Port 80

I’ve written before about the difficulties of being a pro-war Catholic, when the Church has shown itself to be anti-war almost to the point of blindness. Given that, the recent statements made by Cardinal Renato Martino don’t surprise me overly. (Particularly in light of his previous statements on the war.) To quote from Reuters:

Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department and a former papal envoy to the United Nations, told a news conference on Tuesday it would be “illusory” to think the arrest of the former Iraqi president would heal all the damage caused by a war which the Holy See opposed.

“I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures,” he said.

“Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him,” he said in answer to questions about Saddam’s arrest.

Here, Cardinal Martino has presented us with an excellent example of compassion for all those who are imprisoned.

He has also provided us with one of the most repulsive examples I have seen in my entire life of moral relativism.

Cardinal Martino, unless your pity is infinite, I would not squander it on Saddam Hussein. Somehow, I doubt that a man who was perfectly happy to be pictured kicking rebels who were bound at hand and foot, or to be pictured presiding over the executions of those rebels, has been terribly traumatized by having a picture of a medical examination broadcast to the world. If you want to have pity for those in a video, I suggest you watch the video showing the first Baath party meeting Saddam conducted after ascending to power in Iraq. Watch as Saddam reads from a list of “traitors,” and watch the faces of those “traitors” as they are led out of the room before him. Cardinal Martino, perhaps I am not as committed to “Peace and Justice” as you claim to be, but I find it hard to have pity for a man who executed former friends in cold blood to satisfy the needs of political expediency.

Likewise, I agree with Cardinal Martino that Hussein’s capture cannot solve the damage caused by Operation Iraqi Freedom. However, I would like to see Cardinal Martino concerned about the damage caused by Saddam’s regime. Or has Cardinal Martino unfamiliar with the 300,000 Iraqis in mass graves. (Caution: The second link refers to images of the graves. Perhaps Saddam could have “spared us those pictures.”)

Although I am a Catholic, I have almost entirely given up on the Church with regards to addressing the most important issues of the world. For whatever reason — dislike of George Bush, dislike of America, an overzealous opposition to the use of force — it appears that even a Cardinal is able to ignore the death of a third of a million, and focus instead on a televised dental exam as a great moral outrage.

By no means have I given up on the Catholic faith with regards to these issues. Just war theory, for example, is a well-constructed area of Catholic morality, which is extremely useful in approaching problems such as that of the war in Iraq. This is to say nothing of the carefully constructed framework of moral analysis that has been built by Church philosophers over the past 2000 years. However, this framework has been so distorted and manipulated by “peace” activists within the Church for their own political ends that I am forced to take any declarations from the Church on peace issues with a very large grain of salt. Certainly the fact that Cardinal Martino is the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace does nothing to improve the situation. Although this particular statement has attracted more attention than others, it’s more or less par for the course.

This manipulation of the Church is not a permanent condition. Either Cardinal Martino will eventually leave his post, or John Paul II will be replaced as Pope by a younger figure who can better control these excesses, or the problem will gradually fade as the Iraqi war recedes into memory and political rage seeps out of Catholic peace theory. Until that time comes, however, the Church will have to deal with the fact that some of its members are very deliberately ignoring it. When forced to choose between doing good and paying attention to religious authority, Christ healed on the Sabbath. If I must be forced to choose between leaving a mass murderer in power and inflicting a Cardinal with pity over a dental exam, then I suggest that Cardinal Martino get used to the sight of molars.

(Endnote 1: Rantingprofs posts on the subject , and examines the Pope’s role in this issue.)

Update

Michael Novak suggests that Martino is being reined in by his superiors at the Vatican. If it’s true, its a very good sign indeed — with any luck, the Church as a whole will move to put a stop to this sort of idiocy. (Via Rantingprofs again.)

Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit has also weighed in again in addition to his earlier comments. He also links to Stephen Bainbridge’s first and second sets of comments on the issue, which are well worth reading.

Rest in peace my brothers. The paradise is yours and the disgrace and hell is for all the tyrants on earth. — Omar, on the capture of Saddam.