The Vatican has flip-flopped and gone from drastically opposing the war to now calling for all countries to put troops in there to support the coalition.

Washington Times

Senior Vatican officials have decided to put aside their differences with the U.S.-led coalition over the war in Iraq, calling for multinational troop reinforcements to secure the country's fledgling democracy.

In February last year, Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, offered some of the fiercest denunciations of President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the decision to invade Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein.

The private criticism was made embarrassingly public by Vatican officials, who revealed at a press conference that the pope had privately urged Mr. Blair to "make use of all the resources offered by international law to avoid the tragedy of war."

Now, in light of the postwar chaos, Cardinal Sodano has announced a newly hawkish line on Iraq from Rome.

"The child has been born," he declared recently on behalf of the Vatican. "It may be illegitimate, but it's here, and it must be reared and educated."

...

"There is a feeling that there really is no going back," said a Vatican adviser.

So the Vatican's been waiting to see if Iraq will go back to a Saddam Hussein regime? WTF?!

While I'll take any help we can get in securing and rebuilding Iraq, it's just ridiculous to me that the Vatican would sit by while innocent people are being tortured and killed and say nothing. Then when someone actually does step up to do something about it they rebuke them and lobby against them only to turn over later and back-handedly put out a call for help.

To call a budding democracy an illegitimate child is also a slap to anyone who has sacrificed whatsoever to help rebuild their country. It'll be interesting to see how countries react to this "call from God" or whether they'll just ignore it.