Tuesday, September 19, 2006
The silence of the left
In the past there has been some quite vociferous criticism of His Holiness Pope Pius XII, who has even been referred to as "Hitler's pope" see an article here.
Typically, most of the criticism concerns appearances and seems to be that as Pope, Pius XII didn't speak out enough and didn't criticise Hitler enough. (Note the criticism isn't that he didn't do enough, but that he didn't speak out enough; always concerned with appearances these people). These criticisms have been levelled by various lefties and others, despite running contrary to the evidence, (ah well never let the truth get in the way of a denunciation), and despite there being no evidence that increased criticism from Pius XII would have made any improvement; in fact it probably might have made things worse.
Moving forward some 60 years from the National Socialist atrocities, we find His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI speaking out and criticising proselytising by the sword. Imagine for a moment the likely response from the left had he made a speech defending the use of force to promulgate religion. Anyway reaction to the His Holiness has been extreme involving Church burnings and possibly the murder of a nun. The Pope has made an apology for any offence (which although I personally don't think I would have done, I think I can understand why He has), but quite naturally He hasn't endorsed spreading of religion by violent means.
My question is: "Where's leftie?" Quick to denounce if they perceive a Pope not doing enough, where are they in defence of the Pope who speaks out?
"Can you hear leftie sing? I can't hear a single thing!"
It just goes to show how vacuous the left is. Being a conservative, there are things I believe in politically, including freedom of speech, individual rights, private property. If someone with different political views to me makes statements or a speech in support of freedom of speech, and lets say they get flak from an extremist group for so doing, I'm not going sit back and let them take the incoming, I'll wade in and give my support (for what it's worth). It's very rare that you'll ever find (although I must admit to knowing some rare exceptions) a leftie who'll come and give support to a political opponent over any issue, no matter how fundamental; and we see that now with the silence of the left.
Typically, most of the criticism concerns appearances and seems to be that as Pope, Pius XII didn't speak out enough and didn't criticise Hitler enough. (Note the criticism isn't that he didn't do enough, but that he didn't speak out enough; always concerned with appearances these people). These criticisms have been levelled by various lefties and others, despite running contrary to the evidence, (ah well never let the truth get in the way of a denunciation), and despite there being no evidence that increased criticism from Pius XII would have made any improvement; in fact it probably might have made things worse.
Moving forward some 60 years from the National Socialist atrocities, we find His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI speaking out and criticising proselytising by the sword. Imagine for a moment the likely response from the left had he made a speech defending the use of force to promulgate religion. Anyway reaction to the His Holiness has been extreme involving Church burnings and possibly the murder of a nun. The Pope has made an apology for any offence (which although I personally don't think I would have done, I think I can understand why He has), but quite naturally He hasn't endorsed spreading of religion by violent means.
My question is: "Where's leftie?" Quick to denounce if they perceive a Pope not doing enough, where are they in defence of the Pope who speaks out?
"Can you hear leftie sing? I can't hear a single thing!"
It just goes to show how vacuous the left is. Being a conservative, there are things I believe in politically, including freedom of speech, individual rights, private property. If someone with different political views to me makes statements or a speech in support of freedom of speech, and lets say they get flak from an extremist group for so doing, I'm not going sit back and let them take the incoming, I'll wade in and give my support (for what it's worth). It's very rare that you'll ever find (although I must admit to knowing some rare exceptions) a leftie who'll come and give support to a political opponent over any issue, no matter how fundamental; and we see that now with the silence of the left.
Tags: religion, Pope Pius XII, Pope Benedict XVI
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
