- Britain's two most senior churchmen have launched separate
impassioned initiatives aimed at preventing war against Iraq.
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- In an article in The Times today the Archbishop of Westminster,
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, writes that a war would have grave consequences,
possibly setting the Arab world against the West. The Archbishop of Canterbury,
Dr George Carey, has also raised his concerns in a private letter to the
Prime Minister.
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- Their interventions are the latest in a number by bishops
opposed to action against Iraq - and their comments are increasingly irritating
the Government and its advisers. One official said that remarks from some
senior clerics suggested they regarded Saddam Hussein as liberal-minded.
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- Tony Blair himself has been careful to refrain from comment
on the criticism other than to say: "You have to decide what the greatest
risk is and what the morally right thing to do is." The Prime Minister
has promised to publish evidence to support his conviction that Iraq poses
a grave and imminent threat. However, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor writes that
unless the evidence is both persuasive and incontrovertible, concerns in
this country and abroad are unlikely to be allayed.
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- Even with such evidence, important questions remained
to be addressed, including the effect on international law and how well
it would be respected in future if military action were not endorsed by
the UN.
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- The Cardinal received swift backing from Catholic bishops
and theologians both here and abroad. The Right Rev Thomas McMahon, one
of four Catholic bishops who signed a Pax Christi petition handed to Mr
Blair last month, said a strike against Iraq would be 'wicked and foolhardy'.
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- Bishop McMahon said: "It would be wicked in the
sense that it goes against Article 2 of the UN Charter. No matter how evil
Iraq's armaments are, unless and until the Iraqi Government itself launches
an attack it is wrong for us to do so."
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- Dr Eamon Duffy, Fellow and President of Magdalen College,
Oxford, and president of the Catholic Theological Association, urged Mr
Blair and President Bush to take heed of the Cardinalís comments,
which he described as a shrewd counsel of prudence and an urgent call to
moraliy.
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- "If the democratic West is to retain moral credibility
and if we are to avoid a murderous confrontation with an Islamic world
radicalised by poverty and resentment of Western imperialism, then we have
to move beyond defending our interests and punishing our enemies. We need
to demonstrate our desire to share the freedoms and prosperities we enjoy
with the worldís poor."
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- Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, said Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor
did not go far enough in questioning the validity of a pre-emptive strike.
He said going to war had to be a response to an attack. To strike first
would be an unjustifiable act of terrorism and must be condemned outright.
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- But the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali,
said that military action against Iraq would be legitimate if there was
persuasive evidence that Saddam Hussein was dedveloping weapons of mass
destruction.
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- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-404505,00.html
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