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Pope Leo says aerial military strikes should be banned (www.reuters.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/world
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[–] 11 points 7 months ago (10 children)

Good?

I don’t believe in the Pope’s god anymore but many, many people look to him for moral guidance.

Any moral guidance on war should not be complex, even if the path to living up to that stance is astronomically unfathomably complex.

I don’t believe that the Christian Jesus had a very nuanced take on violent conflict.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (9 children)

    Yeah but it's meaningless. You might as well say shooting people should be banned too

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    Oh yeah, probably, but that’s different than being childlike. I guess you mean it’s naive for him to think it is going to make any difference him saying that.

    Probably so. The power of the pope in geopolitics is at a pretty low ebb. I’m not claiming so but wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s got the least influence he’s had since being simply First Among Bishops many centuries ago.

    He still has a ton of influence with the catholic flock, which is huge, and with a lot of non-Catholics aside from a few groups that repudiate him.

    So it’s nice of him to use his platform, but let’s be real, in terms of influence among world leaders, he’s The Catholic Pope moralizing at a Jew, a Muslim, and a Christian Nationalist. Not the most receptive trio.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    The naivety isn't him saying it, it's him thinking that such a thing could or would ever come to pass, and what such a thing would even mean if it did.

    I'm not begrudging the pope using his pulpit to push for morality (though, he is the head of an international criminal organization), I'm begrudging his frankly idiotic approach. Calling it childlike was perhaps me being kind.

    If he was somehow successful, what would it mean? Let's say the whole world got together and signed the "we won't bomb anyone" charter. How long until the next bomb fell? Minutes? Hours?

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Criticizing the Pope for acting like a true Christian is a Hell of a take.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Ah see I do kind of disagree with you then. It’s interesting that we seem to agree on the illegitimacy of the Pope but diverge sharply on how he should use his ill-gotten influence.

    My thinking is he doesn’t need to offer practical solutions, he needs to use his ill-gotten influence to at least pull the discourse in the right direction - and to keep speaking up to remind people that all of this is wrong and not normal.

    And again, most world leaders themselves are not going to listen much, I definitely get that.

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