Should the Pope be playing footsie with an admitted mass murderer?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/

Study: War blamed for 655,000 Iraqi deaths

BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports.

Violence including gunfire and bombs caused the majority of deaths but thousands of people died from worsening health and environmental conditions directly related to the conflict that began in 2003, U.S. and Iraqi public health researchers said.

"Since March 2003, an additional 2.5 percent of Iraq's population have died above what would have occurred without conflict," according to the survey of Iraqi households, titled "The Human Cost of the War in Iraq." (Watch as the study's startling results are revealed -- 1:55 )

Last December (2005), Bush said that he estimated about 30,000 people had died since the war began.

[AndreaCG]

1. Why not?

He coddles kiddie rapers.

i wouldn't be at all surprised if he's one himself.

I think I said on another forum that there are few people whose eyes look more evil than Ratzy's.

[133724]

2. Rat Singer....

His record includes:

* Theologians disciplined, such as Fr. Charles Curran, an American moral theologian who advocates a right to public dissent from official church teaching; Fr. Matthew Fox, an American known for his work on creation spirituality; Sr. Ivone Gebara, a Brazilian whose thinking blends liberation theology with environmental concerns; and Fr. Tissa Balasuriya, a Sri Lankan interested in how Christianity can be expressed through Eastern concepts;
* Movements blocked, such as liberation theology and, more recently, religious pluralism (the drive to affirm other religions on their own terms);
* Progressive bishops hobbled, including Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle, reproached by Rome for his tolerance of ministry to homosexuals and his involvement in progressive political causes, and Bishop Dom Pedro Casaldáliga of Sao Félix, Brazil, criticized for his political engagement beyond the borders of his own diocese;
* Episcopal conferences brought to heel on issues such as inclusive language and their own teaching authority;
* The borders of infallibility expanded, to include such disparate points as the ban on women’s ordination and the invalidity of ordinations in the Anglican church.

Indeed, it would be difficult to find a Catholic controversy in the past 20 years that did not somehow involve Joseph Ratzinger. Part of that is the nature of the job, but no other 20th-century prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- perhaps none ever -- has enjoyed Ratzinger’s high profile or his centrality to the life of the church. He and John Paul are men who believe that ideas count, and Ratzinger has prosecuted what he considers dangerous ideas with vigor. Whether his tactics and ironclad sense of certainty are more dangerous than the ideas he has attempted to suppress is a question that cuts to the core of some of the deepest divisions in the church.

http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives/041699/041699a.htm

Never did like him...But then I'm a Lutheran not a Catholic...

[WiseButAngrySara]

9. Matthew Fox is the story that I am familiar with, and I have

despised Ratzinger since I knew about him. He is no JP. I honestly wish him a short life, as not much good can come from such an unenlightened souless 'representative' of God.

Machiavelli's observation that 'the closer one gets to the papacy, the further one gets from God' has never been closer to the truth in these modern times.

[pretzel4gore]

3. the pope...connect the dots

taken as a single thing, with variance admitted in the forms of the men in positions of 'final say' in the different entities which make up the human drama, who/what runs planet earth? This aint a trick question- SOMEONE runs this planet, makes the big decisions that move it through time. This SOMEONE is a body of about 20 thousand men, circling around/serving the few thousand who, well, make ratz the pope instead of some liberal who might upset the apple cart. It was the same with regan/bush and Clinton before junyer bush came along. The news this morning, for example, is about Lebanon fighting. It's hardly world news- the country was torn apart in a long running civil war, (with israel and the west the biggest factor) that has never really ended. The point is that the 'news' we're fed is an effort to distract from the real story: the busheviks trapped like rats in the Iraq/Afghanistan messes that were part of the 'great game' played by the same SOMEONE who put bush into white house and an old nazipooh into the papacy. Reagan, and junyer bush, are JOKES! Gettit? The absolute contempt for democracy displayed by the SOMEONE (who knows they went too far putting junyer into power, and are stuck with the mess...ratzinger-as-pope is one dangerous situation on the world political scene, made controllable, by them, for awhile) ratz is 80 years old. we are fukking fools to pretend we believe the newspapers, the lying liars...

[MisterHowdy]

Of course, they're two of the same kind.

The catholic church has been responsible for way more death and destruction than the US could ever take credit for.
Also, the church is well familiar with the middle east, the crusades.
We criticize the US government for "forcing" democracy on other nations, just think of how much damage has been done to humanity by forcing catholicism and other christian-based religion on the world.

I don't think Jesus would approve of how our christian "leaders" have behaved

[Christa]

5. You beat me to it

The RC has a bloody history itself. Even today they don't allow their member's the use of condoms which causes horrific misery especially in Africa.

[Beelzebud]

4. It never stopped popes in the past. Why now?

[DesertRat]

6. I wouldn't call their meeting "playing footsie".

:eyes:

[MonkeyFunk]

7. Nor is Bush

an "admitted mass-murderer".

[NNN0LHI]

8. The person (The Decider) who admits responsibility for killing "around" 30,000 people on live TV...

...isn't a mass murderer? He gave the order.

I wonder how many it takes?

Don

[MonkeyFunk]

11. He hasn't "admitted" to being a mass-murderer.

No matter how you present it, he's not an admitted mass murderer.

[RestoreGore]

10. Religion has killed more people over the centuries than any other entity

Especially in their alliances with politics while doing it. Oh, but I forgot, killing in the name of God is OK.

[Ikonoklast]

12. Just going with the flow, like the rest of them

The Papacy sheds few tears for a few million Moslems or Jews murdered.

As long as they can still play power games behind the scenes, the rulers in the Vatican turn a blind eye to mass murder.

And they never met a right-wing dictator they couldn't love.