[Peace-discuss] On the Bishop of Rome…

Wed Apr 23 00:05:27 CDT 2008

Exactly what we needed, Mort. THANKS for sending!
   --Jenifer

"Brussel Morton K." <mkbrussel at comcast.net> wrote:
  An addendum to the "Bishop of Rome" mention given by Carl in our AWARE meeting last Sunday:  
  By Ray McGovern. 

  The whole article is enlightening. See

  http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern04222008.html. 

  Excerpts follow.

Catholics All Around
  Think back to last week and the many prominent Catholics who flocked to see the pope--many of them officials with considerable influence in the Judiciary and Legislature, with important players in the Executive Branch as well.
  There they were, with their families, the five Catholic Supreme Court justices, fresh from detailed deliberations on how best to implement state-sponsored killings, executions that are banned by virtually every civilized country.
  Justice Scalia audibly salivated over how much noxious chemical should be shot into the veins of a “condemned,” and how quickly.  (For those with strong stomachs, C-SPAN captured the proceedings.)
  I am embarrassed to acknowledge that, like me, Scalia is the product of a Jesuit education (Xavier H.S. in Manhattan and Georgetown College).  Despite his advocacy of “soft” torture techniques like driving nails under fingernails, Scalia continues to be lionized by many Jesuits and bishops alike.

Iraq is a shambles.  Two million Iraqis have fled abroad; another two million are internal refugees.  Am I the only one who finds macabre the raging debate as to whether the attack and occupation of Iraq has resulted in a million or “only 300,000” Iraqis dead?
  Apparently, the pope did not have any opinion on the Iraq war.
  But Torture?
  Surely the pope would speak out against the kind of torture for which our country has become famous: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, CIA “black sites”--the more so, since Jesus of Nazareth was tortured to death.  The pope chose silence, which presumably came as welcome relief to five-star torturer’s apprentice, Gen. Michael Hayden, now head of the CIA.  The White House has made clear that Hayden is ready to instruct his torturers to water board again, upon Caesar’s approval.

    Saturday at the UN, the pontiff pontificated on “God-given human rights” and “massive human rights abuses,” but pretty much left it at that.  The Washington Post reported that the pope was “short on specifics and long on broad themes.”
  But there was one specific.  Here in the U.S., the pope seemed to prefer to dwell again and again on the pedophilia scandal--to the exclusion of much else.

    While still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he headed The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith--the Vatican office that once ran the Inquisition.  In that capacity he sent a letter in May 2001 to all Catholic bishops throwing a curtain of secrecy over the widespread sexual abuse by clergy, warning the bishops of severe penalties, including excommunication for breaching “pontifical secrets.”
  Lawyers acting for the sexually abused accused Ratzinger of “clear obstruction of justice.”

    I had hoped--naively, it turned out--that the pope might encourage his brother bishops to find the courage to state plainly what 109 bishops of the Methodist faith, George W. Bush’s tradition, declared on Nov. 8, 2005:
  “We repent of our complicity in what we believe to be the unjust and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq.  In the face of the United States Administration’s rush toward military action based on misleading information, too many of us were silent.
  “We confess our preoccupation with institutional enhancement and limited agendas while American men and women are sent to Iraq to kill and be killed, while thousands of Iraqi people needlessly suffer and die.”
  I had thought that perhaps the U.S. Catholic bishops could adopt the kind of resolution that 125 Methodist bishops signed on Nov. 9, 2007.  Speaking truth to power, the Methodists called for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the reversal of any plans to establish permanent military bases there.
  The Methodist bishops’ resolution noted:  “Every day that the war continues, more soldiers and innocent civilians are killed with no end in sight to the violence, bloodshed, and carnage.”  Bishop Jack Meadors summed up the situation succinctly:
  “The Iraq war is not just a political issue or a military issue.  It is a moral issue.” (emphasis added)

    Augustine wrote:
  “Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage.  Anger that things are the way they are.  Courage to make them the way they ought to be.”

    Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington, DC.  He is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso).

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