All the Pope's Men (42 page)

Novak argued that focus on preventive war was a red herring, since the conflict with Iraq was a matter of self-defense. “I think we’re in the war, the war is already here, and we can’t prevent it. We didn’t ask Saddam to invade Kuwait, and we didn’t ask him to disobey what he promised to do in the peace negotiations, and we certainly didn’t ask Osama bin Laden to attack us everywhere, to look for Americans all over the world and declare
jihad
on us. So we’re in war with a traditional argument of self-defense."

February 9, 2003
The Pope delivered his Sunday Angelus address. He said: “At this time of international concern, we all feel the need to turn to the Lord to implore the great gift of peace. As I pointed out in the Apostolic Letter,
On the Most Holy Rosary,
‘the grave challenges confronting the world at the start of this new millennium lead us to think that only an intervention from on high . . . can give reason to hope for a brighter future’ (n. 40). Many prayer initiatives are taking place these days all over the world. While I endorse them wholeheartedly, I invite all to take up the Rosary to ask the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary: ‘One cannot recite the Rosary without feeling caught up in a clear commitment to advancing peace’ (same place, n. 6)."

The Vatican announced that the Pope had dispatched Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, eighty, to Baghdad as his special emissary to Saddam Hussein. Etchegaray would also bring the Pope’s support to the Christian community in Iraq. Though the wording of the announcement was vague, it seemed that Etchegaray’s mission was twofold: To plead with Hussein to cooperate with the weapons inspectors and United Nations resolutions in an attempt to stave off conflict and to signal to the Muslim world the Vatican’s opposition to war. Media reports also confirmed that Hussein’s best-known deputy, Tarik Aziz, would be visiting the Holy See and the birthplace of St. Francis in Assisi in coming days.

February 10, 2003
The Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican, Amir Alanbari, told the Reuters news agency on February 10 that a papal visit to Iraq would be welcome, and that Tarik Aziz might invite the Pope when he visited the Holy See later in the week. “For the Pope to visit a country that is really about to be victimized by a superpower, to be destroyed I would say . . . would be viewed by the rest of the world as expressing sympathy, even if he does not say a word," Alanbari said.

Famiglia Cristiana
published the results of a much-discussed survey asking readers if they supported the Pope’s position on Iraq or that of George Bush. Results splashed across the front cover indicated that 95 percent of readers of the popular Italian weekly backed the Pope’s antiwar stance.

February 11, 2003
John Paul issued his annual message for the World Day of the Sick. He wrote: “In this year, troubled by such great anxiety for the future of humanity, I wished the prayer of the Rosary to have as specific intentions the cause of peace and of the family. Dear sick brothers and sisters, you are ‘on the front line’ to intercede for these two great designs. May your life, marked by trial, instill in everyone that hope and serenity which can only be experienced in meeting Christ."

Novak delivered his lecture before an invitation-only crowd at Rome’s Center of American Studies. He went out of his way to avoid any impression of disagreement with John Paul II, stressing that he has publicly termed this Pope “John Paul the Great." Novak argued that Saddam Hussein presents a clear and present danger to the security of the United States, especially in a post-9/11 world in which nonstate terrorist groups have the means to inflict serious damage. Even if a clear connection between Hussein and the Al Qaeda network cannot presently be established, Novak argued, “only an imprudent, foolhardy statesman would trust that these two forces will stay apart forever."

In that sense, Novak said, a war in Iraq falls under the traditional standards of self-defense, not some speculative new category of preventive war. Under certain circumstances, Novak said, it is not only possible to go to war, but morally obligatory. “For the public authorities to fail to conduct such a war would be to put their trust imprudently in the sanity and good will of Saddam Hussein," Novak said. He also underscored that according to the
Catechism of the Catholic Church
, it is the “public authorities"—in this case, the Bush administration—which have the right and duty to decide whether to use force.

