The Pope says Ukraine should have the courage to raise a white flag and negotiate an end to the war.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 9, 2024
"The word negotiate is a courageous word. When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate.”
(First reported by… pic.twitter.com/Mpl8rQhcy9
As for me, I believe in the courage of telling Putin to go to Hell. To negotiate with evil is to grant it power. It does not save lives. It only tells them which lives are sacrificed today, and then there is tomorrow, and tomorrow....
The argument I have with the Pope here is the one I have with absolute pacifists anywhere: is there no noble stand, nothing you would fight for? Can you not distinguish invader from invaded? Why would you suppose that the laying down of arms against tyranny would result in an end to killing when the perpetrator--Putin's Russia, has again and again said they have no intention of stopping here? How is it on Ukraine to choose which people of theirs are fit to be martyrs for an illusory greater good?
Because the result of Putin winning isn't about territory, but the span of his influence, and the kind of government and repression he represents. It is about the lives of the people in that territory he holds and the future of their lives. The fight was started by Putin--he could have the courage of realizing that mass death for his ego is a sin. He could have the courage of backing down and reaping the whirlwind of his botched dictatorship. He could disengage now from Ukraine as Gorbachev did from Afghanistan, understanding that it would be a situation from which the bleeding would never end.
It is the thing his great sin of imperialistic pride would not have him do--but what a conscience would dictate if he had one.
Who thinks after any negotiation, the conflict would be over? How does Russia hold what it never should have obtained, with what violence? There is nothing in the ruined cities, the raped women, the kidnapped children, the promised enforcement of Russian culture and erasure of Ukrainian history that is not appalling. The negotiated future is just more violence, of a different and more insidious kind.
Go and chide the sinner, and don't ask the sinned against to fucking forgive in advance the horrors they would lay down their lives to save their loved ones from.
We don't look at Pius XII in an un-admixed way. I would let the current pope consider very well the use of his pulpit. Humans are all fallible, some just need to demonstrate it less. He has a place from which to influence history. This is not that way. He would not be a peacemaker, only one who sanctions making a desert and calling it peace.
4 comments:
It seems as if he would have thought about how he'd actually handle Putin showing up on his doorstep in his city to impose ownership of it all.
Putin probably has his hooks in him too.
The Vatican used to run quite the money laundering operation under Popes Paul and John Paul II, according to someone who said he used to courier the money for them. (He also alleges Pope John Paul I was knocked off because he wanted to shut it all down.)
And today, wherever there is money laundering, you usually find the Russians.
yeah. except for the part about ukraine being defeated.
musta missed a memo or a meeting.
...and if there's one thing we've learned over the last few years, it's that the promises of fascists and bullies are meaningless. pretty sure the rc church knows something about that. putin can't be trusted. neither can the "most popular pontiff," the pope.
Remember when the Dalai Lama came out as kind of a homophobe?
Post a Comment