Heh
The Holy See cannot take lessons or instructions from any other authority on the tone and content of its statements.

Muffti is sort of sorry he ever posted the first story on this; why shouldn’t the Vatican condemn or fail to condemn whatever they want? Why should we care what the Vatican has to say?

But the Holy See provided a newer, tougher reason for the omission and Muffti is duty bound to report. Initially the Vatican was inclined to say that they were only interested in ‘recent attacks’ and the attack on Netanya wasn’t quite recent enough. They used tougher words, however, in a press release yesterday:


It’s not always possible to immediately follow every attack against Israel with a public statement of condemnation, and for various reasons, among them the fact that the attacks against Israel sometimes were followed by immediate Israeli reactions not always compatible with the rules of international law…it would thus be impossible to condemn the first (the terror strikes) and let the second (Israeli retaliation) pass in silence

This statement is odd for several reasons. The one Muffti finds most amusing is that, given the Pope really believes that Israeli incursions are illegal and wrong, he preferred to not mention both the terrorists and the incursions rather than mention them both. Don’t worry, though. Papal correspondant Joaquin Navarro-Valls assured us that “…[the Netanya attack] falls under the general and unreserved condemnation of terrorism.”

Muffti wishes he’d never mentioned this in the first place. As he said at the beginning, who cares what the Pope has to say?

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18 Comments

  • At least it’s better than the “the Jews did it for the money” argument that they floated through NRO a couple days ago…

  • Translation:

    “We fucked up and it was by design, but rather than acknowledge that we fucked up – especially since the dude who spoke is supposed to be infallible – we’re going to take an offensive posture that allows us to simply ignore the SENSELESS MURDER OF INNOCENT JEWS SIMPLY BECA– USE THEY ARE JEWS any time we feel like it. From now on we will continue to lament the murder of innocent Britons but not Israelis, even though it is illegal under international law for the British to cold-bloodedly murder a Brazilian national because of a false and incomprehensible suspicion that he’s a potential bomber, especially as they do it on the same day Israel disarms and stops a real suicide bomber using non-lethal means.”

    Hey ck, are you going to email me how to log in? Cuz until you do, I can’t.

  • themiddle! Are you getting the editing powers back??!! Woe to us!

  • Even though it cannot be stressed enough that this Pope screwed up big time by dissing Israel, he did not do it to intentionally single out Israelis as appropriate and legitimate targets of terrorism. The vatican has never been a big supporter of Israel and as such, still treats terrorism in Israel as a separate entity from terrorism around the world. Why should we expect special treatment now? Their mentality being: The Israelis brought terrorism unto themselves, the British, Turkish and Egyptians did not.
    Benedict said he would show better relations to Jews, not Israel – this being a big point of difference to many a gentile.
    – – -look for relations to start sucking even more between the vatican and Israel. On the brightside, the french seem to have take a liking to us, so yay!

  • another reason for my bro to be happy my mom went with Aaron rather than Jaoquin. Did I ever mention I was once taught all Jews are going to hell ’cause they “missed the boat on Jesus” by the very same church? I seriously doubt they’d care if Hamas succeeded.

  • Ybocher, right now I don’t even have the ability to post, much less edit.

  • This Pope is lame. I miss JPII, who was busy saving Jewish children while Ratzinger was (admittedly under duress) in the Nazi army.

  • I think we give the Vatican to much credit for the Nostra Aetate

    Anti-Semitism is wrong and admitting this obvious truth shouldnt make someone a friend

  • Unfortunately, we should care what the Pope thinks, because so much of the world DOES care what he thinks, and that can directly affect world politics.

  • yeah! maybe we should talk about opus dei here, huh?

    hey wine guy! the ybocher are being deployed in cali on monday highnoon! get ready! you, gabe and your new winery!

  • You would think what with the Vatican being a Bible-driven organization, at least theoretically, that when those “I shall bless who blesses you and curse who curses you” people get offended (or murdered in the streets, for that matter), somebody would take notice.

    But then again, the Pope is kind of like John Lennon. He’s bigger than Jesus.

  • i dunno, maaan, it’s kinda cool that he didn’t just let himself be pushed into a shallow apology, and instead made an effort to clarify his position. Isn’t that kinda admirable? just a little?

  • TM the restaurant is opening in a couple of weeks we just bottled the 2003 Reserve Syrah which is awesome when r u coming to visit us?

    Ybocher the man and I await your arrival and r already planning the wine list for next shabbos

  • Yeah, Grace, really, I think you’re overestimating how many people actually listen to this dude’s opinions. Sure, there are a ton of Catholics. But most of them don’t pay attention to papal statements.
    And a lot of them that do have no problem with having different opinions. It’s the 21 century…and the church is trying to keep membership numbers…so they aren’t going to excommunicate someone for denying papal infallibility.

    Basically what I’m saying is, the image of the pope as a politically revelant figure is a myth.

  • Shmuel, the papal infalliability doctrine only applies narrowly to matters of “faith and morals,” e.g., God exists, etc. (In all history, it has been invoked on only one occasion.) It has nothing to do with the Holy See’s political pronouncements.

    The pope’s statement is another in a long line of attempts by the Vatican to straddle vis-a-vis Middle East issues– to balance support of the political aspirations of Palestinian and Arab Catholics with at least a respectful tone toward the State of Israel.

    This one is no more successful than JPII’s occasional forays into this minefield. However, one can make the case for the Vatican’s view that Israeli retaliation is not always appropriate.