if this is a religious war

…as so many Muslims clearly see it, then the Christian West is unilaterally disarming:

Headwear in France, notices on libraries in Buckinghamshire: they speak of a permanent alteration in the way that Europeans must live. Moreover, other changes, unrelated to immigration, also become relevant here. All Saints church, home of the carol service, has no vicar: but you can be sure the local mosque has an imam. The stark reality, palatable or otherwise, is that Islam is now the rising church of England.

Meanwhile, the Vatican is worrying over Saddam's dignity.

A top Vatican official said Tuesday he felt pity and compassion for Saddam Hussein and criticized the U.S. military for showing video footage of him being treated “like a cow.” …

“I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures,” he said.

“Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him,” he said in answer to questions about Saddam's arrest.

Then there's this:

The Vatican did not consider the war in Iraq “a just war” because it was not backed by the United Nations and because the Vatican believed more negotiations were necessary to avoid it. …

The news conference was called for Martino to present the World Day of Peace message, in which Pope John Paul took a swipe at the United States for invading Iraq without the backing of the United Nations.

Reality check: this report is coming from Reuters. But somehow it seems unlikely that historical Church teachings on just war included reference to the United Nations. More and more, the Vatican seems just another cog in the transnational progressivist machine.

(Links via Drudge and lgf.)

UPDATE: Michael Novak gives some perspective on the consistently anti-American Cardinal Martino over at NRO.