to ensure that everyone feels responsible for the growth and happiness of all. Our future is at stake. An unemployed young person, a handicapped person who is marginalized, elderly people who are uncared for, countries which are captives of hunger and poverty: these situations all too often make people despair and fall prey to the temptation either of closing in on themselves or of resorting to violence.

4. This is why choices need to be made so that humanity can still have a future. Therefore, the peoples of the earth and their leaders must sometimes have the courage to say “No”.

“NO TO DEATH”! That is to say, no to all that attacks the incomparable dignity of every human being, beginning with that of unborn children. If life is truly a treasure, we need to be able to preserve it and to make it bear fruit without distorting it. “No” to all that weakens the family, the basic cell of society. “No” to all that destroys in children the sense of striving, their respect for themselves and others, the sense of service.

“NO TO SELFISHNESS”! In other words, to all that impels man to protect himself inside the cocoon of a privileged social class or a cultural comfort which excludes others. The life-style of the prosperous, their patterns of consumption, must be reviewed in the light of their repercussions on other countries. Let us mention for example the problem of water resources, which the United Nations Organization has asked us all to consider during this year 2003. Selfishness is also the indifference of prosperous nations towards nations left out in the cold. All peoples are entitled to receive a fair share of the goods of this world and of the know-how of the more advanced countries. How can we fail to think here, for example, of the access of everyone to generic medicines, needed to continue the fight against current pandemics, an access — alas — often thwarted by short-term economic considerations?

“NO TO WAR”! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity. International law, honest dialogue, solidarity between States, the noble exercise of diplomacy: these are methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences. I say this as I think of those who still place their trust in nuclear weapons and of the all-too-numerous conflicts which continue to hold hostage our brothers and sisters in humanity. At Christmas, Bethlehem reminded us of the unresolved crisis in the Middle East, where two peoples, Israeli and Palestinian, are called to live side-by-side, equally free and sovereign, in mutual respect. Without needing to repeat what I said to you last year on this occasion, I will simply add today, faced with the constant degeneration of the crisis in the Middle East, that the solution will never be imposed by recourse to terrorism or armed conflict, as if military victories could be the solution. And what are we to say of the threat of a war which could strike the people of Iraq, the land of the Prophets, a people already sorely tried by more than twelve years of embargo? War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations. As the Charter of the United Nations Organization and international law itself remind us, war cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations.

Well, one out of, um, all the rest ain’t bad, right?

The Pope also sent a personal envoy from the Vatican to plead (that’s plead. As in beg.) with Our Fearless Leader to stop what he was doing

The Vatican has already made it amply clear that it opposes the US administration’s plan for war against Iraq to remove President Saddam Hussein from power.

…the Pope is sending Cardinal Pio Laghi, a retired Vatican diplomat who was for many years Papal Nuncio in America, with a personal message to Mr Bush appealing to a peaceful solution to the crisis with Iraq.

A brief Vatican statement said Cardinal Laghi was to inform the US of the various initiatives undertaken by the Vatican to contribute towards disarmament and peace in the Middle East.

The Pope has no illusions about the chances of his envoy persuading Mr Bush to change his mind.

But his gesture will please the US Catholic bishops who have been telling their faithful that war is morally wrong.

It will also be appreciated by Iraq’s tiny Catholic minority.

That didn’t go too well

In March, three weeks before the United States launched its offensive against Iraq, Pope John Paul II sent Cardinal Laghi, a former ambassador to the United States, to plead the case against war with Bush and his aides, but the cardinal said he did not feel his arguments were given much weight. “I had the impression they had already made their decision,” Cardinal Laghi said. Today, as U.S. and allied forces try to resolve vast problems in Iraq, “events have shown that the worries of the Holy See were well-founded,” he added.

Cardinal Laghi said that when he sat down to talk with Bush on March 5 the president began expounding the reasons for war at length, until the cardinal interrupted to say: “I did not come here only to listen, but also to ask you to listen.” Bush listened to the cardinal, but raised objections to the Vatican’s moral arguments against use of force, its rejection of “preventive war” and its warnings about the practical consequences for Iraqis and others.

