syria – Page 2 – Madison Catholic Herald Archive (2001-2025)

To the editor:

I want to thank the Catholic Herald for running the excellent article on Pope Leo XIII’s assessment of socialism as evil. It truly is.

Socialism, with its tempting allure of equality, has not produced equality, only poverty, repression, and death. Socialism has manifested itself worldwide in many forms and variants, but always with a similar end result of poverty and death.

Whether it was the millions killed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the genocide of Hitler’s German Socialist Workers Party, or the mass desert graveyards of Saddam Hussein’s Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party in Iraq, the result is always the same.

Helping the regime change might be better in Syria

To the editor:

Recent media reports from the Middle East and beyond indicate that many Christians of various denominations and rites in Syria are quite nervous, some going so far as to question whether the Arab Spring will wind up being the Christian Winter; this is also a concern for Alawite, Druze, and Shi’ite communities in Syria and Lebanon.

There is no question that what is going on inside Syria cannot be justified as far as implementation goes — unquestionably, the current regime is despotic and shooting at civilians with artillery and all the rest is simply beyond defense. However, seeing what has happened in Iraq and Egypt so far shows that perhaps helping the regime change is vastly preferable to changing the regime.

A voice for peace: Let’s join the Holy Father in praying for peace

Recently I traveled by air outside of Madison. I experienced more thorough airport screening than I had previously, reminding me that our world is a dangerous place.

Violence can be found in almost every corner of the globe. We know there are legitimate reasons for people to fight against tyranny and oppression or to defend themselves against aggression.

However, it seems that people and nations often resort to violence as the first rather than the last resort. The “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality seems to be prevailing throughout the world.