On Easter Sunday, the Republican theologian (yes, in America there are such things), Michael Novak was still riding the high from having attended the Easter liturgy at Saint Matthew's Cathedral in Washington and wanted to signal the deep spirituality of it all --
It is not the human performance, in other words, that ought to hold our attention, but the real abandonment and cruel suffering of Christ on the Cross, in a demonstration of how much the Lord loves us, despite our faults and our miseries and our own emptiness.
Fine. Step forward to today where Novak is now discussing the views of the man that Catholics accept as offering the final word (as final as faith can be) for us humans regarding the teachings of the Lord --
Benedict XVI's Easter Sunday remarks in St Peter Square hit a low point, I would think. He said that "nothing positive comes from Iraq." This is a very skewed report on the realities on the ground. But it might mean that the message the Pope wanted to convey is that of the American Left: "Whatever the good or the bad achievements, it is time to get out." In other words, not an accurate description, but a prescription for the near future.
The rest of his post is an unintended comedy effort as he takes Benedict to task with the same tired warmonger talking point that most recently made John McCain look like an idiot -- that he's ignoring good news from Iraq. He concludes --
Do not, dear European friends, condemn nor trivialize these generous sacrifices.
So in the space of two days the church has gone from the inspiration of the sacrifice of Jesus to just another pesky liberal media outlet -- and a European one at that. Incidentally, Novak refers to his 2003 trip to to the Vatican which was designed to persuade the then Pope that George Bush's just war doctrine superceded that of the Pope's, so we might as throw in a link to our young blogger days discussing that farcical venture.
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