On Iraq, pope's message to Bush is quiet but firm (LAT)

[Eugene]

Source: Los Angeles Times

On Iraq, pope's message to Bush is quiet but firm

Amid antiwar protests in Rome, Benedict urges
the president to pursue a 'negotiated' solution
to violence.

By Tracy Wilkinson and James Gerstenzang,
Times Staff Writers
June 10, 2007

VATICAN CITY — With Italians converging on Rome to
decry the war in Iraq, President Bush received a more
subtle but pointed message Saturday about America's
Middle East policy in his first meeting with Pope
Benedict XVI.

Benedict urged the president to pursue a "regional and
negotiated" solution to the violence engulfing the
Middle East, a Vatican statement said, and voiced alarm
about "the worrying situation in Iraq" and the plight
of the besieged and dwindling community of Christians
there.

-snip-

By urging Bush to seek a negotiated solution, the pope
may have been condemning, however gently, the military
option pursued by this U.S. administration in Iraq, or
the hands-off approach taken until recently in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Still, the president was spared the more public rebuke
he experienced in 2004 when Pope John Paul II, after
receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bush,
condemned the "deplorable" abuse of Iraqi prisoners at
Abu Ghraib prison.

True to his personality and style of governance,
Benedict did not use Bush's visit to make public remarks
of substance and instead chose to deliver his message
in private. Bush emerged from the Vatican's regal
Apostolic Palace seemingly more subdued.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bush10jun10,0,7969250.story

[madrchsod]

1. why did`t the vatican use this approach in Rwanda?

"Bush emerged from the Vatican's regal Apostolic Palace seemingly more subdued."
was bush "subdued" or jealous because he does`t have "regal Apostolic Palace" that he thinks he so richly deserves

[Peace Patriot]

2. Bush gave a Medal of Freedom to a Pope? I didn't know that.

Seems very inappropriate to me. It likely had to do with Poland, right? And the rebellion against the Soviet Union? Not for keeping women out of the priesthood, or opposing women's rights at every turn? Not for heading an extremely undemocratic organization that more than anything resembles the monolith of global corporate predators like Exxon-Mobile and Halliburton? Not for smashing Liberation Theology (priests and nuns who believe in positive advocacy for the poor and opposing the rightwing fascists who oppress and slaughter them)? Not for its 2,000 year long betrayal of the true Christian message of communal living, and turning the other cheek?

Bush wouldn't give a pope a "Medal of FREEDOM" for heading one of the most anti-freedom institutions on earth, would he?

I know John-Paul opposed the Iraq War, at least in public. So that was right on. And smacked Bush in public on Abu Ghraib. Despite the "Medal of Freedom." But no Pope--with only one exception, John XXIII--has ever supported freedom and democracy in the Church or anywhere else. Their M.O., and their true heart, is with the rich, which often means with the fascists. They support the property owners because THEY own property. They support the rich because that's where they get most of their financial support and endowments. They identify with the rich as if the acquisition of riches indicated "favor from God," as if it was a virtue. They--the institutional Church headed by the Pope--ally themselves with the MOST repressive forces in every society, always. Despite their modern anti-war and social justice rhetoric, their ACTIONS couldn't be more conducive to the forces that perpetrate war, and that create gross social INjustice.

There is one core message of Christianity that is a gift to western culture: the sacredness of the individual, rich or poor, black or white, Gentile or Jew, male or female. That and "love thy neighbor" is the essential, simple, and revolutionary teaching. That is what touches people. That is what inspires the lower rungs of the clergy who identify with the poor, and that is why the poor and others of good heart are attracted to this religion, in its many forms, and to the Church itself. But the Church itself has erred horribly, in its acquisition of property, in its creation of a state church (including the creation of "doctrine" and its enforcement by violence, for most of its history), in its instigation of wars and inquisitions, in its creation of a popish hierarchy, in its totally fascist view of the freedom of the human mind, and in its close identification with fascist causes in the 20th century on into the 21st.

How this merits a "Medal of FREEDOM" is beyond me. John-Paul may have been a democracy activist in Poland (but really, a capitalist activist is more accurate), but now he is king of the Church, a completely and unforgivably anti-democratic institution. It is disgusting, and a betrayal of our revolution, and our democratic ideals, for a U.S. PRESIDENT to award a "Medal of FREEDOM" to an anti-democratic MONARCH.

But quite typical of Bush, who aspires to tyranny himself.

As for the current bowing and scraping of our pResident before Papal Authority (--what would Ben Franklin say?! --what would Thomas Jefferson say?!), could there be two more illegitimate leaders on earth, than Bush and the Pope? Both propped up by money. Neither freely chosen. Both of them toadies to, and puppets of, our Corporate Overlords. Each seeking corporate newsstream legitimacy, in lieu of democratic governance and rightful power. What a disgusting spectacle!