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War against Terrorism
Vatican Official Finds New Pretext
to Attack America
Gary Morella
A top Vatican official said Tuesday he felt pity and compassion for Saddam Hussein and criticized the U.S. military for showing video footage of him being treated "like a cow."
This and the next few paragraphs below in blue print are from a December 16 news report from Reuters in Vatican City.
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Cardinal Martino objects to pictures showing a disheveled Hussein undergoing a medical exam in Baghdad after his capture.
Los Angeles Times, December 15, 2003 |
Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Justice and Peace department and a former papal envoy to the United Nations, told a news conference, "I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow."
"They could have spared us these pictures," he said. "Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," he said in answer to questions about Saddam's arrest.
Martino was referring to the videotape released by the U.S. military which showed a grubby, bearded and disheveled Saddam receiving a medical examination by a military doctor after his capture in an underground hole Saturday.
In reference to the alleged statements by Vatican representative, Martino, in this report from Reuters, if it is correct, what we have here is an example of why the heads of the Catholic Church are being increasingly discredited in the world's eyes.
How any sane individual can "look with pity" to see a despot, a murderer of hundreds of thousands, "be destroyed" defies reason! That's analogous to saying that "we should show pity for the work of the devil" by feeling sorry for the "father-of-lies." Does Martino feel the same way about Hitler, Tojo, Stalin, or every other mass murderer who has led his country and the world to the brink of utter ruin? Would Martino have preferred that Hussein remain in power to butcher his countrymen, and be a major player in the network of worldwide state-sponsored terrorism? Wasn't the killing of three thousand innocent souls in New York enough? What does Martino think occurred in America on September 11, 2001, "a walk in the park with business as usual,” with America expected to do nothing in response? Would the world be better off if Neville Chamberlain were in the White House instead of George Bush? History says otherwise!
To the contrary of what Martino says, what has happened to Saddam Hussein proves that there is a God in Heaven, and that "what goes around, comes around" in terms of how man treats his fellow man. The world should be rejoicing that God allowed man the grace to remove an agent of the devil from obeying his master’s will.
It is one thing to hope that for the sake of his immortal soul Hussein repents of his heinous crimes before his just execution, the only punishment possible to fit the enormity of his crimes. It is something else to paint this madman as a victim for getting his just desserts, something that Martino evidently does not understand.
Martino's incredibly inane commentary discredits him on the Catholic scene. The Church will suffer the same fate if it does not repudiate Martino's comments in the enclosed Reuter's report.
Martino says that the world should have been spared the pictures of Hussein's demise. Why shouldn't the world see what awaits those who mock the law of God in the same manner that the world should see the barbarity of what abortion is, and the filth of what homosexual lifestyles are? That Hussein ended up in a "rat-hole" and received the treatment he got [ which was not disrespectful but rather something offered for his physical well-being] is a message from God as to what awaits those who act similarly. In particular, it is a reminder of the supernatural end that they will face given their final impenitence.
Someone in the Vatican should remind Martino of that fact. Someone also should tell Martino that the world would have been far better off, especially those innocent ones who were brutally murdered and tortured by the butcher of Baghdad, had it been spared Hussein's bad government!
The Catholic Church should be embarrassed to have such a spokesman as Martino. The big question is "How did such a man get the 'red hat' of a cardinal?"
Posted December 17, 2003
Related Articles of Interest:
The Inconsistent Statement of Archbishop Martino
Ten Questions on the War
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