{"id":6373,"date":"2006-08-22T08:32:39","date_gmt":"2006-08-22T08:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-matter-of-proportion.html"},"modified":"2006-08-22T08:32:39","modified_gmt":"2006-08-22T08:32:39","slug":"a-matter-of-proportion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-matter-of-proportion.html","title":{"rendered":"A matter of proportion"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his column, Sandro Magister summarizes statements and actions from the Vatican re\/the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. <\/a> Magister offers several different views of the situation from various experts, puts the Pope’s statements in context, and ends with an essay by Pietro de Marco – a professor at the University of Florence and at the Theological Faculty of Central Italy, as well as an editorialist for Avvenire<\/em>, a Catholic daily.<\/p>\n

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At first it was not known \u2013 or perhaps this lack of understanding was feigned \u2013 that Hezbollah had established a strong logistical and offensive position along the border, and it was not foreseen that, in consequence, Israel\u2019s response to Hezbollah would, in the course of the battle, turn into a response to an armed aggressor nation on its border. The Holy See did not know this. But when the evidence and information clarified the terms of the conflict, one would have expected the Church of Rome to recognize the \u201cproportionality\u201d of Israel\u2019s response, although this would not have meant ending its reminders of the suffering of the people involved and the urgency of peace. <\/p>\n

It can no longer escape anyone, even a primarily spiritual authority like the Church of Rome, that what exploded in the hands of the Hezbollah fighters suddenly made visible \u2013 in organization, weaponry, and fortifications \u2013 a crucial piece in Tehran\u2019s bid for hegemony. This is why, following the limited understanding available at first, the diagnosis of \u201cdisproportion\u201d almost completely disappeared from the statements and comments of the Vatican authorities. <\/p>\n

We are thus required to reason according to the precepts of the human intellect, instead of expressing nothing more than assessments in accordance with values. Judging according to values is certainly necessary, but under conditions. Hasn\u2019t the process of verifying and clarifying the facts been demonstrated as no less necessary? The assessment of \u201cproportionality\u201d brings with it the implicit recognition of Muslim organizations and nations as enemies, today, of Israel and the West. This does not imply the assertion \u2013 one that is feared rather than desired, and not only by the Holy See \u2013 that Islam is in itself an enemy. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his column, Sandro Magister summarizes statements and actions from the Vatican re\/the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Magister offers several different views of the situation from various experts, puts the Pope’s statements in context, and ends with an essay by Pietro de Marco – a professor at the University of Florence and at the Theological Faculty of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nA matter of proportion - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-matter-of-proportion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A matter of proportion - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his column, Sandro Magister summarizes statements and actions from the Vatican re\/the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}