Saturday, April 23, 2005
(6:02 PM) | Old - Doug Johnson:
Ratzinger on War
Since my post below makes a suggestion with respect to Weigel and Ratzinger on war, I feel obligated to point folks to this article from Catholic Peace Fellowship. The most relevant section includes this:Yet perhaps the most important insight of Ratzinger came during a press conference on May 2, 2003. After suggesting that perhaps it would be necessary to revise the Catechism section on just war (perhaps because it had been used by George Weigel and others to endorse a war the Church opposed), Ratzinger offered a deep insight that included but went beyond the issue of war Iraq: "There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war'."
Still, I think my point in the post stands given Adam's post on Bush and Ratzinger. If Catholic politicians who supported the War were put under threat of excommunication by Ratzinger's office and if all those who intended to vote for politicians who supported the war were similarly threatened, then Catholics would have (rightly) had to simply sit out the presidential election. Furthermore, the Church's status as truly pro-life would have been legitimated.
I am encouraged that Ratzinger is such a staunch critic of war, but since he has pursued the abortion question so much more vigorously, one can only conclude that when push comes to shove there is more to his anti-abortion stance than simply 'pro-life' principles.
