Back in January 2013, I had an Impromptus column headed “The pope knows, &c.” What was that all about? I had read an Associated Press report that began, “U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the leader of the world’s largest military, met Pope Benedict XVI, the world’s best known advocate for peace, at the Vatican on Wednesday.” “Ay, caramba!” I wrote. I continued,
There is no contradiction between the Pentagon and peace. In fact, there is harmony. Bill Buckley once observed that the Pentagon ought to win the Nobel Peace Prize every year, because the U.S. military is (or was) the world’s foremost guarantor of peace.
What did Theodore Roosevelt say? He was the winner of the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize, you know. And, in his autobiography, he wrote, “In my own judgment the most important service that I rendered to peace was the voyage of the battle fleet around the world.”
Yes.
Why did I write “(or was)”? “. . . the U.S. military is (or was) the world’s foremost guarantor of peace”? I think I must have been pretty sour about the state of our military, and U.S. policy.
Anyway, I went on to say that the fourth paragraph of the AP report brought “a beautiful gift.” That paragraph read, “Panetta kissed the Pope’s hand, and the Pope said, ‘Thank you for helping to protect the world.’”
“Yes,” I commented. “On reading that, I thought, ‘There’s a man who knows something about history. About geopolitics. About reality.’”
For sure.
Benedict XVI’s views of the role of the U.S. military in the world were not the most important thing about the man. But they said something about his wisdom, I think (and the times he had lived through).