Just how vehemently DID John Paul oppose the Iraq war?

Are the media presenting this issue fairly or accurately?

It’s a good question. Last night we heard CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, among others, say approximately 7,392 times that Pope John Paul II “deeply opposed President Bush’s Iraq war…”

Sometimes we got the addendum, “…although he was supportive of Americas Just War in the Balkans, under President Clinton.”

I don’t know about that second part – this article seems to suggest otherwise.

Pope John Paul II, in the midst of a talk on the newly beatified Padre Pio, turned his thoughts to Kosovo. “I raise my voice again to implore, in the name of God,” said the Holy Father, “that this attack by man against man come to an end, that the instruments of destruction and death be stopped, that all channels of aid be activated to help those who are obliged to leave their land in the midst of unspeakable atrocities. That dialogue be renewed, with the intelligence and creativity that God has given man to resolve tensions and conflicts, to build a society based on the respect due to every human person.”

But staying focused on Iraq, just how “deeply” did JPII oppose the war? (And while we’re at it, just how “conservative” was he? As conservative as those pesky, never-silent cable-news channels suggest? :-)

There is an excellent commentary from America Magazine re the Legacy of JPII, which quite rightly declares that the man was owned neither by right nor left. You’ll want to read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt:

John Paul was often mislabeled as a conservative. True, he stressed traditional church teaching. He also allowed his subordinates to silence and remove theologians from teaching positions. But anyone who listened to him carefully realized that he did not fit into the normal liberal-conservative boxes of American politics and culture. True he opposed abortion, the use of condoms, gay marriage, women priests and a married clergy. But he was to the left of liberal Democrats when it came to opposing capital punishment and the war in Iraq and supporting foreign aid and the United Nations. And while he opposed women’s ordination, he also opened practically every other church position to women, from altar servers to diocesan chancellors.

John Paul will also be remembered for his incredibly successful pastoral visits to every corner of the world. People by the millions came out to pray with him and hear him preach. “What did they come out to see? A reed shaken by the wind?” They came to see a holy man, a man of conviction and principle, a man who cared about them and a man who had changed the course of history. In this day of world leaders who tell us what their handlers think we want to hear, who don’t open their mouths without checking the polls and focus groups, John Paul was clearly different. He spoke with conviction, he was principled, he challenged us and said hard things. Even those who disagreed with him admired his honesty and conviction. He will be sorely missed; he will be a hard act to follow. May he rest in Peace.

That’s awfully good. My one question is whether or not America is right in asserting with such certainty that the Pope did, in fact, oppose the Iraq war.

As near as I can find, and I have only looked for a short time, while members of the Vatican – who are (let us be clear) NOT the pope – did make very public negative remarks about the war and even about the capture of Saddam Hussein, the pope himself said very little in public, making only one remark which could be arguably be called an outright complaint:

“When war, as in these days in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is ever more urgent to proclaim, with a strong and decisive voice, that only peace is the road to follow to construct a more just and united society,” John Paul said. “Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of man.”

John Paul II “implored for the world’s deliverance from the peril of the tragic clash between cultures and religions.” The Pope also sent his message to terrorists: “Let there be an end to the chain of hatred and terrorism which threatens the orderly development of the human family.”

My source here is The Catholic Worker, so it’s pretty heavily left-centered; it is a frequent critic of JPII for what they take to be his inflexible conservatism on matters birth-control, women’s rights, etc, but when he suits their politics, they don’t mind holding him up! (I am certain they would say the same about folks like me who appreciate the pope’s stance on those issues…) But in reading these responses one sees that JPII could just as easily be talking of all war, using “Iraq” as an example.

The pope would have been derelict in his duties, I think, had he NOT preferred and recommended peace over war. Contrary to the charges of some, no one likes war or wants it; some simply see it as necessary where others do not and – given the intelligence available – intelligence which even Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore have stated they emphatically believed, this war was thought to be necessary.

The Worker, frustrated in not finding more anti-war quotes from the pope, makes the rather stunning charge that the media were somehow not publishing the pope’s emphatic opposition – seemingly because the press…supported Bush…or something. For those of us who have observed the international media’s relentless anti-war coverage, that is a little strange to read, and difficult to accept. While this particular article suggests that JPII’s message to President Bush was “God is not on your side if you invade Iraq,” the fact is, we have no record of those words coming from the pope’s mouth.

We do, however, see the fruits of the Iraq war: people voting for a democratic government, other countries – having witnessed that vote – fighting to obtain their freedom. We don’t know how all of that will end, yet – there are long, long rows to hoe before what has been begun in that region can be defined as successful or unsuccessful, but one may consider (or presume) that perhaps JPII saw all of that and remembered the words, “by their fruits you shall know them…”

National Review Online’s weblog, The Corner had a lengthy debate on this issue some time ago, and it is worth reading. Some excerpts:

RE: THE PONTIFF AND THE WAR [Peter Robinson]
Recap: In an article about Italy last week, Ian Fisher of the New York Times claimed the Pope has displayed “outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq.” I asked if readers of this happy Corner could provide me with as much as a single instance in which the Pontiff has denounced the war. Sean Gleeson linked to my post, issuing the same challenge to readers of his website.

Results: One reader–count ‘em, one–met the challe
nge, referring Sean and me to a piece that William McGurn published in the Wall Street Journal on March 14, 2003: “If there were any doubts left about where Pope John Paul II stands on war with Iraq, they ought to have been answered by his characterization of any military effort against Saddam as a ‘crime against humanity.’”

Before Sean and I award this reader the Sean Gleeson Researcher of the Century Award, however, we note one problem. The Pope never said any such thing.

“I got the quote from the Telegraph [a British newspaper],” Bill McGurn told me when I called him, “and as soon as my piece came out Father Neuhaus [editor of First Things] got in touch to tell me it was wrong. I asked the guys at the Telegraph. They admitted they’d gotten it wrong. They were garbling a different statement.”

On March 28, 2003, Bill published a correction, combining it with a pointed meditation on the Pope and just war doctrine.

Which takes Sean and me back where we started. The New York Times may have convinced itself that John Paul II is “outspoken [in] opposition to the war in Iraq,” but neither that newspaper’s fine reporters nor anyone else can quote the Pontiff condemning the war, because no such quotation exists.

NRO appears to be correct, that no such direct condemnation exists.

I expect this question will be debated at length, and by much better minds than mine, and that is perhaps a good and necessary back-and-forth to have. But it would be nice if, while the question is so clearly under debate, the folks as the various news and cable outlets and papers would perhaps refrain from repeating – ad nauseum – “the pope deeply opposed the war in Iraq.” Christiane Amanpour, Chris Matthews…yeah, I’m talking to you! :-)