Pope declares Vietnam War immoral

WI Pope Paul VI declared the Vietnam War an immoral war and forbade American Catholics from participating in that particular war? Or is that ASB?
 
South Vietnam was run by the Vietnamese Catholics. After the French left they all went south. I can't imagine the pope would say it is immoral to help his followers.
 
I think most would just shrug and move on. RCC regulary threatens to excomunicate politicians voting yes on pro-choice legislature but ultimatly doesn't. If this happens anti-war people will simply see this as another proof they are right, war supporters will ignore it or use it as proof that Pope is again interfering in other nation's matters (OK, might be limited to protestant fundies)
 
Or is that ASB?


I think so. At most, the Pope would just issue a statement condemning the war, like JPII did with the 2003 Iraq invasion, but he likely wouldn't enforce it to any significant degree.

Now, if he DID enforce it with actual excommunications, it might have some signficant impact. But that's so far removed from the way the Catholic Church operates these days, you're basically asking us to imagine that it's a different institution.

I did read somewhere that Paul VI was more dovish on Vietnam than a lot of right-wing American Catholics(eg. Cardinal Spellman). An interesting thing to note is that, despite the caricature popular in some left-wing circles of the Vatican and the USA being in lockstep(which might have been a valid view during the Cold War), they actually have some pretty antagonistic interests. The Vatican didn't recognize Israel until AFTER the PLO did, for example. And I'm guessing that their opposition to the Iraq War was motivated at least in part by a desire for the Baathists to remain in power, given that that party was the one that protected the Christian community in Iraq.

Obviously, neither of those positions were in keeping with those of the neo-con Israel lobby or their Bible Belt fundamentalist allies.
 
Communism was the one ideology that was ever identified as an enemy by the Vatican.

Unless the North Vietnamese go down the path of being a non-Moscow or non-Beijing aligned third force, there's just no way for the Pope to assess the merits of the Vietnam war as being separate from the great Holy Struggle Against The Godless Reds.

Even if Ho is more like a Hugo Chavez, I still think the South's defense receives the imprimatur of having met the standards of just war theory.
 

Esopo

Banned
ASB: no pope will ever condemn a war against communism. They didnt do it for barbarossa, they wont do it for vietnam.
 
Communism was the one ideology that was ever identified as an enemy by the Vatican.

You could put it that way. Or you could say that Communism was the one ideology which explicitly declared its hostility to Catholicism (and all forms of Christianity, and indeed all religion).

... the great Holy Struggle Against The Godless Reds.

Or the defense of Christianity again murderous atheists.

I'm not Catholic, or even religious, but it's pretty clear who was the aggressor in this fight.

Incidentally, the reason the Pope objected to the Iraq War was that Saddam's government was allied to and protected the Chaldean Christian community in Iraq. The Chaldean Church is in communion with Rome. (The rival Assyrian Church is not.) Saddam's former chief deputy Tariq Aziz is a Chaldean.
 
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