Monday, March 10, 2003

The Vatican's UN Fixation.

Domenico Bettinelli is spot-on:

The UN has been a breeding ground for every type of anti-Christian, immoral group to try to impose its will on the world and society. The Church herself has been attacked on the floor of the General Assembly. Every tinpot dictator and thug uses the UN to gain respectability in the world community. I don’t understand why the Vatican continues to invest so much credibility in the UN to get anything done. The Catechism and the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes, do not specify what constitutes “an international authority with the necessary competence and power,” but it is certainly not the UN.

I hate to sound cynical, but maybe the reason for favoring the UN is the virtually-insurmountable barrier it poses to those who seek its blinkered "approval" for the use of force. Frankly, I find it impossible to understand why the imprimatur of the likes of such brutal regimes as China and Syria, both of which continue to impose their wills on other nations (Tibet, Lebanon), magically confers legitimacy. It strikes me as a deeply, deeply weird and legalistic analogue to ex opere operato applied in the international relations arena.

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