Credit: Creative Commons
As the National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen reveals in this article on the Vatican’s response to the never-ending atrocities in Syria, it’s not just the “family values” politicians who manipulatively exploit the warm sentiments that many associate with family life. It’s Roman Catholic prelates too.
But before getting to Allen’s must-read article and the too-close-for-comfort relations between the Vatican and the Assad regime, here is this opening paragraph in a New York Times report today about that regime’s so-called local “ceasefire” initiatives, which vividly describes Bashar al-Assad’s truly demonic use of food to attack his own people, be they rebel fighters or innocent civilians:
To the starving residents and rebel fighters in the bitterly contested suburbs of Damascus, the offer from the Syrian government can be tempting enough to overcome their deep mistrust: a cease-fire accompanied by the delivery of food supplies, if they agree to give up their heavy weapons and let state-run news media show the government’s flag flying over their town.
But as The Times reporter Anne Barnard chronicles in the same article, the offer of food is merely a ruse used by the Assad regime to get locals to hand over rebels:
The government rains aerial attacks on areas that refuse cease-fire offers. People in places that accept can find themselves facing new demands: to turn over wanted men, give up their light weapons and accept a military governor. Food is delivered piecemeal to retain the government’s leverage.
The government has repeatedly given permission for aid convoys to enter, then blocked them, as people continue to suffer and even die from a lack of food and medical care.
International aid workers, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect aid projects, say that the government has shown little commitment to the politically neutral delivery of aid. Many contend that the government uses the truces more as a tool of surrender – starving people and luring them into one-sided deals – than as building blocks of compromise.
Now enter Pope Francis and the Vatican’s handling of the Syrian atrocities.
As NCR’s John Allen reports, in late December Assad regime officials personally delivered – at the Vatican to a cardinal – a letter to Pope Francis from Assad himself. In the wake of that letter, what emerged was a Jan. 13 Vatican-sponsored “peace” conference, along with a bold Vatican plan to enlist Italy’s favorite soccer team to, for all intents and purposes, portray Assad as a beleagured statesman desperately trying to pursue peace.
Here’s a helpful nugget from John Allen’s report on why Pope Francis and the Vatican are playing footsy with Assad:
In the run-up to the Jan. 13 Vatican conference, some Western diplomats quietly expressed concern that the Vatican seemed to be positioning itself closer to Russia’s position on the Syrian conflict rather than that of the United States and the other Western powers, driven in part by perceptions that Syria’s Christian leadership sees Assad as a firebreak between them and rising Islamic militancy.
To inject a high dose of Orwellianism into the Vatican-Assad regime game of realpolitik, Vatican officials have enlisted the Italian soccer league to butter up Assad’s image. As John Allen reports:
This week the [Vatican] council announced that it’s enlisted the support of Italy’s Serie A, the country’s premier soccer league, in trying to raise consciousness. This weekend, banners will be displayed at midfield in the ten stadiums that are hosting home matches, including Rome’s Olympic Stadium, reading “Winds of Peace for the Families of Syria.”
And here’s where it gets even more creepy:
Jumbo screens in the stadiums will also play a spot with a well-known Italian TV conductor providing voice-over for images of Syrian refugees in camps in Lebanon.
“The world of sport is not forgetting the painful situation” in Syria, a statement from the Pontifical Council for the Family said. “The game of peace can be won together, with everyone’s commitment.”
So, here you have the Vatican, using images of the suffering Syrian war refugees, all as part of a larger political endgame to butress the international standing, negotiating stature, and reputation of a rank war criminal, Bashar al-Assad, who has employed sarin gas and starvation to secure his iron rule.
Lord, save us.
This kind of ruthless, disgusting Orwellianism coming from Pope Francis and the Vatican does nothing to shake my Catholic faith. As a wise priest once said, “The Church is the container for the faith, but not the faith itself.” But this kind of human wickedness and realpolitik most definitely reinvigorates my total support for autonomous statehood for the Jewish people.
To anyone who would use disagreement with any particular policies of the Israeli government to subvert the moral legitmacy of the Jewish state, or try to scandalize the moral committment to that state from the Jewish diaspora, in America or elsewhere, I would say this: get a brain.
But more importantly, get a heart.
Mr. Villareal,
I’m sorry, but I fail to see your point…do you really believe that the Pope is giving creedence to Bashar Assad?
And what exactly has this to do with The jewish state?
Dear Mr. Macario,
Thank you for your questions. Yes, I do believe that the activities of the Vatican are giving de facto credence to the Assad regime. Assad is telling the world community that his actions, which are war crimes and crimes against humanity, are a justifed response to Syria’s insurgency.