When Bush said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was training members of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, Cardinal Laghi said he asked him: “Are you sure? Where is the evidence?” Cardinal Laghi also questioned the administration’s conviction that Iraq possessed and was ready to use weapons of mass destruction. But Bush had no doubt that he was right, the cardinal said. The president acted almost as if he were divinely inspired and “seemed to truly believe in a war of good against evil,” Cardinal Laghi said.

“We spoke a long time about the consequences of a war. I asked: ‘Do you realize what you’ll unleash inside Iraq by occupying it?’ The disorder, the conflicts between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds—everything that has in fact happened,” the cardinal said. Bush insisted that democracy would be the main result.

At the end of the encounter, Cardinal Laghi recounted, Bush said that although they disagreed about many points, at least they held common positions on the defense of human life and opposition to human cloning. The cardinal replied that those issues were not the purpose of his mission.

On his way out of the White House, Cardinal Laghi said his sense that Bush and his aides had already made up their minds to attack Iraq was confirmed when a Marine general came up to him, shook his hand and said: “Your Eminence, don’t worry. What we’re going to do, we will do quickly and well.” Three weeks later, air strikes and the ground campaign against Iraq began.

The cardinal said that, in the end, the pope and the church did not appear to have much influence on the decision to go to war or even in prompting a deeper reflection on the issues. But to a wider global audience, he said, the church made the point that it was committed to peace. Cardinal Laghi said that in making his case to Bush he was guided by the pope’s statements on Iraq and those of the U.S. bishops’ conference

Of course, Our Fearless Leader had already signaled the stance he intended to take on the Pope’s moral authority on life issues a few months before

At their next meeting in 2002, the president raised concerns with the pope over the clergy sex scandal that was rocking the U.S. Catholic Church.

The Bush White House was aggressively trying to appeal at the time to Catholics, who split their vote almost equally between Bush and Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Surveys showed Bush got 57 percent of Catholics’ votes in 2004, up 3 percentage points from 2000.

Catholics make up more than a fourth of the U.S. electorate.

“The president certainly has courted the Catholic vote,” said John C. Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron and an expert on religion and politics.

“He liked to appear with the pope, he often visited with Catholic leaders and institutions, and he used Catholic language frequently, in speaking of the ‘culture of life,’ “ Green said.

Mr. Green appears to be the article’s authority on the close, warm relationship between the Pope and Our Fearless Leader, although he also couldn’t come up with a whole lot on any reciprocal warmth that might have existed

At the same time, Green said, it was clear Bush liked the pope and admired him, even though the pontiff scolded the president.

“He knew if you hang around with religious leaders long enough, eventually you will get a scolding,” Green said.

Yeah. You just know as soon as pretty much anyone visited the Pope a couple of times, the Vatican would come out with something like this

The Holy See made an urgent request for the establishment of a firm calendar for the recovery of Iraq’s sovereignty, the Vatican secretary for relations with states confirmed.

Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo made these statements in London, where he is in contact with Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

The request was made as Rome prepares for U.S. President George Bush’s tentative June 4 visit to John Paul II in the Vatican. The Holy See has not yet confirmed the visit.

The prelate summarized the Vatican’s position on Iraq thus: “To re-establish the internal security of the country, to collaborate with all the forces that are in Iraq to help the people, and to make the latter perceive that they are not there to oppress them but to help them, and to restore independence and sovereignty to the country as soon as possible.”

“It is necessary that the U.N. intervene,” Archbishop Lajolo explained in statements published today by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

“It is not easy,” he added, “A sacrifice is being called for, but this generosity of spirit is required. Although the U.N. was excluded at the beginning of the war, it is necessary that the United Nations intervene to put an end to the war.”

The Vatican official said that the most urgent priority is “to put as head of the government in Iraq as soon as possible an Iraqi leader, who does not speak to Iraqis in English, but in Arabic, in keeping with their sensibility.”

“Moreover, it is necessary to make it understood that work is being done according to a sure calendar, oriented to the full recovery of the country’s sovereignty and independence,” the archbishop said.

The objective is that foreign troops be able to leave the country “as soon as possible,” he added.

