<< DEAD MAN EMERGING ~ MAIN ~ WORSE THAN ABU GHRAIB >>
“LIBERALS SIMPLY COULD NOT UNDERSTAND IT”
Bruce Wilson provides yet more evidence of Pope John Paul II’s goodness:
The Sandinista movement in Nicaragua contained many priests fighting openly or undercover against the old oligarchy.
John Paul was having none of them, though. Before his visit he had made it clear that there was no role for priests in revolutionary politics, and to what was widespread dismay in many Centro churches insisted that priests could be excommunicated if they persisted.
Following him around those hot and dusty little countries, I saw just how tough this man could be. Some of the priests wisely found themselves reasons to be unavailable at the time. Those who stayed wished they had not.
One, who dropped to his knees to kiss the Pope’s ring, instead saw the hand withdrawn to be replaced by an admonishing, wagging finger and a solid ticking-off.
Many Central American liberals simply could not understand it. John Paul II was certainly a known anti-Soviet influence, perhaps the most influential of all anti-Soviet influences. But these were no raging old-style Soviet commies, they said, just revolutionaries for social justice.
They were left stranded. John Paul had made up his mind for his own reasons.
Way to go, Pope. But Wilson wasn’t impressed:
This reporter, though, will always remember that hot and dusty day in Central America and wonder just why it was John Paul II took the side he took in that struggle that seemed so straightforward.
Key word: “seemed”.
UPDATE. David Marr thinks the Pope’s death may result in a better world. Marr complained two years ago about the brutalising effects of war, which led some to describe terrorists as cockroaches; what’s his excuse?
UPDATE II. Recall Barry Cassidy’s words after September 11: “At the ABC, a memo went out about a week ago to all radio commentators that they were not to say anything derogatory about the Taliban ... So here I am on Channel 10, I can say that the Taliban execute women for adultery. They’ve been known to throw acid in the face of young girls who don’t wear veils and so on. I can get it off my chest on Channel 10 but I can’t say it on the ABC.” But Marr can say that the Pope’s death might be a good thing.
UPDATE III. Hans Nyberg provides brilliant Quicktime VR panoramas from Vatican City.
UPDATE IV. Fidel Castro disagrees with David Marr.
UPDATE V. Video highlights of the Pope’s life.
UPDATE VI. Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Pope’s death hasn’t delighted extremists.
After having to listen to mainstream journalists and television personalities try to fathom the personality of the Pope, I found them to be unreadable, unlistenable, and unwatchable. The headline “LIBERALS SIMPLY COULD NOT UNDERSTAND IT” covers it. They are on the outside looking in of people with religious beliefs.
True enough, rexie. But while understanding was difficult, it wasn’t impossible. In the end, the Pope elected to take a morally consistent stand against war; I’d guess his pacifism was in fact total. I can appreciate that, I just don’t accept it as practical in realpolitick. Pacifism tends to be contrasurvival in a world filled with predators.
However, lefties like David Marr live by the “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us” rule. In spite of the fact that the Pope stood with Marr and his comrades (ultimately for different reasons, I believe), Marr is against John Paul II because of other issues. Which ones? I don’t know, but Marr makes his position abundantly clear.
But I think that liberals can’t understand someone like Pope John Paul II because he was in fact morally consistent, almost to the point of being black and white. Much of the dogma I see in the leftie world is based in nihilism (nothing is right or wrong, forbidden or required, good or bad), which is philosophically in opposition to morally consistent behavior.
“LIBERALS SIMPLY COULD NOT UNDERSTAND IT” is about the best way to sum it up.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 04 04 at 12:33 PM • permalinkMaybe the Pope had some crazy idea that sometimes you can topple empires without firing a shot.
The Roman Empire collapsed without a shot. (err… without a fight.) The Barbarians (Italians?) simply walked across the frozen river and took over.
It’s foreseeable that the USA will go the same way. For mostly the same reasons.
Bread and Circuses, anyone?
Posted by nofixedabode on 2005 04 04 at 01:30 PM • permalink“It’s foreseeable that the USA will go the same way. For mostly the same reasons.”
Oh really, nofixed. Who’s going to “walk across the frozen river” and get us, Canada? Mexico? You?
Oh well, gotta go—I’m late for the gladiator combat in the arena.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 04 04 at 02:20 PM • permalinkI kind of like to see the Canadians come across the frozen river and get me. I’d like to see that.
Of course, I’d welcome the good ones in my home for—let’s see now, just what purely American dish can my wife make that won’t generate excrutiating stomach pains, oh yes—pizza. Or tacos. Maybe spaghetti, last week’s experiment wasn’t halfway bad although it did seem to resemble one big hard block of pasta. But once I sawed pieces off, it was pretty good.
