“There is still so much in the world worth fighting for. So much that is beautiful.”
A wonderful, hopeful message from Jane Goodall in 2018
I wonder if it even applies to this year, this time in history.
Between the war in Ukraine, Iran, and Lebanon, as well as the continuing attacks by Israel in Gaza, there’s a growing sense of sadness and dismay on the part of so my people. Not to mention the disappointment those people feel in regards to the leadership in Israel and the United states. How a U.S. President can threaten to wipe out an entire civilization, or how Israel can justify killing and displacing so many civilians in their efforts to curtail Hamas and Hezbollah is beyond the moral grasp of most people.
In military terms non-combatants who are killed are referred to as “collateral damage.” Using that terminology is supposed to make the loss of life more palatable, but that doesn’t work for everyday people who hold decency and justice dear to their hearts.
By writing this, I don’t mean to imply that I support what happened on October 7th 2023 that started a lot of this current conflict. I abhor what was done that day with the same moral, humanitarian outrage that I have for what has happened in the eighteen months since.
But if humanity continues to meet violence with violence when do hostilities ever end?
Most people are aware of the long history of distrust between many of the countries in the Middle East. They’ve been enemies for a centuries and somehow can’t ever seem to let go of the hatred toward each other.
I come at this contemplation of current world affairs from a Christian standpoint. Not a fundamentalist Christian standpoint by any stretch of the imagination, but one that is deeply rooted in the message from Jesus to love one another, work for peace, turn the other cheek. I know that’s not part of the religious philosophy of any of the countries in that area. They all have their own book of teachings and beliefs and often quote a God who is vengeful and punishing and “smites one’s enemies.”
Even without knowing the teachings of Jesus in the New testament, it’s impossible for me to imagine a God who created mankind in his own image is anything but a loving and benevolent God; who wouldn’t tell his people to take up arms in unholy wars.
My plan today was not to write an entire post about this. There was just going to be a brief mention of current affairs, before introducing something else on my blog today. But a quote from Martin Luther King, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,” prompted me to not be silent.
There was also the message from Pope Leo on Easter when he directly addressed the ongoing war and called for peace. That Easter message, along with Pope Leo’s ongoing rhetoric about the wars, resonates with me, but obviously not with Trump, who posted the following on Truth Social:
“Pope Leo is WEAK on crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. He talks about “fear” of the Trump administration, but he doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic church, and all other Christian organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers and everybody else for holding church services…. I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t! I don’t want a pope who thinks it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don’t want a pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attack venezuela, a country that was sending massive amounts of drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons…. And I don’t want a pope who criticizes the president of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE to do, setting record low numbers..” (Maybe he meant to say high numbers? But who really knows what he means to say half the time when he speaks. 🙂 )
Anyway, Trump then went on to insinuate that the Pope was only, “…put there by the church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the white house, Leo wouldn’t be in the vatican.”
Pope Leo’s opposition to the Iran war has nothing to do with politics. He speaks from a moral and theological standpoint, pointing out the need for people of all faiths to judge power and call for restraint in violent behavior. It is Pope Leo’s believe that invoking God to justify destruction is a distortion of religion.
“I have no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do,” Pope Leo said, per NBC News.
“We are not politicians, we don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker,” he added.
Then JD Vance has the audacity to post “I think it’s very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
That statement is so absurd, it doesn’t warrant a response beyond, “Oh, really?”
Whatever your beliefs. Whatever your political leanings. My hope is that people of good faith can speak up and speak out when things are not right. And they certainly are not right in so many parts of the world.
That’s all from me for today folks. I do hope the rest of your week sails smoothly along. Be safe. Be happy. Be kind.