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Impartiality, Without National or Religious Distinctions–Is This Not What Pope Benedict Has Done?

But there is something that seems missing in the context, and I think this is a reason that some are having a hard time taking what is being said from the Vatican with the seriousness it deserves. For whatever reason, only part of the big picture is being painted – there are reasons  for the […]

But there is something that seems missing in the context, and I think this is a reason that some are having a hard time taking what is being said from the Vatican with the seriousness it deserves. For whatever reason, only part of the big picture is being painted – there are reasons  for the violence and terrorism that stand in oppoosition to the Gospel on every level.

So when people struggle with this, I think what they are saying is this: This is not a doctrinal issue, but we know we should still be taking the Pope seriously on this, and we want to. He has a perspective none of us as individuals have, and in his attention to global, rather than nationalistic, priorities, he teaches and challenges us. But in the statements, we don’t hear the foundations of the weight of the present threats and conflicts addressed, some of which concerns fundamental human rights of freedom and justice. So how can we receive this as a prudential judgment we should take seriously if we don’t hear all of the elements of the situation addressed? ~Amy Welborn

Via Rod Dreher

Now I am not a Catholic, so perhaps that disqualifies me from saying something about this, but what I have found striking about Pope Benedict XVI’s response to the war in Lebanon is his sense of equanimity and justice.  Like Benedict XV, I think it is fair to say that the current Pope has worked to “preserve complete impartiality in relation to all the belligerents, as is appropriate to him who is the common father and who loves all his children with equal affection.”  In this approach that eschews taking sides, I think it is also fair to say that the current Pope has worked “to endeavour constantly to do all the most possible good, without personal exceptions and without national or religious distinctions, a duty which the universal law of charity, as well as the supreme spiritual charge entrusted to Us by Christ, dictates to Us.”  As I read over Benedict XV’s statement, he is certainly making many recommendations for how to resolve particular problems (the authority of the Pope was, at least in some countries, still something fairly potent even during the insanity of the Great War),  but I see none of the deep structural or causal analysis of why the war happened in the first place that Ms. Welborn seems to be looking for.  I suspect that the modern Vatican is reluctant to make specific proposals, because even when it ventures to speak on questions of war and peace in any way its statements are frequently dismissed as ultimately irrelevant (it is up to the “prudential judgement of the magistrate!”).  More than that I suspect it is doubly reluctant to weigh in on theorising about the causes of violence in the way that Ms. Welborn seems to want.  From a Christian perspective, the causes of violence are always in the corruption of human will and intention away from the goods proper to his nature–everything else is ultimately secondary and incidental–and the remedy for this disordered will is the proper mix of charity and justice.  It is the bishop’s task to exhort and teach what the Gospel tells us, particularly with respect to mercy and charity in circumstances such as these, and from what I have seen this is what Pope Benedict has done.  He has held both parties accountable because both are accountable, and he has excused the crimes of neither side.  He has summoned them to make peace, and they have, predictably enough, ignored him.  If we expect Pope Benedict to speak in terms of the narrative that we use to describe events in the Near East, or expect him to categorise the problem in the terms to which we are accustomed, we are likely to be repeatedly disappointed.  At bottom, people dissatisfied with Pope Benedict’s stance on this war seem to want him to take sides in some small way, and I do not believe he believes himself free to do that and I expect that he would believe such an approach would be unwise and possibly detrimental to the establishment of peace.  That is my speculation on why the Vatican has not been more forthcoming in its criticism of the role of Islam in all of this and why the response may seem lacking. 

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