Vatican on the death of Osama bin Laden

This comes from the Catholic News Service on May 2, the day after President Obama announced the execution of Osama bin Laden.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, released a brief written statement reacting to the news.

"Osama bin Laden, as we all know, bore the most serious responsibility for spreading divisions and hatred among populations, causing the deaths of innumerable people, and manipulating religions to this end," Father Lombardi said.

"In the face of a man's death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion for the further growth of peace and not of hatred," the spokesman said.

When I found out that he was killed, I just sighed. I wish he was arrested and lawfully interrogated. I think we missed a crucial opportunity there, especially in breaking up ongoing al-Qaeda networks. 

In the past I read The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright (which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction) and that book filled in a lot of gaps in my cable news channel lack of substantive knowledge.

However, in response to his death, I bought both of Michael Schueuer's books, Imperial Hubris and Osama bin Laden, and finished the second book in about two days. It was a biography from a man who was the head of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit, charged with the task of hunting him down in the late 90's.

I liked Scheuer's perspective, who takes Lawrence Wright's book to task a few times. He wrote Osama bin Laden to break through the noise about the man and his al-Qaeda network in order to offer as accurate as possible an image of who the guy really is. Once we understand him and his motivations, only then can we effectively oppose his organization.