Meanwhile, “it cannot be imagined that the United States will not be commanding the military operations, but of course they will have to be in close agreement with the Security Council” of the United Nations, the prelate said.

“Surely they are not there to decide as they wish,” he said. “In fact, I think that they do not intend to have a force that acts arbitrarily. I think the United States wants to guarantee the security of the country and to withdraw honorably from Iraq as soon as they can.”

The archbishop continued: “Weapons of mass destruction have not been found and the intention to establish a democratic regime is certainly positive, but one must also take into account that democracy needs a cultural background.”

“We will have to be content with sufficient forms of democracy, which safeguard the essence but, above all, what is urgent is a regime accepted by the people,” he said.

Archbishop Lajolo said that he thinks the American-perpetrated acts of torture against prisoners in Iraq have been “for the United States a more serious blow than September 11 — with the difference that the blow was not given by the terrorists, but by the Americans themselves.”

In the Arab countries, he warned, “the great mass of the people, under the influence of the Arab media, feel a growing animosity and hatred toward the West.”

“In fact, the West is often identified with Christianity and it is an identification that is not totally lacking in reasons, as indeed the West has been seasoned by Christian values and many are inspired in those values,” the prelate said. “Let’s think of the United States, in the motto: ‘In God We Trust.’”

In this context, John Paul II’s opposition to this war was providential, as it impedes its being perceived as a Christian attack on Islam, Archbishop Lajolo said.

“The Pope spoke very clearly,” he added. “If he had been heeded, now they wouldn’t have to lament so much. Violence generates violence; war calls up war. I often remember what Lincoln said: ‘There is nothing good in war, except the end.’”

The Vatican was pretty clear about what they expected the US to do in response to the Abu Ghraib scandals

“Violence against people offends God himself, who made humans in his own image,” the Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, said in a pre-recorded television interview due to be broadcast later on Friday.

He condemned the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, made public last week, as “episodes of brutality, contrary to the most elementary human rights and radically contrary to Christian morals”.

“The scandal is even worse if these episodes were committed by Christians,” Lajolo said in the interview, due to be shown on Italian state television’s TG2 news programme.

“You have to emphasize, all the same, that in a democracy such offences are not hidden away — as is the case in the United States, where those responsible are judged and punished along with their superiors who did not fulfil their duty to monitor them,” he said.

Three words: Attorney General Gonzales

This is what the Pope had to say of the Strong Leadership that Our Fearless leader presumed to offer the world

Pope John Paul II, who opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s policy of preventive war, criticized on Monday the “arrogance of power,” which he said should be countered with reason and dialogue.

The pope made his remarks in a televised speech to an annual gathering of diplomats accredited to Vatican City and other dignitaries.

The Pope was extremely concerned about the “holy war” rhetoric deployed by Our Fearless Leader’s supporters on Islam, with which he decidedly did not agree

The pope’s first words at a welcoming ceremony at Cairo’s international airport Feb. 24 were in Arabic: “As-salamu alaikum—Peace be with you!” He then delivered a brief but pointed message against all forms of intolerance and violence between religions. “To do harm, to promote violence and conflict in the name of religion is a terrible contradiction and a great offense against God. But past and present history give us many examples of such a misuse of religion,” he said.

The pope’s arrival prompted an unprecedented show of interreligious hospitality. After kissing a bowl of Egyptian earth, he was warmly greeted by the leaders of Egypt’s Muslim, Orthodox and Catholic communities: Grand Sheik Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi, Coptic Orthodox bishops and Catholic Coptic Patriarch Stephanos II Ghattas. The grand sheik’s presence at the airport was not part of the original program and was seen as a special sign of respect toward the pope. Tantawi is considered the highest religious authority for the world’s one billion Sunni Muslims.

“We must all work to strengthen the growing commitment to interreligious dialogue, a great sign of hope for the peoples of the world,” the pope said. The pope’s words assumed special significance in Egypt, where sporadic violence has flared between Christian and Muslim populations in conflicts that often have political causes. At the beginning of the year, more than 20 people, most of them Christians, were killed in the southern city of Kosheh, reportedly by their Muslim neighbors.

