All the Pope's Men (40 page)

December 3, 2002 Borgomeo again criticized the U.S. buildup to war. Speaking on Vatican Radio, he said the United States holds a “preconceived attitude that disqualifies the inspection campaign as useless and reduces it to a sort of farce. In reality, the desire to use force appears increasingly evident: to rely on military mega-power to fill the holes and failures of politics." He said U.S. allies are “more justified than ever" in having reservations about being asked by America to participate “in the fight against terrorism while precipitating unilaterally toward military adventures with unforeseeable consequences." Borgomeo said that “bankrupt policies cannot be compensated by multiplying military commitment." War on Iraq, he asserted, would backfire as an attempt to clamp down on terrorism. “The war on Iraq, which in U.S. public opinion is being sought with every means to be made to seem unavoidable, is in fact an incentive for terrorism itself."

December 17, 2002
Martino spoke at a press conference to present the Pope’s message for the World Day of Peace. Martino was blunt in his application of these principles to Iraq. “A preventive war is a war of aggression," Martino said. “There is no doubt. This is not part of the definition of a just war. There has to be an offense, an invasion, and then there can be a legitimate defense." Asked about the need to disarm aggressors, Martino stressed anew the need to work through the United Nations. “This disarming of belligerents must be done through the organs at our disposition, which is the United Nations," Martino said, recalling that Paul VI had referred to the UN as “the obligatory path for humanity in modern times."

December 23, 2002
Tauran used his strongest language to date to criticize a possible Iraq war in an interview with the Roman newspaper
La Repubblica.
He cited one Arab minister who said an attack on Iraq would “open the gates of hell." The warning concerned a possible clash of cultures between Christianity and Islam. “We need to think about the consequences for the civilian population and about the repercussions in the Islamic world. A type of anti-Christian, anti-Western crusade could be incited because some ignorant masses mix everything together," Tauran said. The French prelate was critical of what he called an American tendency toward unilateral action. “A single member of the international community cannot decide: ‘I’m doing this and you others can either help me or stay home.’ If that were the case, the entire system of international rules would collapse. We’d risk the jungle," he said.

Archbishop Martino, frustrated that the world’s media did not pick up on Pope John Paul’s call for “individual gestures of peace" as part of his message for the World Day of Peace, goes on Vatican Radio to relaunch the idea.

December 24, 2002
John Paul delivered his Christmas Eve homily. The Pope said: “The Child laid in a lowly manger: this is God’s sign. The centuries and the millennia pass, but the sign remains, and it remains valid for us too—the men and women of the third millennium. It is a sign of hope for the whole human family; a sign of peace for those suffering from conflicts of every kind; a sign of freedom for the poor and oppressed; a sign of mercy for those caught up in the vicious circle of sin; a sign of love and consolation for those who feel lonely and abandoned."

December 25, 2002
The Pope delivered his Christmas Day meditation. It contained his first clear reference, albeit indirect, to the possibility of war in Iraq. He said: “Christmas is a mystery of peace! From the cave of Bethlehem there rises today an urgent appeal to the world not to yield to mistrust, suspicion and discouragement, even though the tragic reality of terrorism feeds uncertainties and fears. Believers of all religions, together with men and women of goodwill, by outlawing all forms of intolerance and discrimination, are called to build peace: in the Holy Land, above all, to put an end once and for all to the senseless spiral of blind violence, and in the Middle East, to extinguish the ominous smoldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided."

January 1, 2003
John Paul II formally issued his annual message for the World Day of Peace, building upon the fortieth anniversary of Pope John XXIII’s famed encyclical
Pacem in Terris.
John Paul wrote: “With the profound intuition that characterized him, John XXIII identified the essential conditions for peace in four precise requirements of the human spirit: truth, justice, love and freedom. Truth will build peace if every individual sincerely acknowledges not only his rights, but also his own duties toward others. Justice will build peace if in practice everyone respects the rights of others and actually fulfills his duties toward them. Love will build peace if people feel the needs of others as their own and share what they have with others, especially the values of mind and spirit that they possess. Freedom will build peace and make it thrive if, in the choice of the means to that end, people act according to reason and assume responsibility for their own actions."

The Pope delivered his New Year’s Day homily. He said: “In the face of the events that unsettle the planet, it is very clear that only God can touch the depths of the human soul; his peace alone can restore hope to humanity. We need him to turn his face toward us, to bless us, to protect us and give us his peace. . . . Today despite the serious, repeated attacks on the peaceful harmony of peoples, peace is possible and necessary. Indeed, peace is the most precious good to ask of God and to build with every effort, by means of concrete gestures of peace on the part of every man and woman of goodwill. . . . Faced with today’s conflicts and the threatening tensions of the moment, once again I ask you to pray to find the ‘peaceful means’ for a solution inspired by ‘a desire for genuine and constructive dialogue,’ in harmony with the principles of international law."

In his Angelus address for New Year’s Day the Pope said: “Today I ask each person to make his/her contribution to foster and bring about peace, through generous choices of reciprocal understanding, reconciliation, forgiveness and concrete attention to those in need. Concrete ‘gestures of peace’ are necessary in families, in the workplace, in communities, in civil life as a whole, in national and international public gatherings. Above all, we must never stop praying for peace. . . . How can we not express once more the wish that world leaders do everything in their power to find peaceful solutions to the many tensions present in the world, especially in the Middle East, avoiding further suffering for those peoples who have been so sorely tried? May human solidarity and law prevail!"

January 4, 2003
Martino gave an interview to Rome’s
La Repubblica
in which he once again criticized America’s apparent willingness to go to war in Iraq without United Nations support. “Evidently, unilateralism is unacceptable," Martino said. “We cannot think that there is a universal policeman who takes it upon himself to punish those who act badly. . . . The United States, being part of the international assembly, has to adapt to the exigencies of others."