Let’s start with the babe at Small Dead Animals whose picture shows her fixing bicycles in short shorts . And most of the columnists for the Toronto Sun. They’re cool too. And most everyone in Alberta is welcome, except I’d rather not saw off that much spaghetti.
As for the Liberals, yeah, tell them to walk over that frozen river called Lake Erie. Yes. Let them come.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 04 04 at 02:46 PM • permalinkOne, who dropped to his knees to kiss the Pope’s ring, instead saw the hand withdrawn to be replaced by an admonishing, wagging finger and a solid ticking-off
I saw a video of this on the BBC and he really gave the guy a talking too. It was awesome to see the guys face as the Pope laid into him and the sinking realiziation that he was being publicly rebuked by one of the most important men in the world. It was also sweet because he was some grubby bearded hippie looking dude. Of course liberals are surprised when people with anti-communist views actually turn out to be anti-communists. I mean come on, how can you actually mean what you’re saying? Marr’s tragic error is the conflation of social justice with revolutionary marxism. And this guy is a journalist? How odd!!
Posted by LondonMatt on 2005 04 04 at 04:20 PM • permalinkGee, wish this Pope had been around before WWII for Roosevelt to listen to. We could have skipped that whole saving the world from facism thing.
Being strictly anti-war is nice in theory, but doesn’t much work in the real world.
Posted by Matt Moore on 2005 04 04 at 04:43 PM • permalinkDubya can pay his respects as much as he wants, but we all know he didn’t listen when it really counted.
Had he “listened when it counted”, a brutal dictator would still be in power.
Good on you!
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 04 04 at 04:45 PM • permalinkBrute Bernard was a Canadian. Be careful what you wish for.
He’s also dead. So I think I could handle him.
And most of the good WWE wrestlers appear to be from Calgary. So they’re OK. The ones from Montreal are usually cast as bad and evil (I guess because they resemble the French and since there apparently are few French men who will put down their bons bons and wrestle, they’re a reasonable facsimile). Naturally they get a weekly whupping from some wrestler from Texas (like Randy Orton). Occasionally by a woman.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 04 04 at 05:02 PM • permalinkThe Pope also made his views felt in Northern Ireland, he gave a clear and unequivocal message to the IRA that they did not have the support of the Church;
‘‘On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace….Violence only delays the day of justice….Further violence in Ireland will only drag down to ruin the land you claim to love and the values you claim to cherish. In the name of God I beg you….”The IRA rejected the Pope’s plea, claiming it has “widespread support” for its operations: “In all conscience we believe that force is by far the only means of removing the evil of the British presence in Ireland.”
yeah phil has outdone himself
Aids in Africa = Popes Fault
Phils PholliesAnd I LOVE this comment too
“His church, however, seemed just as concerned about abortion as with the Holocaust. Obsessing over the life and death of the fetus.”
Posted by knuckleheadwatch on 2005 04 04 at 06:52 PM • permalinkTo quote Rabbi Salanter:
A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow man’s soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries about his own soul and his fellow man’s stomach.
And in this case, “You don’t have to be Jewish to be Jewish, but it helps”. The Pope in particular has to worry about his fellow man’s soul, not just his stomach. That’s his job description. The ultimate Social Worker, as typified by the following:
Two social workers were walking through a rough part of the city in the evening. They heard moans and muted cries for help from a back lane. Upon investigation, they found a semi-conscious man in a pool of blood.“Help me-I’ve been mugged and viciously beaten” he pleaded. The two social workers turned and walked away. One remarked to her colleague:“You know the person that did this really needs help”.
Which is more important, transitory Earthly agony or Torment Eternal?
The only way to understand the Catholic Church’s treatment of paedophile priests is to assume that the people in power were far more concerned about the imminent Damnation of the priests, than the temporary welfare of the victims.
This is not a belief system that I subscribe to, but I can see how genuinely good people trying to do their best can end up like this. More concerned about the soul of the Catholic pilot that drops the bomb that kills the pagan child-murderer than the child-murderer (beyond feasible redemption, barring a miracle) or the massacred innocents (destined for heaven, or at least, purgatory). The doctrine of “Just War” as formulated by St Augustine is still contentious, and clashes with both “Turn the other cheek” and “Thou Shalt Not Murder”.
Of course, unlike the two social workers in the story, JP2 would have actually done something about the victim too. He gave a dressing down to “radical militant priests” in South America, but an even bigger one, in a voice shaking with righteous wrath, to those who perpetrated an unjust system by ruthlessly exploiting others. Not forgetting his personal courage in taking on The Evil Empire (tm).
I didn’t always see eye-to-eye with JP2. It personally saddened me that he wasn’t in all conscience able to support the violent Liberation of Iraq from tyranny the way he supported the nonviolent liberation of Poland.
But I can’t blame him. Unlike the “Not in My name” Idiotarians, he’d thought it through: he just had a different set of priorities. And that comes with the territory.
