Catholics and the Middle East crisis
The Catholic News Service reports on various Catholic initiatives to bring peace to the Middle East.
Pope Benedict has called for Christians not only to pray for a resolution, but also to embrace the distinctive message of the Prince of Peace:
“Precisely at this moment — a moment of great abuse of the name of God — we need the God who triumphed on the cross, who won not with violence but by his love.
“Precisely at this moment we need the face of Christ to understand the true face of God and, in that way, to bring reconciliation and light to the world.”
Lebanese Maronite Catholic bishops have called for “an immediate resolution for a cease-fire, out of mercy for innocent civilians.” An eight-point statement said that Lebanon “does not deserve the dismembering of a whole country, killing hundreds of citizens and starving most of the inhabitants” for the actions of Hezbollah. CNS also reports that the papal nuncio to Israel and the Palestinian territories tried to secure the release of the Israeli soldier who was captured by Hamas militants in Gaza.
So far the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has made no comment on the situation in Israel and Lebanon.
Ronan–do you actually anticipate the Church will issue a formal statement?
Comment by Guy Murray — July 27, 2006 @ 10:14 am
I’d like to hear from the Prophet right about now.
Comment by annegb — July 27, 2006 @ 10:46 am
Ronan, why do you expect the Church to make a formal statement on this?
Comment by john f. — July 27, 2006 @ 10:46 am
Ronan, is this your way of saying you’re becoming Catholic?
))))))
But seriously, I don’t expect the prophet to make pronouncements on every step of the Middle East crisis, just as I don’t expect him to comment on Iran with nukes, North Korea with nukes, Chavez with AK-47s and on and on. It seems to me that Old Testament prophets, for example, only commented on current events occasionally — Jeremiah and Isaiah and Daniel and others talked about the big developments but they didn’t discuss the morality of fighting off every Philistine attack.
Comment by Geoff B — July 27, 2006 @ 1:24 pm
Did I say I expected the Church to make a statement?!
The Catholic reaction is, however, to be expected:
- Of course Lebanese Bishops are going to call for a ceasefire; so would Mormon bishops in Salt Lake if bombs were raining on Utah. There’s a clear interest there.
- The Catholics are a viable (if not entirely successful) peace broker. The same cannot be said of the the Mormons, whose presence in the Middle East is tiny.
- The Pope has made it an explicit policy to “testify of Christ” at every opportunity, so one would expect him to use the current situation to promote a “Christian” peace. That he would call for Catholics to pray for peace is hardly surprising either.
So, a major Catholic peace effort seems par for the course. For Mormons, our efforts are on an understandably different scale. I see that the Church, for example, is sending some aid supplies.
I agree with annegb that it would be comforting to hear from the prophet, but as I have blogged elsewhere, I am not sure the mission of a “prophet, seer, and revelator” means that (right now) we should expect the Prophet to always be a global voice.
And if I am being honest, it’s not that I want to hear from the Prophet per se, it’s that I want the Prophet to confirm my views on the matter! (His talk on the Iraq war was uncomfortable viewing in the doveish, BBC-fed Head household.)
Comment by Ronan — July 28, 2006 @ 3:08 am
The Church now has one out of 200 members serving full-time missions with encouragement for more to serve, probably a like number of local missionaries, and the rest of the members still under the Every-Member-A-Missionary admonition, all seeking to bring the rest of the world to the nature-changing conversion the gospel offers.
We’re dotting the earth with the Temple, one of the greatest peace engines.
We have volunteers worldwide teaching early morning seminary to turn the next generation from violence and hatred.
We offer the Sacrament weekly to renew our taste of God’s love, remission of sins and humility (Msh 4:11-12).
We’re asked to give to our limits in hours and money to alleviate poverty, ignorance, and sin.
We publish Proclamations on the family and Christ.
We campaign in support of moral issues in elections.
Our homes are to be havens in which loving parents make “I Am A Child of God” a heartfelt reality in our children.
Everywhere converts reach past ethnic, genetic, economic, and all other boundaries to embrace one another — becoming the oneness of believers for which Christ pleaded in Gethsemane.
So, what further statement could the Church make to call for resolution of the world’s violence and to embrace the distinctive message of the Prince of Peace? We’re not just calling for peace: we daily go about manufacturing it.
Comment by manaen — July 28, 2006 @ 9:15 pm
The eye for an eye message that Israel feels compelled to demonstrate to the world leaves everyone blind and from what we can see alot of people maimed and dead.
That the Catholic Church would weigh in and exert its world wide influence is much needed and packs a powerful punch. When the Pope speaks, he speaks on behalf of a billion followers. Few organizations, the LDS Church included, have that kind of worldwide influence. The LDS Church does not have access to the world stage the way the Catholic Church does. Its not a fair comparison to say the LDS Church should follow similarly when the scope and reach of their statement wont command the same respect or publicity.
That said, we all need to ban together against violence in all its forms, particularly when the force is as onesided as it is.
Comment by David — July 29, 2006 @ 3:48 pm
I don’t see Israel as engaged merely in “eye-for-an-eye” behavior.