As this video of a Palestinian mother holding her emaciated child in Yarmouk, Syria shows, as well as reportage from the New York Times and other outlets, the Assad regime is responsible for implementing a strategy of mass starvation. Here is the video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x19r8eg_18-syria-the-palestinian-child-alaa-al-masri-is-facing-death-in-al-yarmouk-camp_news?search_algo=2
I would also recommend this BBC article from last year, which raises serious questions about Jorge Bergolio’s ability to stand up against sadistic, authoritarian regimes, like Argentina’s military dictatorship that ruled Argentina in the 70s and 80s. Here is the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22064929
Thank you also for the question about what all of this has to do with my firm support for the Jewish state. I do not believe that the Jewish people should have their fate decided by world leaders, political and religious, who are asleep at the switch in the face of sadistic regimes – as was certainly the case pre-WWII and the Holocaust. Now that would include our current world leaders, like Pope Francis, who are completely aware of ongoing atrocities committed by sadistic regimes, yet somehow conclude that the sadists must be negotiated with, talked to, elevated to world statesmen status,. rather than what human civilization and basic human decency should demand: their immediate arrest and trial.
If Pope Francis truly, and sincerely, believes that Christ’s command to turn the other cheek applies to situations of authoritarian sadism, which includes the burning, the gassing, and the starvation of innocent children, he should man-up and temporarily move himself, without security, and the Vatican’s entire staff, and any other Catholics who wish to follow him, to the very places throughout Syria that Bashar al Assad is shelling, gassing, and dropping napalm bombs on school children, as documented in this video:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10275520/Syria-footage-of-napalm-incident-emerges.html
Instead of empty piety and ceremonialism in the face of these sadistic atrocities in Syria, I favor a Western-imposed no-fly zone over all of Syria, including military strikes to target Assad regime forces on the ground that are blocking humanitarian aid to the dying people, and the development of an incentive strategy to entice regime officials to turn on Assad and his henchmen, and have them brought to a holding cell at The Hague, where they will surely be indicted for their war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Sincerely,
Timothy Villareal
Mr Villareal,
Thank you for your reply. Thank you too for the videos and article. It has truely given me alot to think about.
I appreciate your frankness as regards all of this and look forward to more of your articles.
Sincerely,
RT Macario
I appreciate (and share) the writer’s heartfelt concerns for the people of Syria and Israel. I’m not sure, but I suppose it’s possible that the Vatican is providing some cover for Assad out of consideration for the precarious situation of Syrian Catholics and other Christians who may be clinging to the dictatorship out of fear of the Islamist and Jihadi fighters within the opposition.
Although sincere, the Israel part of this seemed a little tacked on. My hope is that Israelis, Palestinians and most Arabs will cooperate with Secretary Kerry and the European Union in finally forging a two-state solution that will be in everyone’s interest.
I fully agree with the writer that international military forces should establish and defend humanitarian zones that would safeguard the lives of millions currently endangered and in misery because of this ongoing conflict, begun so savagely by the Assad regime when it responded to peaceful demonstrations with deadly force.
Dear Mr. Seliger,
Thank you for your comments. I am glad that a fellow Tikkun Daily blogger supports military intervention to protect civilian populations from Assad’s slaughter and torture of the Syrian people.
On your point about my pro-Israel argument being tacked on, I firmly believe in trying to connect dots and identify gaping holes in our ethical discourse. On the left, the lines between Israeli policy critique and Israel rejectionism have been utterly and completely blurred in recent years – and all too many are glad to see that happen.
As we obviously still live in a world that too often proves morally inert, and politically hamstrung, in the face of real-time atrocities, I am candidly perturbed by those on the left who routinely, and oh-so haughtily, dismiss the American Jewish community’s concern and committment to the security, and longevity, of Israel to be the stuff of paranoia, outdated political thinking, etc.
It is most certainly not, and I think a major correction in the present discourse on the left needs to take place on that score, specifically by writers and activists on the left who support Israel challenging the Israel rejectionists.
Speaking of dot-connections and identifying gaping holes in our ethical discourse, I think it is imperative that the left not let moral outrage at torture end at our borders and with our own government. A major report compiled by former UN war crimes prosecutors has identified thousands of corpses of Syrians who were tortured by the Assad regime at its detention centers. The images of the emaciated men, with signs of blunt force torture and strangulation, are horrific.
That the American left would, effectively, turn a blind-eye to these atrocities in Syria – due, frankly, in no small part to a paranoid belief that the so-called “Israel Lobby” is behind every human sentiment that wants tough international action to eventually end the Assad regime and bring him and his henchmen to justice – is a major travesty of American politics and contemporary political thought.
That many on the left have relished the political “victory” of “defeating AIPAC” on the Syria strike resolution last summer – as if AIPAC is the only party on this planet disgusted by the Assad regime’s patent sadism – is disgusting to me, morally and intellectually.
More evidence too, that all of these ethical discourse gaps and failings must be addressed in a comprehensive, and simultaneous, fashion.
Sincerely,
Timothy Villareal