Monday, July 24, 2006

Hooray for the USCCB!

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued an excellent statement on the Lebanese war, making many of the points I made in my last post.

Key quotes:
" Israel’s response has been in some instances militarily disproportionate and indiscriminate. In light of traditional Catholic teaching, massive counterattacks on civilian areas and infrastructure, blockades and other acts of war should not be supported. Punishment of entire peoples for the indefensible acts of militant armed factions contradicts traditional just war norms. A humanitarian crisis is growing in Gaza and Lebanon."

"Regarding Lebanon, the rocket attacks and the bombings of innocent civilians are morally indefensible. Unjustifiable and indiscriminate attacks, and excessive military responses, endanger innocent lives and undermine Lebanon’s struggle to free itself from outside domination and from serving once again as a bloody pawn in the broader Middle East conflict."

1 comment:

John Lowell said...

Yes, the statement is both balanced and fair as was the Vatican's. But the brownshirts at such blogs as Wellborn, American Papist, and Against The Grain just won't take this kind of genuine Catholicism lying down. They prefer a Republicanized version. Feeling threatened by the real McCoy, they bob and weave, rationalize, and intellectualize but the simple fact remains that the "orthodoxy" they so often claim for themselves becomes more and more tenuous with each such episode.

Lets dispense with non-essentials and describe these people in terms precisely suitable to their views: Reich's Church warmongers. They give short shrift to the opinions of the hierarchy prefering instead an almost slavish devotion to those expressed by their neo-con pals at NRO. While these folks represent a sizeable contingent in the Church and certainly on the web, they are swiftly marginalizing themselves theologically. In my opinion their continued posturing as spokesman for Catholic "orthodoxy" should be challenged at every opportunity.

John Lowell