Catholic Politicians Pressure Church To Take Anti-War Stance
By Nicole Belle Thursday Jul 05, 2007 11:45amAn interesting twist on the normal course of events...
U.S. Rep Rosa DeLauro, D-New Haven, joined a dozen members of Congress in calling on the Conference of Catholic Bishops to mobilize church members against the war in Iraq.
The group Tuesday released a letter sent to the bishops last week asking for a meeting to discuss strategy. Several Catholic leaders, including Peter A. Rosazza in New Haven, auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Hartford, said they could not recall a similar request from members of Congress.
The letter bases its appeal on church tradition rather than statecraft or politics.
"If we understand the Catholic tradition correctly, thoughtful church leaders around the world do not believe that the war in Iraq meets the strict conditions for a just war or the high moral standards for overriding the presumption against the use of force. Our concerns are rooted in both the political realm and in our faith and manifest in our efforts to enact legislation that will bring an end to this war," the letter says.
Login or Register to post comments.
Time overdue.
I fear the definition of a "just war".
How dare politicians get involved with religion!
So long as the only people pressuring the Church are Catholic I don't think they're doing anything but good.
I think we know the Pope's view on war and genocide.
why do catholics hate freedom?
Will we get to watch Donohue blow a gasket?? Gotta go make some popcorn..
Just war criteria was not met and the manner in which it has been fought certainly does not meet it. I think the Vatican has spoken out on torture, but the American bishops have not.
For the most part they are one issue syncophants. The bishops appointed by JPII have taken their role as hall monitors very seriously, but have done nothing that might anger wealthy donors. Wealthy donors like the abortion issue but feel war is political.
However, deep within the current Catholic thinkers, there comes the whisper that no war can be moral. Wouldn't it be amazing if the Catholic church joined the traditionally peace churches (Mennonite, Quakers,)? To be honest, after reading Ratzinger for a long time - that seems to be the direction he is headed. We'll see.
The Catholic Church has been total chickenshit on this issue. Pope JPII was supposed to be against the war but didn't do a fucking thing to throw his considerable weight around. And Ex-Hitler Youth Pope hasn't been any better.
Take a stand, Vatican, let us know you actually oppose needless killing. Stop being so fucking concerned about whether guys are wearing one of those rubber things on the end of their John Thomas and do something helpful to humanity for a change.
Historians can't even estimate the number of casualties from the forced conversions of Europe, particularly under Charlemagne.
The Inquisition was burning Indians to death in South America as late as 1830 for the crime of not converting.
Benedict is from the renamed Inquisition now called themselves something like The Committee for Doctrinal Purity.
That's like when the KGB renamed itself the FSB.
correct me if i'm wrong, but if catholic priests start espousing blatently political views from the pulpet, don't they put their irs tax-exempt status as a religious organization at risk?
the quote "..manifest in our efforts to enact legislation.." indicates direct intevt to meddle in political affairs does it not?
or does the irs just go after small, generally liberal, churches, hmmmmm?
This is not a war for freedom, but for oil and the billions war contractors like Halliburton have reaped. Pope John Paul II asked Bush not to invade Iraq, and he refused to heed John Paul's request.
Sorry they're now the FSS.
WWJB? Whom would Jesus bomb?
It's great that Crooks and Liars would present this news on its website. But amazing that you would not mention that one of the Congressmen who signed this letter to the the Conference of Catholic Bishops is Dennis Kucinich. WTF? I simply can't believe that this blog is also participating in the blackballing of the only TRUE anti-war Presidential candidate (OK, OK...along with Gravel and Paul). Please tell me this isn't true. Why does this web site seem to go out of its way to avoid mentioning the valiant efforts of Mr. Kucinich to end this illegal war. And I'm still waiting for Crooks and Liars to mention something about HR 333 - the bill to impeach Cheney, bravely introcuced to Congress by...(wait for it)...Dennis Kucinich. It's time for my favorite web site (yes, Crooks and Liars — I criticize because I love...) to take the lead and stop excluding Dennis Kucinich, and at least give him his equal time. Please!
Wasn't it Hannity that tried to argue Pope John Paul hadn't denounced the Iraq War? I think C&L posted the clip. Or was it O'Reilly? Anyhow, if you need a true feel good moment I found this website, it needs some traffic and it will bring a smile to your face. A few bucks wouldn't hurt either. Herorat.org. Sweet stuff. Frontline just did a segment on them.
news from the pope itself; nostro for the war before nostro was against. honestly, the worlds longest running killing machine is now against war? this is the most humorous assault on reason I have seen in a few minutes. where's the deus ex machina? the nazi doesn't stop wars, it feeds off them. the church would never stop a war, it gets too much money for each one. I particularly like the part about the "catholic tradition"
anyone want to list those catholic traditions and how they have helped human kind in any way? add proof please, not "feelings",
In the first half of this fiscal year, the Defense Department's "average monthly obligations for contracts and pay is running about $12 billion per month, well above the $8.7 billion in FY2006.