Andrea- To the arena as spectator or combatant? If you’re on the card, let me know in time to get a bet down.
Did I miss the joke? Or do I really need to defend the comparison between the decay of the Roman civilization and the decay of our civilization? It won’t take a frozen river, we’ll built a bridge and welcome the invaders with open arms. It’s “correct” to hate America in our media, in our universities and at our cocktail parties. Only cretins and morons are “pro” USA. Just ask any Democrat or College Professor. (It’s simply not enough to disagree or to differ. One must HATE, and seek the destruction thereof.)
Lenin taught that we’d supply the rope. With communism, we came too close for comfort. We are not “the world”, we have enemies. (maybe you’ve noticed?)
You mentioned Mexico and Canada. Do you imagine that either of these countries are our friends? Mexico, which teaches in her schools that the southwest portion of this country rightfully belongs to her, and is to be retaken? Canada, the country whose sole identity is being “not the USA”?
I’m proud of our all volunteer military and what they’ve been able to accomplish. It’s great to see that a minority of our citizens still think our values are worthy of defense. Our nation depends on them. But the lack of support, even the outright open hostility they’re received from much of our population and our media must be demoralizing. Soon they may agree with the majority that we aren’t worthy after all. And with less that 100,000 votes, we’d have had an administration that would not have deployed military in our defense under any circumstance.
Anyway, I standby my original point: it is possible to topple an empire with firing a single shot. It’s been done.
Posted by nofixedabode on 2005 04 04 at 08:34 PM • permalinkAnd oddly, all the Pope-helped-AIDS whiners overlook that the only country in Africa that has slowed the spread of AIDS is Uganda, with a progressive policy of *gasp* abstinence…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 04 04 at 08:35 PM • permalinkOkay, so instead of a paranoid lefty who thinks that the USA is a corrupt and decadent new Roman Empire on the verge of collapse while Dubya fiddles, nofixedabode is a paranoid righty who thinks that the USA is a corrupt and decadent new Roman Empire about to collapse because of the massive power wielded at cocktail parties.
Okee dokee!
nofixedabode:
About the media/academia/et al—these losers and posers are about as dangerous as we let them be. Most people think they are a joke. Some day I will write my thesis—The Rise of the Blogs: When Ordinary People With Day Jobs Proved Themselves to be Wittier, More Interesting, and More Erudite Than Famous Comedians, Media Pundits, and Multi-Degreed Academics. One day our descendants will look at our pastimes and wonder that we wasted so much time worrying about what Peter Jennings or Wil Wheaton thought about something.
As for
You mentioned Mexico and Canada. Do you imagine that either of these countries are our friends?
No. Actually, I think of these countries as future states number 52 and 53. And we won’t even have to lift a finger.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 04 04 at 09:23 PM • permalinkI don’t understand the “logic” that blames the Pope for the aids problem in Africa. So you have all these devote catholics obeying the church’s rule of “no condoms” while at the same time ignoring those other rules about adultery and fidelity.
Maybe they need to look at the policy in South Africa of their president Mbeki that saw the banning of aids drugs.
Of course the Mexicans think they own the southwest, but if they did where would they go for work? Would they crossing the Mississippi in the dead of night?
And as for Canada…I think we could take the western half without firing a shot.
And who wants Quebec?
Nothing lasts forever but I think we are too young a nation to throw in the towel just yet.
Imagine, the Europeans pillaged and plundered and fought over this hemisphere for longer than the United States has existed.
And the Church was part of that also.
The Pope may not have supported the War in Iraq but he has supported its democratization and to tell you the truth given the paranoia of the Arab world I am not so sure support from the Pope would have been a good thing.
They are excitable enough. And visions of the Crusades would have been rampant.
You’re forgetting the Purge. Oops—have I revealed too much?
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 04 04 at 10:37 PM • permalinkFurther to my last post I just did a few rough calculations.
Canada has a population of about 32.2 million people. There are about 640,000 people per US congressional district. This would translate into 50 Canadian members of your House of Representatives plus 2 Senators. The Canadian representation on the electoral college would therefore be about 52. I think this is about the same as California and almost double Florida.
You don’t need the aggravation.
Adam:
I know a Canadian who has complained bitterly that the people in the west are not represented in their government.
He says he would prefer a system like this in which every state/province had a certain numbers of Senators. So, the western Canadians might help to offset the eastern ones. And besides, like I said, who wants Quebec.
your link to the terror graph didn’t work however in don’t call me Al fashion you have mistakedly mixed up two issues.
John Paul2 wasn’t Pope when the Sandinistas were fighting Somoza.
He was Pope however when the Sandinistas formed Government there.
It is then he said people could either be priests or politicians not both.
That is what Mr Wilson is confusing.given his views on ‘Liberation Theology’ one could assume that John Paul2 would not approved of any priest fighting in a civil war.
