Vatican Official Likens Deaths in Gaza to Slaughter of the Innocents

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/11/vatican-cardinals-blood-libel-i-think-of-the-massacre-of-the-innocents-children-are-dying-in-gaza.html

"Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Vatican Council for Culture, commenting on the war between Israel and Hamas, delivered a severe attack on the Jewish people: “I think of the ‘massacre of the innocents’. Children are dying in Gaza, their mothers’ shouts is a perennial cry, a universal cry”.

The Catholic Church high official equated Israel’s operation in Gaza against terror groups with the New Testament story of Herod’s slaughter of Jewish babies in his effort to kill Jesus."

Hat tip to Jihad Watch.

As I have gone after leadership (More appropriately the lack thereof) on numerous occasions, I have to note firstly that I am a practicing Catholic and have remained so as an adult. If I had not committed myself to extensive research of Christian doctrine and history,  I may have bought into the arguments of Evangelicals many years ago.

One thing must be made clear - no rule of doctrine of the Catholic Church requires me to accept the Church's positions on issues such as politics.

The Vatican has routinely sided with the Arabs of Palestine for a long time. Even during the days of the otherwise brilliant John Paul II, the Vatican's position on Jerusalem was that it is illegally occupied. Now, a Vatican official has likened the deaths in Gaza to the Slaughter of the Innocents, a gruesome event that occurred after Herod was unable to find out where the location of the newborn King.

The Vatican either is under the impression that the Islamic world will respect it if it is extra nice to them or is too full of Leftists sympathizers to take the correct and courageous position. Maybe it's both.

I can not recall one time in which the Vatican spoke out against specifically against bombings, rockets attacks, kidnappings, etc. The only time that we hear of any comments is when the victims are not Israelis.

Since Christendom was subject to well over a thousands years of Islamic warfare, slave-taking, etc., and the Church had a far less than stellar record of its treatment* of European Jews, one would think that the Vatican would tend to support the latter.

*The tremendous but necessarily clandestine efforts of Pius XII's Vatican during the Holocaust were the only real moments in which the Church accomplished anything of substance in helping European Jewry.

I don't know if the jerks that form Vatican foreign policy would ever be willing to reconsider their positions. They are so set in their ways.

Even one of their guys who should know the real story affects to be ignorant:

"The vicar-general of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem [Emphasis added], William Shomali, said on Vatican Radio that “what is happening in Gaza now is a vicious circle of violence”. The auxiliary bishop then declared that “it’s difficult to know who started it' "

One thing is for certain - If one wants to have a solid idea of who is primarily responsible for causing violence in Israel/Palestine, read what the Vatican says about it and take the contrary position.