"The continual consolidation of money and power into higher and righter hands." George Bush Sr.
plz,
shouldn't it be the other way around. the impossibly inert congress is asking the clergy for help?
this is ridiculous!!!! oh, and name one war that was just???? it's like saying I was justified in killing those children, so they could be free. my ass. crooks and liars=politicians and clergy...what a combine!
here here al hidalgo!!!!!!!!!!
If causes even one of the 29-percenters stop and think about the consequences of Bush's Iraq policy, it's worth the effort.
The a-holes are too busy wringing their hands over abrotion and gay marriage to address something as trivial as a little-ole war! Hypocrites! I left the Catholic Church 10 years ago and haven't looked back!
We are so freaking screwed. It's going to fall apart. The question is WHEN?
i love c&l too, but they don't like chomsky, nader, kucinich, paul, gravel, etc. and if you say anything about it you are "insulting" the site owner/site monitors. they are like the MSM in this way. but by far this is the best blog IN THE WORLD!!!
Every freaking War Mongering Imperial Society in history has fallen apart.
What makes us immune?
Hmmm,..kinda like they "mobilized" against John Kerry for his stance on abortion? They don't like the war NOW?
I give up
To Mike@23: Wrong. Our personal feelings about any candidate is not what dictates coverage. Think I like Ann Coulter? Fred Thompson? John McCain? Think about it. We do stories based on what we see being covered in the MSM and the way it's covered. We get press releases from candidates--R and D alike--and we use those. Accusing us of being gatekeepers because we don't do a post on your pet candidate every single day, for every single blowing of their nose IS insulting to us.
To Al Hidalgo: None of the other representatives except Rep. DeLauro, the author of the letter, was mentioned by name. No disrespect to Kucinich intended. We do have an "Impeach Cheney" post coming up. But you must realize that Rep. Kucinich could not get his resolution to the floor for debate. He may be saying the right things, but it takes more than that to get momentum.
L.A. Confidential @ 22:
Sooner than you think.
Church leaders... just war... I've asked alot of religious people to show me where the bible lists the exceptions to "thou shall not kill", and I have yet to ever get an answer.
Five years of war before this call for a ‘mobilization against the war.’
At this pace they will have their first meeting to discuss strategy in 2010 and the bishops can have an official proclamation on their stand on this war prepared by 2013. The Pope can agree with the bishops and speak out against the war by Easter 2016.
And these are the same folks that believe God made this whole ball-of-wax in six days. Boy, they sure don’t have His energy level.
Liberal AND Proud @ 28:
I'll give it till the end of summer then we really start seeing cracks in the walls starting to show up.
If the Catholic Church put HALF as much energy into saving soldiers as they do in saving fetuses. there never would have been a war in the first place.
13 Leg
I prefer WWNFD?
What Would Ned Flanders Do?
Was the band Fallout Boy named after Radioactive Man's sidekick?
Does he ever kick back?
Would that make him a Republican?
Will this comment ever end?
way fucking overdue!
tell the dictatorial, nazi church to stop sanctioning imperialism
ya then the church and faith will be praised as the entity that ended the war
Wow. If the IRS revokes the Catholic Church's tax-exempt status over this, that'll raise enough money to fund the upcoming war against Iran.
Al Hidalgo @ 14:
You have a great point! I don't think there is a policy here favoring anyone, but certainly, there is a focus similar to that of msm. we get the 'edward's haircut' responses, lots of repug appearances and occasionally the reaction to something a repug has done, but no real following of progressive issues with any consistency or depth. But hey, this is a blog! And maybe one of the best things about this blog is that from here you can find so many other places to go to find the things you are looking for in the progressive world of the web.
Barrett D @ 35:
Ending the war - a faith-based initiative
I echo the comment of Johnx at #1. Those in the Catholic Church should start to finally emulate the activism of the Berrigan brothers, two Jesuit priests who courageously spoke out thirty five to forty years ago againt the Vietnam War. The clergy should be getting out of the churches and into the streets which is where they should be in order to be more in touch with the people. They have been far too isolated. The Church would do well to remember the axiom: Blessed are the Peacemakers.
39 Erroll
The Church would do well to remember the axiom: Blessed are the Peacemakers.
They worship Ray Guns throbbing missles?
go to your local church and wait for the service to end. as the church members come out ask them if they support the war. ask them if killing is justified. we handed out flyers with links to this site among many, and more questions like...who would jesus bomb? does god love iraqi kids? etc. you will be amazed at how many full on Christians are all about killing...or you won't be amazed! we asked them if they prayed for a soldier, and if their prayers would improve his/her combat effectiveness.