January 7, 2003
John Paul’s forceful language about peace, widely interpreted as criticism of American policy in Iraq, brought an unusual rebuke from conservative Italian political analyst Ernesto Galli della Loggia, in a front-page opinion piece in Italy’s most read daily newspaper,
Corriere della Sera.
Della Loggia is normally a booster of the Wojtyla pontificate. “Does anyone remember papal pronouncements comparable to those of recent weeks on the occasion of that terrible decade-long war unleashed by Saddam Hussein against Iraq in 1980? And the roughly 200,000 Kurds massacred with Saddam’s gas in the mid-1980s; how many protests were raised by the Holy See commensurate with the enormity of the crime? To speak frankly," Della Loggia wrote, “the impression is that it’s only when the issue is the West, and more specifically the United States, that the Pope’s voice becomes a tuning fork and the Catholic world expresses its maximum mobilization ‘in favor of peace.’ "

January 8, 2003
In an interview with the
National Catholic Reporter,
Auxiliary Bishop Andraos Abouna of Baghdad expressed gratitude for the papal peace initiative. “When the Pope speaks about Baghdad, he does so from the heart, because this is the land of Abraham, the first believer in God. For us it is the Holy Land," said Abouna, who was ordained a bishop by John Paul in a January 6 ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica, along with eleven other new bishops from seven countries. Abouna—who helped pull charred bodies out of the Amiriya bomb shelter in Baghdad, which was obliterated by U.S. stealth bombers on February 13, 1991, killing six hundred to one thousand civilians—was also realistic about the likely impact of the Vatican interventions. “Politicians act in their own interest, often for economic reasons," he said. “They don’t so much care what religious leaders say."

January 13, 2003
The Pope delivered his annual address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See. John Paul offered, for the first time, a direct public statement of opposition to a war in Iraq: “War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity. International law, honest dialogue, solidarity between States, the noble exercise of diplomacy: these are methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences. I say this as I think of those who still place their trust in nuclear weapons and of the all-too-numerous conflicts which continue to hold hostage our brothers and sisters in humanity. . . . The solution will never be imposed by recourse to terrorism or armed conflict, as if military victories could be the solution. And what are we to say of the threat of a war which could strike the people of Iraq, the land of the Prophets, a people already sorely tried by more than twelve years of embargo? War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations. As the Charter of the United Nations Organization and international law itself remind us, war cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations." The Pope also called on all nations to respect international agreements. “Today political leaders have at hand highly relevant texts and institutions. It is enough simply to put them into practice," he said. “The world would be totally different if people began to apply in a straightforward manner the agreements already signed!"

U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See James Nicholson was interviewed on Vatican Radio following the Pope’s address to the diplomats. Nicholson was asked by the host how he squared the Pope’s language on international agreements with the U.S. track record of refusing to join the Kyoto Accord, pulling out of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, and declining to recognize the new International Criminal Court. Nicholson’s response was that the Pope was speaking not of these matters, but of Iraq and North Korea and their refusal to live up to international agreements. In that sense, Nicholson argued, the Pope and Bush were saying the same thing.

January 15, 2003
Nicholson announced that he had invited conservative American Catholic intellectual Michael Novak, known as a supporter of the Bush administration’s approach to the war on terrorism, to lecture in Rome and meet with Vatican officials. The purpose of his visit was to discuss the moral issues surrounding application of the “just war" theory to the conflict in Iraq. Novak’s arrival was expected in early February.

January 16, 2003
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a “doctrinal note" entitled “On Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life." While it did not address the Iraq issue, it did distance the Church from certain forms of antiwar protest. “Finally, the question of peace must be mentioned," the document says. “Certain pacifistic and ideological visions tend at times to secularize the value of peace, while, in other cases, there is the problem of summary ethical judgments which forget the complexity of the issues involved. Peace is always ‘the work of justice and the effect of charity.’ It demands the absolute and radical rejection of violence and terrorism and requires a constant and vigilant commitment on the part of all political leaders."

January 18, 2003
Antiwar demonstrations dominated news reports from various parts of the world, including the United States. On the occasion, Martino told reporters in Rome that he hoped “governments will take into consideration the sentiments of their citizens" as expressed in the demonstrations. To defeat terrorism, Martino said, “it’s necessary to address the political, economic and cultural causes that determine it," and he invited the West to an “examination of conscience." A final decision on war in Iraq, Martino said, “depends upon the United Nations and the international community."

January 24, 2003
Cardinal Kasper, in remarks to the
National
Catholic Reporter
after a lecture in Perugia, predicted that Novak’s effort to persuade Rome of the morality of a possible preventive war in Iraq would fail. “I am of the opinion of the Pope himself, and of the Secretariat of State, of the Roman Curia," Kasper said. “I do not think all the methods of peaceful negotiations, of diplomatic relations, have been exhausted." With respect to a possible U.S.-led attack on Iraq, Kasper said, “I do not see how the requirements for a just war can be met at this time. A war would touch the poorest of the poor, not Saddam Hussein," Kasper said. “Women and children and sick people would have to suffer, and we should consider the destiny of such people." Kasper echoed concern about Muslim reaction. “Very often the Muslims make an identification, which is wrong but they do it, between Christianity and the West," Kasper said. “I think this war could become a very heavy problem and could destabilize the entire region of the Middle East. . . . I don’t think I have all the information about Iraq, it is impossible, but as much as I have, I am not in favor of this war. . . . I think we should use other means to solve these questions. I do not defend Saddam Hussein, nobody would. But there are also other means to resolve the questions of peace and justice in the world," he said.