Christopher Hitchens rails against religious hypocrisy with regard to Iraq, specifically Catholic hypocrisy (via Andrew Sullivan).

More recently, the pope himself met with Tariq Aziz, who has for many years been the Christian (actually Chaldean Catholic) face of an openly national-socialist party. On these and other grounds, Aziz had a friendly audience with his holiness before going to pose as a pacifist in St. Francis' old praying-ground at Assisi. Tariq Aziz's son was recently sentenced to 20 years in an Iraqi jail by Saddam Hussein—an effective means of reminding Saddam's suave envoy who is boss. (He does that all the time, by the way.) The Holy Father really ought to have asked to hear Aziz's confession. But perhaps he couldn't spare the time for such an arduous undertaking.

Isn't it great that the Pope is so open, receptive, and forgiving for the blackmailed, indentured lackey of one of the most brutal and oppressive regimes on earth? Warms my heart.

Hitchens is acerbic, no doubt. He sometimes pushes the line, and other times vaults right over it. I'm not a big fan of Jimmy Carter, but I wouldn't go so far as to belittle his efforts with Habitat for Humanity. But it doesn't bother Hitchens to take such cheap shots.

However, I have to support Hitchens' effort overall of bringing to light the rampant hypocrisy of those who cloak themselves in the false morality of their so-called faith. In his concluding paragraph he writes:

As a member of Atheists for Regime Change, a small but resilient outfit, I can't say that any of this pious euphemism, illogic, and moral cowardice distresses me. It shows yet again that there is a fixed gulf between religion and ethics.

And there has been for quite some time. But it is excruciatingly highlighted by particular crises, such as the ridiculous stance on the use of condoms while AIDS spreads like wildfire across many predominantly Catholic countries, and of course, Iraq.

Here's what the Papal envoy to President Bush had to say recently:

War, [Cardinal Pio] Laghi told CNN, is "always a disaster."

"You might start and you don't know how to end it," he said. "And particularly it would be a war that would destroy human life -- those people who are suffering already in Iraq, they would be really in a very bad situation."

Yeah, they're living under the iron heel of a tortuous thug right now. Think how worse off they'd be if he were removed.

And we wouldn't know how to end the war? How about when Saddam is either dead, in custody, or running for his life?

Hitchens is absolutely right. When it comes to Iraq, and many other difficult issues facing the world today, is utterly hypocritical and morally bankrupt.