Hizbullah clearly bears the responsibility for this latest outbreak of awful violence in Lebanon and northern Israel, and the Israeli government is not only well within its rights but acting according to its duty when it seeks to take out the rockets and rocket launchers that continue to rain death and destruction indiscriminately down upon Haifa, Afula, Kiryat Shemona, Tiberias, and points in between, and that may soon threaten Tel Aviv. A government’s primary obligation, far and away, is to defend its people.
That said, I’m worried (and, in some cases, baffled) by the Israeli decision to go after Lebanese army bases north of Beirut, the Beirut airport, etc. The strategic reasoning behind this is unclear to me. Moreover, such attacks muddy the moral waters, and are virtually certain to inflame the Lebanese and the other Arabs against Israel rather than, to discredit (as well as militarily degrade) Hizbullah.
Comment by Daniel Peterson — July 29, 2006 @ 10:28 pm
8.
DP (and everyone else)
Re: what’s Israel doing with those attacks in Lebanon.
The prophecies foretell that the armies of the world will be arrayed against Israel in the last days — but do they say that Israel won’t have provoked it?
Comment by manaen — July 30, 2006 @ 10:24 am
When we mention Israel we might as well include the U.S. in the equation. Biblical prophecies aside, Israel exists because powerful Jewish interests have lobbied for billions of dollars of US tax subsidies (since 1949) and we have built and sold them military might that dwarfs their displaced Palestinian and Muslim counterparts.
Few really understand why the Muslim resistance to the Israeli state exists and how far back the animosity and hatred goes. Our alliance with Israel has cost us much in terms of world wide influence, oil wars and some have argued helped instigate the events of 911. How much longer do we continue to support our failed Middle East policies?
That we explain away and couch the violence as an inevitable and avoidable fatalistic reality does much to hide the true facts and dishonors the innocent victims that exist on both sides of the conflict.
http://www.hotpolitics.com/tax4israel.htm
Comment by David — July 30, 2006 @ 12:44 pm
As an Arabist, I’m certainly aware of, and sympathetic to, the Arab side of the issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
I would not, however, feel comfortable entertaining a change in U.S. Middle East policy that would result in, or would even risk, the disappearance of the state of Israel.
My father participated in the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp at Mauthausen, in Austria, and his duties there after the liberation included photographic documentation of what his unit found. I grew up with those photographs and with his horror stories, and have no wish to see a second Holocaust.
I agree that the establishment of Israel in the Levant entailed a number of injuries to the Palestinians, and that Zionists have often behaved unthinkingly, unjustly, and boorishly. But Hizbullah’s rocket attacks on Israeli civilians were unprovoked and are unambiguously damnable.
Comment by Daniel Peterson — July 30, 2006 @ 3:16 pm
In my opinion, the Israeli state should have been carved out of Germany and not Palestine. Why did the Palestinians have to pay for the crimes of Nazi Germany and Nazi sympathizers? No one wants a Holocaust revisited and I am in support of keeping that from ever happening again, but, we also need to hold unjust crimes and killings at the hands of State sanctioned behavior in the same light as WWII atrocities.
Hezbollah in their minds have been provoked along time ago and are continually being provoked by Israeli occupation and policies. These kinds of groups dont just exist in a vacuum and become viable for no reason other then they hate Jews.
Even in our own land of the free we had 60′s radical groups such as the Black Panther party form as a result of white police oppression and violence.
The early history of the LDS Church also provides ample examples of armed resistence to the anti-Mormon establishment. Porter Rockwell believed he was Prophet and God sanctioned to exact violent revenge against the Church’s enemies.
A people can only be pushed so far before they feel they have no choice but to retaliate by any means necessary.
Comment by David — July 30, 2006 @ 3:41 pm
Perhaps Israel should have been carved out of Germany and not Palestine. But it wasn’t. And it’s now been there for nearly sixty years. And there has been a substantial Zionist presence there for even longer, and a historic Jewish presence for even longer than that.
If you really want to base contemporary politics on past history, the Arabs should be restricted to the Arabian Peninsula, the Iranians should be driven back up into the mountains north of the Iranian plateau, the Turks should be forcibly repatriated to Central Asia, Scots Gaelic should be the official language north of Hadrian’s Wall, and the like.
But none of this is very relevant. And grievances are endless.
I fully realize that Hizbullah doesn’t exist in a vacuum. But that doesn’t oblige me to grant either that all of their grievances are legitimate or, even more, that their actions are justified.
Comment by Daniel Peterson — July 30, 2006 @ 4:02 pm
I have a Jewish professor who thinks Israel should have been “carved out” of the American desert. He thinks southern Utah would have been a great place.
Comment by Ronan — July 31, 2006 @ 3:54 am
Yeah, there must be some hellhole somewhere willing to accept the Jewish people.
Comment by john f. — August 5, 2006 @ 4:08 pm
Maybe when we colonize Mars we’ll have some options available. And while we’re at it we might be able to pursade the Native American populations and other dispossessed populations around the world to follow similarly.
We’ll never eradicate grievances or level the conquest playing field. The victors will just have to continue to find different ways to placate their guilt and move forward with all the material advantages that such conquests have bestowed. Meanwhile the Mars option looks pretty good at this point.
Comment by David — August 6, 2006 @ 12:50 pm