The pope paid visits later in the day to the most important centers of Islam and Orthodox Christianity in Egypt, where he received a warm reception and heard a common refrain from his hosts: religions must work together for peace.

Pope Shenouda III, the 76-year-old patriarch of Orthodox Coptic Christians, welcomed Pope John Paul II to his residence with a speech extolling ecumenical cooperation. Pope Shenouda had been waiting a long time for the Roman pope—since 1973, to be exact. That was when Pope Shenouda came to Rome, met with Pope Paul VI and signed an agreement on Christology with the Catholic Church.

At the ecumenical service, as the sounds of nearby Muslim calls to prayer filtered into the cathedral, the Coptic patriarch brought applause when he embraced the pope and told him: “We love our country, and we love you!” Pope John Paul replied moments later, “I would like to reciprocate by saying: We love you, too.”

The welcome at the al-Azhar University complex was just as friendly. Sheiks and imams crowded around the stoop-shouldered pontiff to whisper a few words of greeting. “The pope is a symbol of love. All Muslims are happy about his visit,” said Sheik Gamal Katb, a teacher of history and law at the university.

Sheik Tantawi, after a lengthy prepared speech to the pope, announced that he planned to make an unprecedented visit to the Vatican next fall to participate in dialogue sessions. He also praised the pope for being “so close to the Palestinian people,” prompting a burst of applause in the room. The sheik said he thought Christians and Muslims could agree on some basic beliefs: that humankind derives from one man and one woman, that religion is a gift that should make people realize their potential and that religion is fundamental for human development.

In extemporaneous remarks, the pope agreed, and added: “Islam is a religion and a culture. Christianity is a religion and a culture. The future of the world will depend on the dialogue between the different cultures and religions.”

So then Our Fearless Leader gave the Pope an award, presumably as a sort of consolation prize

Last year, Bush visited the pope a third time, and presented him with the Medal of Freedom, the highest government honor for a civilian. The medal was accompanied by a citation praising John Paul II for his work on behalf of the poor and outcast.

The pontiff, who rarely accepted such honors from other world leaders, [um? er?] accepted the medal from Bush. He also used the meeting to call for swift autonomy in Iraq and criticized American abuses of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.

After voicing concern over terrorism, the pope said, “In the past few weeks, other deplorable events have come to light, which have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all and made more difficult a serene and resolute commitment to shared human values.”

A Vatican official, asked for interpretation, did not dispute that the pope was referring to the prison abuse.

The pontiff also noted that Bush’s visit was at “a moment of great concern for the continuing situation of grave unrest in the Middle East, both in Iraq and the Holy Land.”

This is what the Pope wanted from Our Fearless Leader

Mr. President, your visit to Rome takes place at a moment of great concern for the continuing situation of grave unrest in the Middle East, both in Iraq and in the Holy Land. You are very familiar with the unequivocal position of the Holy See in this regard, expressed in numerous documents, through direct and indirect contacts, and in the many diplomatic efforts which have been made since you visited me, first at Castelgandolfo on 23 July 2001, and again in this Apostolic Palace on 28 May 2002.

It is the evident desire of everyone that this situation now be normalized as quickly as possible with the active participation of the international community and, in particular, the United Nations organization, in order to ensure a speedy return of Iraq’s sovereignty, in conditions of security for all its people. The recent appointment of a head of state in Iraq and the formation of an interim Iraqi government are an encouraging step towards the attainment of this goal. May a similar hope for peace also be rekindled in the Holy Land and lead to new negotiations, dictated by a sincere and determined commitment to dialogue, between the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The threat of international terrorism remains a source of constant concern. It has seriously affected normal and peaceful relations between states and peoples since the tragic date of 11 September 2001, which I have not hesitated to call “a dark day in the history of humanity.” In the past few weeks other deplorable events have come to light which have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all, and made more difficult a serene and resolute commitment to shared human values: in the absence of such a commitment neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome. May God grant strength and success to all those who do not cease to hope and work for understanding between peoples, in respect for the security and rights of all nations and of every man and woman.

At the same time, Mr. President, I take this opportunity to acknowledge the great commitment of your government and of your nation’s numerous humanitarian agencies, particularly those of Catholic inspiration, to overcoming the increasingly intolerable conditions in various African countries, where the suffering caused by fratricidal conflicts, pandemic illnesses and a degrading poverty can no longer be overlooked.