Posted by Homer Paxton on 2005 04 04 at 10:51 PM • permalinkAndrea — Careful, we must not talk about the part where we drive the Quebcois back to Europe in a public forum…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 04 04 at 10:53 PM • permalinkRe: My last post, when I said
Of course, unlike the two social workers in the story, JP2 would have actually done something about the victim too
Here’s something from Normblog that illustrates my point :
One survivor, Idit Tzirer, said that she was an emaciated 13-year-old in 1945. She had just been released from a Nazi labor camp and was sitting on a street corner in the snow, too weak to walk, when Wojtyla approached.
“Suddenly, he appeared, like an angel from heaven, when nobody else was taking any notice of me,” she said on Israel TV. “He brought me a cup of hot tea and two huge slices of bread and cheese… After a while he asked me if I wanted to get away from that place and I told him I wanted to get to Krakow, but I couldn’t walk. So he hoisted me on his back, like a sack of flour, and carried me, four or five kilometers.”
Careful, we must not talk about the part where we drive the Quebcois back to Europe in a public forum…
Why go to the trouble…just give ‘em their own country and be done with it. They’d probably jump at the chance anyway, given that the alternative would be life under the Repuglikkkan Junta.
(I’d sure love to see the current AdScam brouhaha bring about a newly strengthened Quebec separatist movement…)
Of the mainstream churches, I think the earliest split was the Great Schism of 1056.
Who’s Jane referring to? Ebionites? The Nazarites?
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 04 05 at 06:49 AM • permalinkThe Roman Empire collapsed without a shot. (err… without a fight.) The Barbarians (Italians?) simply walked across the frozen river and took over.
Err…sorry, but that’s bullshit. The Roman Empire didn’t collapse “without a shot”. Heard of the Crisis of the Third Century? The Battle of Adrianople, where the Roman Army was crushed by the Goths, losing two thirds of their troops? The Battle of Chalons where a Roman-Gothic tried but failed to save the Empire?
If that’s “without a shot”, I’ll eat my hat.
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 04 05 at 06:56 AM • permalinkYeah, like the ABC, they believed in pre-emptive disingenuity.
Aurora #29 - right on!
Love those condoms, just can’t hack it with the abstinence/fidelity bit. If they would do away with confession, and the resultant early forgiveness, people would have to live with their guilt a bit longer. Sad thing is that Africans these days have so many risk factors out to get them they don’t live long anyway.And for the record “The Fall of Rome” didn’t occur at Rome (Ravenna was the Roman capital by then), and didn’t involve a battle or any “barbarians walking across a frozen river”. Orestes, the Germanic Master of Soldiers simply deposed the puppet Emperor Romulus Augustus and ruled in his place.
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 04 05 at 07:00 AM • permalinkSortelli-
Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean that people aren’t really out to get me!
Posted by nofixedabode on 2005 04 05 at 08:11 AM • permalinkQuentin G:
Arians perhaps? Monophysites? Homoiousians as opposed to Homoousians? Eutechians perhaps? Nestorians?
It was very Nicea to mention the Ebionaeans and Nazerites. (BTW have you ever played Chaosium’s
Credo?)Quentin George-
I was imprecise. And a bit flippant (thought that was obvious). The event I was referring to, of course, was Alaric’s sacking of Rome. Visigoths crossed the frozen Rhine in 407. Much mischief ensued. An 18 month siege of the Rome brings us to 410. Negotiations to buy Alaric off fell through. Someone opened the Salaria Gate, and in came the barbarians. Rome was sacked for three days, then the barbarians left to find food. Rome by that time having been reduced to (by some accounts) cannibalism. No resistance, the Roman commander already having been beheaded on orders from Ravenna. Rome was done. What was left continued to call itself “The Roman Empire” for another 66 years. Matter of opinion as to whether that title was deserved.
I’ll endeavor to be more precise in my future flippancy.
Posted by nofixedabode on 2005 04 05 at 09:24 AM • permalinkLet’s see, liberation theologists were dismayed to find out a man from a people crushed under the rusting iron heel of communism didn’t approve of their association with communists…
...with insight like that, it’s clear in retrospect that we should have paid more attention to the liberation theologists’ perception of world affairs…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 04 05 at 11:18 AM • permalinknofixedabode, Richard: I think a lot more misunderstandings could be averted if we applied some sort of international standard of precision to flippancy. Let’s see if we can’t get the UN on that right away!
And, God willing, that will keep them so tied up that they won’t have time to rape anymore refugees.Sortelli — I’m on the gold standard for flippancy, baby… “...riding into hell with a hard bright peal of laughter.”*
*Parke Godwin, Firelord. Read it, it’s great
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 04 06 at 08:51 PM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
My God, after all these years he still hasn’t figured out why His Holiness opposed the support by priests of an armed struggle?
Geesh, I just read it and I can figure it out. Fools!