Rollo Tomassi @ 25:
Put it this way, if they are pro-life, why aren't they more full throated against the war? I hear them all the time going on and on against abortion but not a peep about the war.
Jukesgrrl @ 32:
Bravo!!
Joe Klein's conscience @ 43:
I forgot to add, do they believe the same as Bush does, that you don't end a life to save a life? Or whatever foolishness Smirk was spouting a few weeks ago in vetoing the Stem Cell bill.
Liberal AND Proud @ 4:
Apparently you don't know the Pope's views, since he has been an outspoken critic of the war both as Pontiff and as Cardinal. Of course, he is German and as everybody knows, all Germans are Nazi racists, right? I think it must be something genetic.
Simon White-Thatch Potentloins @ 8:
JPII did speak out over 20 times against the war prior to it's start and sent an envoy to the president asking him to refrain from this war. MSM which has a seems to have a considerable stake in this war never reported this.
I don't have a interest in apologizing for the Roman Catholic Church and I sure don't like Pope Ratzo much, but I've looked into it and the Catholic Worker had an article about it.
Pope Ratzo and President Bush, ya we're in good shape all around.
Bascombe at #37
Well said. I find it stunning that Nicole Belle states that C & L does stories on what is covered in the mainstream media. I had always been under the assumption that liberal blogs are supposed to cover the stories that the MSM hesitates or flat out refuses to cover. By not covering and reporting on Kucinich, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that one of the least known candidates will end up being ignored by, of all things, a progressive blog.
Kucinich is the only candidate, outside of Gravel, who is advocating the immediate withdrawal of those troops from that abattoir in Iraq, the only candidate who has offered a resolution to impeach Cheney, the only candidate, unlike Clinton, Obama, Edwards, et al, who is pushing for a single payer health care system which is not, unlike Clinton, Obama, Edwards, beholden to the insurance companies. Yet C & L, which is supposed to be one of the most liberal blogs on the Internet, treats the most progressive candidate running for the presidency as if he is a pariah. This kind of reasoning I find extremely difficult to fathom.
catholic church? anti-war? ahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahah hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahh ah ah ahhahahahha cough hack
another quote and a probable portent of any future encounter with the boosh crime wave.
I'm already off the bandwagon of the 'leading' candidates. It seems that they don't really want to end the corporate imperialist occupation of Iraq and they have already set their sites on Iran (edward's, obie , et al). Kucinich should join an independent.
my take: the dems are trying to pull another kerry. it's not just the lack of exposure, they are letting the repugs lead on too many issues.
Good luck with that. The Catholic church is getting huge bucks from the faith-based initiative. Suddenly, they're Republicans.
Catholic here.
The Vatican has been against this war from the beginning. Before it even started, Bush had an audience with JPII. JPII came out against the war-- specifically a preemptive strike -- calling it "a defeat for humanity." Bush stated that he respectfully disagreed.
Conservative talking heads even tried to play it down because it looked so bad for them (source: MediaMatters)
JPII's statement on the Iraq war
A few more thoughts...
Catholics are largely identified as Republicans solely because of the abortion issue. Otherwise, the tenets of Catholic Christianity are very liberal.
Yes, I agree, if they're "pro-life," they should be anti-war. But abortion kills 1.4 million people a year in America alone (in a Catholic's perspective). So you can see why that single issue is so powerful... Whether you agree with their assessment of human life or not, you have to understand that that's a huge hurdle to overcome -- hence the identification with Republicans.
Actually The World Council of Churches, with it's 300 member churches, and the Archbishop of Canterbury also came out in the begining against the war.
Someone I knew dismissed them all as liberals.
He kept arguing that the war was about morals, but what do churches have to do with wars?
I said churches inculcate morals.
He didn't see the connection.
He was also 30 something and said dude like every other word.
JP II did indeed speak out against the war. A problem the church faces (yes, I am a practicing papist) is that it's moral credibility has been seriously undermined by the bishops slow reaction to the sex abuse crisis. The bishops opposed the invasion of Iraq, but the bishop in charge of that committee was Cardinal Law of Boston, not exactly a guy to put up in front on this fight. I'm afraid that it will be years before the American bishops can dig themselves out of the hole they've gotten themselves into.
Cardinal Law! LOL!
A pedophile yet.
Gawwd. You can't MAKE it up. It's like it's straight out of Mad Magazine! LOLOL!
It took five years for the war to suddenly become "immoral"?
Hey, I'm glad they are on board now, but wtf took them so long?
Liberal AND Proud @ 56:
I always think it's funny when many protestant churches come out against evolution, but call their bishops primates.
May (whoever's) God bless these folks.
It's refreshing to know that there are still folks out there who realize that religion should be about peace.
