If I were Pope
By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
Science, culture, civilization – call it what you will – has conquered the flames of faith. Can anyone doubt this? How many of us who will end up in Heaven or Hell continue to believe in a world to come?
Two of the three Abrahamic religions – roughly half of the world’s population – have pacified their enthusiasm. Goodness, knowledge, culture have beat their swords into ploughshares. Judaism, long ago (remember the Moabites, Ammonites, Philistines) quit spearing its foes; Christianity wars not with Jews or its heretics. And bloodthirsty Crusades against the infidel are unfashionable – just an old chapter in its history book.
But Islam, strongly powered by Iran still decapitates its foes: and sees them everywhere. Not just Christians and Jews but – Shiite versus Sunni, Wahhabi versus Houthi, plus dozens of other unpronounceable and unspellable sects.
They’re like the grammar school bully who grew up and matured into a Mafia “soldier.” Now he’s a pro. Unfortunately, they can’t restrict their bloodlust to their own. They are also wholesale killers of, naturally, Jews. (They use a territorial excuse for this.) But they also enjoy beheading Christians. Why? From the 8th Century until today the answer is the eternal, “I dunno”. The old excuse “you must praise Allah as your god”, doesn’t work. A headless corpse is logically an inadequate worshipper.
Meanwhile, a leader of Christianity robed in an expensive white gown crowned with a yarmulke – to remind him where he came from – sits enthroned in Rome. He is the CEO of Catholicism; and though doctrinal differences exist with Protestantism, symbolically he represents Christianity.
Protestants and Catholics, as you notice, no longer slaughter each other or heretics. Civilization, or maybe the G-d of loving kindness that they commonly worship, has blunted their spears. And Jews pacified by time and “modern” interpretations of Torah greet their old pagan Canaanite foes with a smile, not a knife.
But today’s headlines scream of Jewish and Christian deaths at the hands of their Abrahamic brothers – specifically Daesh – some criminal amalgam of the Islamic Brotherhood. Israel reacts. But Christendom? That finely-dressed Christian CEO in Rome worries about Global Warming. He doesn’t even whisper of vile injustice suffered by his flock. Not a word, not a thought, not a gesture. He’s as meek as John
Kerry. His history book seems to lack the chapter on the Crusades. He has the resources – both money and manpower to prevent the horrors suffered by his people in Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, and other countries that boasted thriving Christian communities a few short years ago. Why not a call to arms? Can you imagine the enthusiasm of the response?
The Bible that both Christians and Jews worship glorifies life and permits violence to those who would take it from you. Why not a 21Century crusade? ISIS is a pygmy beside resolute battalions singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”.
And if a few dozen thugs from the U.S. find their way to Daesh ranks, how many defenders of the second oldest Abrahamic faith would spring to a worldwide call from Peter’s successor?
Instead Pope Francis meets with bloody Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, the man who hands the sword of spiritual executions to the Islamic killers of Christians. The Pope smiles upon him while the flash of cameras sends the visitation of a murderer on the approving Pope worldwide! Has the world turned upside down? Does Christianity no longer recognize evil?
The Prince of Christianity shakes hands and grins at this banker and inspirer of murderers. Is my calendar askew? Is this 1938 and we’re in Munich? This is double Déjà vu, as Yogi Berra would say. Does the Pope have anything under his yarmulke beside hair?
