Pope Benedict the Pope of Peace?

Whispers in the Loggia has a reputation of being a Catholic blogger in the know. He is widely read by a whole much of people. Some very important. He kinda of created some controversy recently with giving a summary of the Summorum Pontificum while it was still under Papal embargo. Oh well I wasn't offended :)

He has a flurry of post today including this very interesting and in depth one on the Pope and World Youth Day in Australia.

However most of the post today have to deal with Pope Benedict and his view of War and his vision of Peace. All are worth a read. The Holy See and people that cover it have strongly hinted that the Pope is going to write some sort of encyclical on Peace and War.

Now the reaction of Catholics will be predictable. Sadly many will not be aware of it or read it. But for those that notice these things there will be two camps. The so called "conservative" camp that will downplay it and act like these are just suggestions and can't he just talk about the Virgin Mary and the Mass . Then there will be the "progressive" camp that will proclaim that the Pope has made absolute Pacifism a Catholic doctrine and lets slash aircraft carrier funding and look he is talking about the evil United States. I suspect that the Pope will give no easy answers but try to explore a World that is on the verge of a Nuclear arms race in the middle East in light of the Gospel and what should be our response.

I have no doubt that both sides in the future will treat whatever comes in a "Bumper Sticker" mentality and the media will play along gleefully. But I hope that faithful Catholics can resist that mentality. I saw as to the immigration debate Catholics on both sides misrepresented the Church's view and ignored what they didn't like. That goes for the "delete the border"/ We can't deport anyone crowd to the Hardline "lets deport them all big and small crowd". It was not our finest hour

That being said take time to the read these two very interesting posts-
Benedict, Pope of Peace

and

King in the Castel