Vatican Hosts Hezbollah
November 28, 2012 4 Comments
I’m going to have to bite my tongue on this one. Really hard. I wonder, though, how those dwelling in the Vatican are going to feel when the time comes for them to install some anti-missile systems, and they find themselves having to live under an Iron Dome?!
As I said here, the Vatican has entered a very, very dark age. It is understandable, if not forgivable, for the Maronite Patriarch, Bechara Boutros Rai, to play the dhimmi and appease Hizballah, since he lives in Lebanon. However, the Vatican in entertaining Iranian envoys (the second largest diplomatic corps at the Holy See) and tacitly supporting the jihad against Israel has less excuse. The crocodile may indeed eat the good cardinals last, but eat them it will.
“Op-Ed: Exposé: the Vatican Welcomes Iran,” by Giulio Meotti in Israel National News, November 25:
Iran has a large diplomatic corps at the Vatican, considering that it is a Moslem country. And that is not all.Hizbullah’s officials, the Shiite terrorist group based in Lebanon, were hosted in Rome by the Vatican during the recent ceremony for the election of six new cardinals. Among the new cardinals is the Lebanese [Maronite] Patriarch, Bechara Boutros Rai.
As head of Lebanon’s [Maronite] Catholic Church, Rai recently sent his envoy, Father Abdo Abou Kassem, to Teheran to attend a conference in support of the Palestinian Arab Intifada and of a “Zionist-free middle east”. The conference was attended also by Hizbullah ideologue, Mohammad Raad, and by the Hamas’ leader Khaled Meshaal.
Cardinal Rai recently said in Paris that he supports Hizbullah’s war against Israel: “Only when the international community exerts pressure on Israel to vacate the occupied Lebanese territory and Israel allows Palestinians in Lebanon to return to their homes, can Hizbullah be asked to hand over its arms because they will no longer be needed”. It is not clear from the Cardinal’s remarks to which Lebanese territory he was referring, since Israel, in compliance with the UN, had withdrawn from its Lebanon buffer zone years earlier. Rai said his statements reflected the policy of the Vatican.
The coming of an Hizbullah delegation in Rome these days is part of a strong friendship that the Vatican is building with Iranian authorities. It might also be an explanation why during his trip in Austria, Pope Benedict chose not to address the Iranian nuclear question in a key speech to world diplomats in Vienna, which is the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Cardinal Rai recently said in Paris that he supports Hizbullah’s war against Israel. The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Organization for Culture and Islamic Relations just held their eighth meeting in Rome, under the joint chairmanship of the Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Iranian Mohammad Bagher Korramshad. The theme of the meeting was “The Catholic and Muslim cooperation to promote justice in the contemporary world”.
An official note says that “the participants were pleased and honored to be received at the end of the meeting by Pope Benedict XVI, who greeted and encouraged them to continue on the path of authentic and fruitful dialogue”.
A delegation of clergy members of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly also visited the Vatican in Rome. They met with top Catholic officials. “We held talks with the Vatican’s culture minister over the conditions and the popular uprisings in the region and the Vatican minister said that popular uprisings are inspired by the Islamic Revolution in Iran”, a member of the parliament’s Clerics Commission, Hojjatoleslam Hossein Ebrahimi, told Fars News Agency.
Iran has a surprisingly large diplomatic corps at the Vatican (only the Dominican Republic has more diplomats accredited to the Holy See) who have a monthly meeting with the Pope’s advisers. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a high-level delegation to Rome, headed by Mahdi Mostafavi, the president of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization in Tehran, a former foreign minister and one of Ahmadinejad’s trusted men and “spiritual advisers”, with whom he meets “at least twice a week”….
About Fr Stephen Smuts
It seems like the more imprudent thing to do is to publicly denounce Hezbollah and Islam.
Remember when the Pope at Regensburg quoted a Byzantine Emperor who said “Islam is Evil”? And how many Catholics, regardless of how right he was, paid the price for it? He then had to go through the humiliating public relations exercise of praying with a Muslim in a mosque at Istanbul.
Had I any ability to do so, I would have taken Constantinople first and expelled all the Moslems or eradicate them all. But alas, the West is crumbling, and birth rates are going down, and all you can do is accept the fact that Islam will dominate the West. It’s all the fault of secularists and their sympathizers I tell you! Whether or not you wish to declare war against Islam, Islam already has declared war on the non-Muslim world. Meanwhile, what is the West doing? Sanctions? Sanctions only harden peoples’ resolve- they will find a means to act upon it, because until their will is broken, no speech or sanction will do anything, and only the realization of war and the shedding of blood will become the inevitable manner of resolving the conflict.
Another problem is the image popes like John Paul II and John XXIII show the world, not as an authority or a leader, but a sort of friendly, harmless figurehead whose words you don’t have to listen to anyway. With how things are now even an orthodox, firebrand Pope will have to lower himself so that others may listen. How I missed the days when the Pope had an army! Any armed threat would have been met with armed response!