This is what Our Fearless Leader wanted from the Pope

On his recent trip to Rome, President Bush asked a top Vatican official to push American bishops to speak out more about political issues, including same-sex marriage, according to a report in the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper.

In a column posted Friday evening on the paper’s Web site, John L. Allen Jr., its correspondent in Rome and the dean of Vatican journalists, wrote that Mr. Bush had made the request in a June 4 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state. Citing an unnamed Vatican official, Mr. Allen wrote: “Bush said, ‘Not all the American bishops are with me’ on the cultural issues. The implication was that he hoped the Vatican would nudge them toward more explicit activism.”

Mr. Allen wrote that others in the meeting confirmed that the president had pledged aggressive efforts “on the cultural front, especially the battle against gay marriage, and asked for the Vatican’s help in encouraging the U.S. bishops to be more outspoken.” Cardinal Sodano did not respond, Mr. Allen reported, citing the same unnamed people.

A spokesman for the Vatican declined yesterday to disclose the contents of the meeting, which followed the president’s brief meeting with the pope. Jeanie Mamo, a spokeswoman for the White House, said: “They had a good, private discussion. They discussed a number of priorities of shared concern, and the president’s and the Vatican’s positions on these issues are well known.”

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the report “mind-boggling.”

“It is just unprecedented for a president to ask for help from the Vatican to get re-elected, and that is exactly what this is,” Mr. Lynn said. Linda Pieczynski, a spokeswoman for Call to Action, a liberal Catholic group, said, “For a president to try to get the leader of any religious organization to manipulate his fellow clergymen to support a political candidate crosses the line in this country.”

But some with experience in Roman Catholic politics said they were hardly shocked. “Any head of state who goes to the Vatican will attempt to present a case,” said Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete, a professor of theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York. Monsignor Albacete, who has served as a translator for Catholic officials in meetings with heads of state, said: “If it is done in a very rude way, then the Vatican will remember and you won’t get invited again. But if it is done in a diplomatic way, that is why they go to the Vatican anyway. It is not an act of devotion. It is a political thing.

also, Our Fearless Leader showed up late.

The neos? The Pope: not a fan

Americans were largely unaware of the depth and importance of the opposition of Church leaders to an attack on Iraq, since for the most part the mainstream media did not carry the stories. In the same way, many Americans were unaware that Pope John Paul II spoke against the first Gulf War 56 times. Media in the United States omitted this from the commentaries on the war.

Many have also been unaware of the number of Iraqis killed in that war (not to mention the war which recently “ended”). In February 2003 Business Week published an interview with Beth Osborne Daponte, a professional demographer who worked for the Census Bureau. The first Bush administration tried to fire her because her published estimates of the number of Iraqi deaths conflicted with what Dick Cheney was saying at the time. She was defended by social science professionals and was able to keep her job. Her estimates: 13,000 civilians were killed directly by American and allied forces, and about 70,000 civilians died subsequently from war-related damage to medical facilities and supplies, the electric power grid, and the water system.

In the past few years, Catholic neoconservatives have been attempting to develop a new philosophy of just war which would include preemptive strikes against other nations, what might be called a “preventive war.” George Weigel has published major articles defending this position since 1995. First Things magazine published his articles and editorially agreed with this point of view. The present Bush administration has used these writings to defend the strike against Iraq. Shortly before the war began, through the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, President Bush sent Michael Novak to go to Rome to try to justify the war to the Pope and Vatican officials. Novak took with him Andrew Sullivan and William Bennett. Catholic News Service reported that the two-hour symposium was attended by some 150 invited guests, including lower-level Vatican officials, professors from church universities in Rome and diplomats accredited to the Vatican. Since with one voice Rome had already rejected the argument for a preventive war, Novak took the approach that a war on Iraq would not be a preventive war, but a continuation of a “just war,” Iraqi War I, and actually a moral obligation. He argued that a was also a matter of self-defense, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was an un-scrupulous character, and therefore it was only a matter of time before he took up with Al Qaida and gave them such weapons.

