I’ll say one thing for John Paul II… when he invoked the “Culture of Life”, he really meant it. Even for convicted criminals and Iraqi civilians!
Politics News Article | Reuters.com: Bush, who returned from Rome to his Crawford, Texas, ranch said the Vatican ceremonies were “a powerful and moving reminder of the profound impact this pope had on our world.” Being in attendance, Bush said, “will be one of the highlights of my presidency.”
Hmm, you sat still in a black suit, and that’s one of the highlights of your presidency? I guess he has a point: no one lost their job, their civil liberties, their Social Security, or their son or husband in the military while he sat there, and the one guy who did die expired of natural causes, not any order Bush gave. All in all it may have been the least harmful day of the Bush presidency.
Bush credited the pope with teaching the communist rulers of Poland and the former Soviet Union “that moral truth had legions of its own and a force greater than their armies and secret police.”
He said the pope also “challenged America always to live up to its lofty calling.”
“The pope taught us that the foundation for human freedom is a universal respect for human dignity,” Bush said.
Yeah, like when the pope challenged America on the death penalty…
In his encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (The Gospel of Life) issued March 25, 1995 after four years of consultations with the world’s Roman Catholic bishops, John Paul II wrote that execution is only appropriate “in cases of absolute necessity, in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady immprovement in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”
…and on the immorality of invading Iraq…
“When war, as in these days in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is ever more urgent to proclaim, with a strong and decisive voice, that only peace is the road to follow to construct a more just and united society,” John Paul said. “Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of man.”
…and the need for justice for the poor and oppressed as a prerequisite of peace.
At the Ash Wednesday Mass this year the Pope reemphasized the theme that peace comes with justice: “There will be no peace on earth while the oppression of peoples, injustices and economic imbalances, which still exist, endure.”