Every religious terrorist/zealot/apologist uses the exact same technique:
1. Take what one wants from the holy book
2. Ignore the rest until needed
3. Denounce any opponents for not interpreting the holy book the same way
4. Chalk up any inconsistencies to religious faith
Religion in politics is total bullshit. There are no exceptions.
Yeah, this is the church that stood by and did nothing while the Nazis perpetrated the holocaust. This is the church that would rather let pedophile priests carry-on in secret than create a scandal. This is also the church that wants to make Pope John Paul II a saint in spite of his leadership of the church during the priest-pedophile cover-up. If the Roman Catholic church could get over their rabid fascination with the sexual issues (except when it comes to their own heirarchy) maybe they could do some good in the world.
Nicole Belle @ 27:
To Al Hidalgo: None of the other representatives except Rep. DeLauro, the author of the letter, was mentioned by name. No disrespect to Kucinich intended. We do have an "Impeach Cheney" post coming up. But you must realize that Rep. Kucinich could not get his resolution to the floor for debate. He may be saying the right things, but it takes more than that to get momentum.
Hello Nicole:
Thank you for responding to my post. I understand that the original letter only mentioned Rep. DeLauro by name, and not explicitly the other co-signers (such as Dennis Kucinich). I guess I'm just more sensitive to his omission because of his obvious and repeated neglect by the MSM, so I wanted to help readers of your web site know this simple fact.
As far as HR333 (the Cheney impeachment bill), I'm glad to hear that you will have a posting soon on that. I couldn't be happier! And I agree with you that Dennis Kucinich "may be saying the right things, but it takes more than that to get momentum" to "get his resolution to the floor for debate." But it's precisely postings on blogs and web sites like Crooks and Liars that will help the bill to get momentum. Most voters in this country have NO IDEA that there has even been a proposal for impeachment of Cheney at all! Getting mention of it anywhere will help people in this country (regardless of how small or large the readeship may be on this site) to further discuss the impeachment, talk about the lies that this administartion has used to get us into war, and maybe (just maybe) demand that their representatives in Congress support HR333 and FINALLY get it to the floor of Congress for debate. That's what this bill needs: The proactive endorsement by Crooks and Liars. Trust me — you lead, and the rest of us will follow!
Talk about I-R-O-N-Y...!
It would be nice if this were a preemptive move on the part of these Catholic politicians. I have a feeling based on what is coming out of the mouth of the Catholic bishop here in central and eastern Oregon that the American Catholic bishops are going to put pressure on Democratic Catholic politicians and deny them communion for verbally supporting reproductive choice in the 2008 elections. Not just presidential candidates but across the board, people like Nancy Pelosi for example. All Catholics need to come back at them and say that according to the official catechism of the church preemptive war is considered a grave sin and that this particular war does not meet the criteria of a "just war". John Paul II was pro-life in all ways and tried to stop Bush's war on Iraq and Clinton's war on Yugoslavia. He also spoke up for those condemned to death. You don't see a corresponding involvement in these issues with Ratzi the Nazi.
Taking a stance against fascism or a war against Islam doesn't come naturally to the Church.
Cool, let's pit the protestant evangelicals (pro war) against the catholics (anti-war)!
Give them more reasons to hate each other! Weeee!
It'll be the 30-years war all over again! 16th century, here we come!
Does she mean like they took a stand against the Holocaust???? I liked #'s 5 and 6 above (PVS and PNAAC Minister; touche)
Aren't Jews and Muslims their enemies?
Carakav @ 66:
You mean this isn't the 16th century?? Where have I been?
Reminder
Before the start of the war Pope JP11 denounced it as illegal and immoral. So did the world. The US Catholic church did not follow his or that lead. In fact they ignored it and did not speak to their congregation -they followed a White House agenda. I witnessed this at mass on Easter Sunday 2003 at the Shrine in Washington DC. The Cardinal, instead of speaking for peace-the traditional Easter message, spoke platitudes of nothing. The US church is obviously deeply aligned with the Repubican Party and play safe. A half a million souls later-they now have a conscience?
Ainet
If any leaders of the Catholic Church should be pressured about opposing the war, I would put at the top of the list that Most Reverend What's-His-Name (a bishiop from Colorado, I think?) who made a gigantic fuss in 2004 over how he wouldn't administer communion to Kerry because Kerry was pro-choice. That scoundrel should be taken to task roundly for his tunnel vision and hypocrisy, especially considering what had been the Pope's stand, and especially as we look at the damage to the country and the world as a result of Bush continuing in office. That bishop should be publically shamed.
Nice try.
The catholic church and pope ratsinger mean NOTHING.
what they think, what they want, means NOTHING.
Oh well, you can't tell them that!
they're so evil, sick and demented.
I wish some prominent Mormons would pressure their leaders of the LDS church to do the same. Seventy percent of the people in Utah (most of them practicing Mormons) follow the lead ... of their leaders.
Login or Register to post comments.