Novak did not succeed in convincing Church leaders–in fact, some commentators reflected that his efforts might have had the opposite effect. Novak’s credibility in this argument was perhaps under-mined by his employment at the American Enterprise Institute, heavily funded by oil companies, some of whom began advertising in the Houston Chronicle for employees to work in Iraq even before the war began. Administration officials denied for months that the goal of the war on Iraq was related to oil. On June 4, 2003, however, The Guardian reported the words of the U.S. deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz (one of the major architects of the war). Wolfowitz had earlier commented that the urgent reason given for the war, weapons of mass destruction, was only a “bureaucratic excuse” for war. Now, at an Asian security summit in Singapore he has declared openly that the real reason for the war was oil: “Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defense minister said: “Let’s look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil.”

John Paul II has sought to distance the Catholic Church from George Bush’s idea of the manifest Christian destiny of the United States, and especially to avoid the appearance of a clash of Christian civilization against Islam. Zenit reported that in his Easter Sunday message this year John Paul II “implored for the world’s deliverance from the peril of the tragic clash between cultures and religions.” The Pope also sent his message to terrorists: “Let there be an end to the chain of hatred and terrorism which threatens the orderly development of the human family.” As he had done in his invitation to religious leaders from many faiths to Assisi at the beginning of 2002, he reached out again to leaders of other religions: “May faith and love of God make the followers of every religion courageous builders of under-standing and forgiveness, patient weavers of a fruitful inter-religious dialogue, capable of inaugurating a new era of justice and peace.”

Catholic World News quoted the Latin-rite Bishop of Baghdad, Bishop Jean-Benjamin Sleimaan as saying in the Italian daily La Repubblica that the Pope’s high-profile opposition to a war on Iraq has helped to avoid a sort of Manichaeism that would set up an opposition between the West and the East, in which Christianity is linked to the West and Islam to the East.

While the Iraqi War II turned out to be “short,” violations of just war principles abounded. Bombing included such targets as an open market and a hotel where the world’s journalists were staying. While most television and newspaper reports in the United States minimized coverage of deaths and injuries to the Iraqi people, reports of many civilian casualties did come out. CBS news reported on April 7 stories of civilians pouring into hospitals in Baghdad, threatening to over-whelm medical staff, and the damage inflicted by bombs which targeted homes: “The old, the young, men and women alike, no one has been spared. One hospital reported receiving 175 wounded by midday. A crater is all that remains of four families and their homes-obliterated by a massive bomb that dropped from the sky without warning in the middle afternoon.” The Canadian press carried a Red Cross report of “incredible” levels of civilian casualties from Nasiriyah, of a truckload of dismembered women and children arriving at the hospital in Hilla from that village, their deaths the result of “bombs, projectiles.”

As talk escalated about a U. S. attack on Iraq, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, began stating unequivocally that “The concept of a ‘preventive war’ does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. His comments had been published as early as September 2002 and were repeated several times as war seemed imminent.

Cardinal Ratzinger recommended that the three religions who share a heritage from Abraham return to the Ten Commandments to counteract the violence of terrorism and war: “The Decalogue is not the private property of Christians or Jews. It is a lofty expression of moral reason that, as such, is also found in the wisdom of other cultures. To refer again to the Decalogue might be essential precisely to restore reason.”

His Holiness on the death penalty vs Our Fearless Leader on the death penalty

His Holiness on the importance of the dignity and worth of labor in capitalism vs, well, ‘nuf said

His Holiness on materialism vs., well, ‘nuf said

His Holiness on the importance, worth and value of post-born life vs., well, ‘nuf said

How the Republicans tried to co-opt the Catholic Church in the recent election vs. the actual records of our elected representatives measured by the Roman Catholic view of issues including those outside the womb

Prominent religious conservative voices William F. Buckley and Sean Hannity discuss the impact of the Pope’s leadership on their views

Gene Lyons discusses the impact of the Pope’s leadership on his

Revived by his highly public tribute to his fond, if highly selective memories of the Pope, Our Fearless Leader plans to move on rededicated to God’s work

Bush also has scheduled a trip to Galveston next week to discuss Social Security.

Any questions?