Pope to write special letter to Catholics in China

[struggle4progress]

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI will write a letter to Catholics in China, and the Church will work toward diplomatic ties with Beijing .. the Holy See said Saturday ...

Beijing's ties with the Vatican were broken in 1951 after the communists took power in China. Worship is only allowed in government-controlled churches, but as many as 10 million Catholics are estimated to belong to unofficial congregations loyal to Rome.

China's state-sanctioned Catholic Church, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, unilaterally appointed three bishops last year.

The last months have also seen a series of arrests of priests, according to Asia News, a Vatican-affiliated news agency. At least 17 underground bishops have disappeared, been arrested or detained in isolation, and 20 priests have been arrested, with at least five priests, arrested on Dec. 27 in Hebei, still in prison, the news agency said ...

http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/01/21/news/latest_news/e2dd338283d14dd88625726a00137159.txt

[orleans]

1. he'd better write a "special letter" to the moran in the white house

reminding him of the commandments about ... lying...killing...stealing...

(before we blow up iran!)

[struggle4progress]

2. Consistent Ethic of Life: New Pope Benedict XVI a Strong Critic of War

by Michael Griffin of the Catholic Peace Fellowship
Houston Catholic Worker, Vol. XXV, No. 4, Special Edition 2005.

... As a Cardinal, the new pope was a staunch critic of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq. On one occasion before the war, he was asked whether it would be just. "Certainly not," he said, and explained that the situation led him to conclude that "the damage would be greater than the values one hopes to save." ...

Even after the war, Cardinal Ratzinger did not cease criticism of U.S. violence and imperialism: "it was right to resist the war and its threats of destruction...It should never be the responsibility of just one nation to make decisions for the world."

Yet perhaps the most important insight of Ratzinger came during a press conference on May 2, 2003. After suggesting that perhaps it would be necessary to revise the Catechism section on just war (perhaps because it had been used by George Weigel and others to endorse a war the Church opposed), Ratzinger offered a deep insight that included but went beyond the issue of war Iraq:

"There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war'." ...

http://www.cjd.org/paper/benedict.html

[orleans]

3. didn't bush meet with him once? maybe time for another face to face eh?

and if he's really against the war he should get the word out loud and clear for his flock in this country--you know, to head bush off at the pass when bush starts cranking everybody up for iran.