The Pope's Record on Iraq War Opposition

[theredpen]

I came across a http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1935131&mesg_id=1935131">post in the GD Forum in which the author contrasts the level of spiritual involvement shown by the Buddhist Monks in Burma with what we have here in the US. I agreed with his overall premise that the religious right has deliberately destroyed the spiritual life of Americans because, as we see in Burma, a spiritually empowered population is a threat to authoritarianism.

I did have to respond to this statement by the author: "If the Pope was not in charge of interpreting Catholic dogma, a lot more Americans might be in the streets protesting ... the war in Iraq." I corrected him, pointing out the Benedict XVI has maintained Pope John Paul II's anti-war position.

The original poster did a Google search and discovered that B16 has, in fact, spoken against the Iraq war on numerous occasions. He still questioned why Benedict XVI's statements have been so invisible? What this because the press wasn't interested in reporting his statements, or because Benedict XVI was less dedicated to having his anti-war views heard than was John Paul II?

What follows is my answer. I reposted it here for further discussion.

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From my perspective, Benedict XVI has taken every appropriate opportunity to re-iterate his opposition to the war; my view might just be an artifact of the bias I have in choosing which stories to follow. It is certainly true that Pope John Paul II's anti-war views got more ink, but that was in a much different context. Is the new Pope's dedication to this issue also a factor? That's a fair question.

I think there are several reasons why the press might be under-reporting B16's statements of opposition. One thing is that they're old news — he's just re-iterating Pope John Paul II's anti-war view. Also, Papal opinion on the war was more important (and, therefore newsworthy), when PJP2 was trying to stop the war from starting. These days the headline, "Pope still hates Iraq war," isn't going to get any air time when there are breaking stories about Senators cruising mens' rooms or three quarters of the U.S. Congress denouncing free speech.

Last November, when Bush fired Rumsfeld, there was hope that he'd change the strategy in Iraq. In an attempt to exert influence on any change, the conference of U.S. Bishops issued a statement urging the U.S. to make its goals "peace and justice" rather than "victory" (what is victory these days?). Did you hear about this? If you didn't, it's probably because the MSM isn't interested in covering these statements, whether they issue from the Vatican, or here at home.

I'd also like to highlight the possibility that the MSM wants to avoid putting a spotlight on Catholic opinion due the situation facing Catholics in Iraq. There has been a steady and ongoing slaughter of Chaldean Catholics in an area of Iraq that is supposed to be doing well. Northern Iraq (e.g. Kirkuk) has been under the control of the Kurds the entire time; there are at least a half dozen ethnic and religious groups there and the tribal fighting is too low-level and too hard to explain for the U.S. news media's short-attention-span theater. Occasional reports of the ethnic cleansing in Kurdish-controlled areas tend to blur into the more common and lurid reports from central and Southern Iraq anyway.

The Chaldean/Assyrian Christian community is a Christian community that was likely founded by someone who knew Jesus personally (a disciple, if not an apostle). Chaldeans/Assyrians are the last remaining speakers of Aramaic, Jesus' native language. You can imagine that Fox Noise doesn't want to advertise the fact that one of the oldest and most "original" Christian communities in the world may completely cease to exist in the next 18 months. They certainly didn't spoil the "evil Muslim" image of Iraq by mentioning that Tariq Aziz (born Michael Yuhanna), Saddam Hussein's foreign minister and most trusted adviser, was Catholic. "Good Catholics" like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly aren't going to put a refugee Iraqi nun on TV and ask, "so, what's your take on the war these days?" They're much more interested in having Bill Donohue of the Catholic League Plague come on to complain about chocolate Jesus statues.

Couldn't the Pope step up with more headline-grabbing, speeches? Possibly, he is the Pope and news cameras would certainly show up to cover a really bold speech denouncing Bush's war. I'm not sure that it's reasonable to expect this, though.

As an international organization, the Catholic Church is careful about becoming overtly political. There has been a historical fear that Catholic citizens are loyal to the Pope, rather than their own government — many people opposed President Kennedy on the basis that a Catholic President would effectively put the Pope in charge of the U.S. If B16 were to appear to be trying to use his influence to interfere with U.S. policy, that could produce a backlash that could ultimately marginalize American Catholics. Of the 155 Catholics in the 110th Congress, 103 of them are Democrats, do we really need to make it easier to label these representatives "anti-American"?

Finally, despite the hierarchical structure of the Church, it is still a Christian Church, and as such, the ultimate responsibility for taking action within the moral dictates of Christianity belongs to the individual members. The Pope speaks for the Church, not for its members, if that makes any sense.

The Popes have made it clear that Iraq is not a just war, and therefore Christians (at least Roman Catholics) should be opposed to it on moral grounds — the war itself is a crime, and its victims are victims of murder. The U.S. Bishops condemned the immorality of a preemptive war when it was first suggested in 2002. You'd think that every Catholic in America (especially the supposedly "pro life" ones) would be shouting from the rooftops for any end to this travesty, but they haven't.

I attended a recent Catholic mass and the Priest's homily centered on praising the efforts of an elderly Catholic woman in Florida who has made a habit of getting arrested for protesting. Getting arrested at protests isn't a sacrifice everyone can make, but the imperative to stand for unequivocal principles was clear. The Priest couldn't be too specific about what position this woman was taking without violating IRS rules on political speech in tax-exempt churches, but it went unspoken that this Florida woman wasn't a Freeper. Did this inspire the parishioners to become more vocal in their opposition to the war? I can't say.

What has changed is the recent voting patterns of U.S. Catholics. U.S. Catholics were traditionally Democrats, but the Republicans have been making steady progress winning them over. Bush's victory in 2004 wouldn't have been possible without an increase in Republican Catholic votes. Just two years later, however, the record Republican losses in 2006 corresponded to a notable decrease in Catholic support for Republican candidates (this may have been partly due to the immigration issue, rather than dissatisfaction with the war). I'm hoping this trend continues into 2008 and helps win back the Whitehouse. Given the influx of Hispanic Catholics and the Republican's party's enduring status as the Party of Racist White Guys, I expect to see Texas go blue in my lifetime.

Bottom line, the Church is doing what it can, given the tightrope it needs to walk internationally and in the U.S. with its legal obligation to stay out of politics (directly).

[DemBones DemBones]

1. Great post! Iraqi Christians, mostly Catholics,

are refugees in Syria, thousands of them living outside Damascus and not in fancy suburbs, if you get my drift.

Have you noticed media coverage of that? Yet we have had a lot of coverage of young Protestants who've gone into Arab countries to evangelize and been taken prisoner.

I tried to recommend this thread and got a message "You cannot recomment threads from this forum." Huh???