Palming off the War

Good Palm Sunday message from the Prada Pope - if you've missed some of Watertiger's photoshopping the red shoes, you have much to catch up on. Benedict chose well this morning, though, and lit into the hideous damage done by warmongers in office in the U.S., to Iraq, and to their own country

Palm Sunday celebrates a rather ironic event, the triumphal procession that the Christ made into Jerusalem, with crowds waving palms. The next week he was crucified, as we are told.

That cheering crowd does match nicely with the Cheney insistence that we would be greeted as liberators: I had to enjoy that Meet The Press played that clip this a.m., showing Tim Russert insisting that we should consider whether America was prepared for a long bloody war, and Cheney insisting that wasn't about to happen, we were liberators.

Pope Benedict XVI issued one of his strongest appeals for peace in Iraq on Sunday, days after the body of the kidnapped Chaldean Catholic archbishop was found near the northern city of Mosul.

The pope also denounced the 5-year-long Iraq war, saying it had provoked the complete breakup of Iraqi civilian life.

"Enough with the slaughters. Enough with the violence. Enough with the hatred in Iraq!" Benedict said to applause at the end of his Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square.
(snip)
"To recognize God, we must abandon the pride that dazzles us, that seeks to push us away from God," he said. To find God, he said, "we must learn to see with a young heart, one which isn't blocked by prejudice and dazzled by interests."

While this is a Pope whose attitude toward the people in general is pretty surly, I do appreciate that he speaks out for peace. We need to hear more from our standard brands of U.S. churches about the values we supposedly have embraced, peace and justice, love and tolerance.

If you have listened to the tapes of Obama's preacher saying "Goddamn America", you will note he follows that with "It says so in the Bible". He preaches against the crimes this country has committed against the people of Iraq, and its own minorities.

We don't hear enough from the pulpit to insist that we follow its lessons. While a lot of people aren't used to hearing rough language to wake them up, it might be a good idea if they did. We may have to take more shocks than we can bear if we don't wake up soon.



The shoes of the fisherman?
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Another speaker this morning, relating how he lost faith in the catholic church while researching to report on its sex scandals, tells about having the truth tear down the facade he'd believed in.

...you cannot imagine until you live through it how knowledge and experience (especially the experience of suffering) can affect your ability to hold on tightly to what you believe is the truth.

Watching the right wing coming around to our DFH rejection of the war is seeing this happen in our country.