Those days would have been prepared for the petty army of Hezbollah. But no, people chose State over Church, and people of the West are going to pay for that poor choice!
Father Stephen: I am sorry to see you quoting with apparent approval an appalling blog like “Jihad Watch”. You will, of course, be aware that among the Palestinians there are both Christians and Muslims and that numbers of Christian families have relatives who are Muslims – as do I. So you will perhaps understand that there are many Christians and Muslims who will not share the views you express, still less will they appreciate the propaganda of Jihad Watch or Israel National News.
You know, a fondness for biblical archeology does not require one to bury one’s head in the sand when it comes to current affairs.
Since there are about 2.2 billion people who call themselves Christian and majority of these are Catholics, it is right and proper that the Vatican seeks to develop better understanding with the leaders of the 2nd largest world religion which is Islam. As you know, the Church teaches:
“16. Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God.(18*) In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh.(125) On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues.(126) But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.”
- Lumen Gentium – Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
Armed conflict is always nasty. Civilians often bear the brunt of the consequences. In modern times propaganda plays a huge part and it seems to me that you are falling for some of it.
On a previous thread I listed some Israeli and Palestinian sites which work towards a peaceful solution. I commend to you once again the Israeli site <a href="http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/events/1354127234" Gush Shalom where today you will find this:-
“”Ending the occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state is not only in the interest of the Palestinians. It is in Israel’s most vital interest. The Occupation is a heavy weight around Israel’s neck, dragging us into the depths of brutality, extremism and racism and utterly corrupting our society. The frightening list of extreme right parliamentary candidates, with which registered members of the ruling Likud Party came up this week, is but one among many and fast multiplying examples. Liberating the Palestinians from the yoke of occupation will liberate the State of Israel from being an occupying and oppressive state; a Darkness Unto the Nations of which Jews abroad – especially the younger ones – feel ashamed and from which they increasingly turn away.”
I couldn’t have expressed this better. The Catholic Church has been able to be an efficient peacekeeper in various conflicts only because of its ability to dialog with all parties involved.
+ PAX et BONUM
Dom Henri: I agree in principle but while the Catholic Church is unique in that the Pope is not only regarded by Catholics (the largest group of Christians) as the Vicar of Christ on Earth, but is also the temporal sovereign of the Vatican City State. Since he has the attributes of a sovereign, he has a diplomatic service which is indeed very efficient – not least because it has an absolutely unique information gathering network.
But we should also be careful to remember that Church-State relations are proof, if proof were needed, that the Church is a divine institution which the Almighty has entrusted to fallible humans. Those who govern the Church can and do make mistakes in dealings with secular governments. So it has to tread warily.
One of the little known reasons why the Church has quite good relations with Iran is the legacy of the late Cardinal Duval of Algiers.
When Algeria become independent after a particularly bloody struggle, the Cardinal stayed in independent Algeria as an Algerian Citizen and the time came when the Algerian Government (and Cardinal Duval) played a key role in the peaceful resolution of the US- Iranian hostage crisis. I had the honour to meet Cardinal Duval at the time.
Incidentally, it was largely thanks to the heroism of Cardinal Duval (he was a target of the OAS during the War of Independence) that the Catholic Church is still protected by the Algerian state and (for example) that Algerian legislation provides that Catholics have paid holidays on the principal festivities of the Church.
You may also be aware aware of the recent restoration of the Basilica of Notre Dame d’Afrique funded in part by the Algerian government and the Wilaya d’Alger – see Christians and Muslims unite in Algiers’ cathedral [Of course, it's not the Cathedral - the BBC got that wrong].
I was able to visit the Basilica quite recently and I can assure you that the message over the High Altar is as resplendent as ever: “Notre Dame d’Afrique, Priez Pour Nous et Pour les Musulmans”.
“Our Lady of Africa, Pray for Us and for the Muslims” – There’s a prayer for the Middle East. As it happens the present Archbishop of Algiers is Mgr Ghaleb Moussa Abdallah Bader, formerly a priest of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, his principal consecrator was the Patriarch and the co-consecrators, the Patriarch Emeritus, Michel Sabbah and the Archbishop Emeritus of Algiers Mgr Tessier, who himself had been consecrated Bishop of Oran by Cardinal Duval. So the Apostolic Succession is Algeria is assured, inter alia, via Palestine.
It is not just the Catholic Church which has to face up to the challenges of decolonisation and the evils of racism and state oppression. Think of Mgr Mercer, formerly an Anglican priest. He was deported from South Africa because of his stand against Apartheid. He went on to be an Anglican Bishop through very troubled times in Africa, a much loved ACCC bishop in Canada and is now a priest of the OLW Ordinariate in Portsmouth. We all know of the opposition of Archbishop Tutu to apartheid but there was also Archbishop Hurley and many others who stood up and were counted.
So it must also be in regard to the issue of Palestine. Palestine is not called “The Holy Land” for nothing. It is sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims. But because the Church is an interested party with clergy and faithful at risk throughout the region, it has to tread very carefully.