Novak was asked how he squared his position on the war with that of the American bishops. Their November 13 statement had said, “Based on the facts that are known to us, we continue to find it difficult to justify the resort to war against Iraq, lacking clear and adequate evidence of an imminent attack of a grave nature." In response, Novak told a story related to the U.S. bishops’ 1983 pastoral letter on the threat of nuclear war, called
The Challenge of Peace
. In 1981 and 1982, Novak said, there was alarm in some American Catholic circles about early drafts of that letter, which seemed to some conservative critics to lean too strongly toward disarmament. Leading conservative Catholic lay-persons such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Hyde, and Clare Boothe Luce approached him with similar concerns, and together they drafted their own letter. Novak said the main difference between the two documents is that the bishops focused on weapons systems, while Novak’s group centered on Communism. Weapons don’t kill, they argued, ideologies do, and if they could change attitudes in the Soviet Union, disarmament would follow. Twenty years later, Novak argued, his group’s letter holds up better than that of the bishops. “This is the lay role in the church," Novak said, “to argue about matters of prudence rather than doctrine."

February 12, 2003
Fr. Vincenzo Coli, custodian of the Franciscan convent in Assisi, rejected suggestions of a political subtext to Tarik Aziz’s impending visit in an interview with
Corriere della Sera.
“Here we follow the teachings of Francis," Coli said. “We never put ourselves in the position of asking a pilgrim, ‘Who are you? What is your program?’ " He compared the reception for Aziz to St. Francis’s taming of the wolf of Gubbio.

February 13, 2003
John Paul received Rabbi Riccardo di Segni, chief rabbi of Rome, in a Vatican audience. He said: “In these days we can hear resounding in the world dangerous shouts of war. We, Jews and Catholics, perceive the urgent mission of imploring peace from God, the Creator and Eternal One, and of being ourselves peacemakers."

February 14, 2003
Tarik Aziz, deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, visited the Pope in the Vatican, and held talks with Sodano and Tauran. “The meetings furnished the opportunity for an ample exchange of views on the well-known danger of an armed intervention in Iraq, which would add further grave sources of suffering to those populations already tried by long years of embargo," the Vatican statement afterward read. “Mr. Aziz wanted to give assurances concerning the will of the Iraqi government to cooperate with the international community, in particular in terms of disarmament, while on the part of the Holy See the necessity of faithfully respecting, with concrete undertakings, the resolutions of the Security Council of the United Nations, guaranteed by international law, was reaffirmed. Further, it was confirmed that the Catholic Church will continue its work of education for peace and coexistence among peoples, so that in every circumstance they may find solutions of peace."

The Vatican summoned all the ambassadors to the Holy See from countries represented on the United Nations Security Council and from the European Union for a briefing by Tauran about the Pope’s session with Aziz. Tauran used the occasion to reiterate the Holy See’s opposition to war in Iraq.

Aziz attended an evening press conference at Rome’s Foreign Press Club. At Aziz’s right hand was Fr. Jean-Marie Benjamin, a fiftysix-year-old French priest living in Italy who has long been a fierce critic of the UN-imposed sanctions in Iraq. “Why this initiative?" Benjamin asked rhetorically, introducing Aziz. “To remind the world that Iraq is a lay republic, with a Christian minister," he said. “Cooperation between Christians and Muslims is exemplary." Bin Laden, Benjamin said, would never allow one of his men to go pray at the tomb of St. Francis.

Aziz spoke positively about the Pope’s stance on the war. “I came first and foremost to meet the Pope, and to deliver a message for His Holiness from Saddam Hussein," Aziz said. “The president and people of Iraq appreciate the clear position of the Holy See in rejecting the logic of war and in saying straightforwardly that this war is immoral. I can add, illegal," Aziz said. He warned European nations to stay out of a U.S.-led war. “If the Christian countries of Europe participate in a war of aggression, it will be interpreted as a crusade against the Arab world and Islam," he said. “It will poison relations between the Arab world and the Christian world." Aziz was also asked about the possibility of a papal trip to Baghdad. “We have excellent diplomatic relations with the Holy See," Aziz replied. “A visit to Iraq by the Holy Father or any Vatican official is a matter of principle. It is a normal thing. Right now there is a high-ranking official in Baghdad, Cardinal Etchegaray. But in the present crisis, such a visit would not be a good idea, for security reasons, as you know."

Asked by CNN in a separate interview for his reaction to John Paul’s insistence on complying with the weapons inspectors and United Nations resolutions, Aziz was gracious. “I am not annoyed by that, you see," Aziz said. “There is a different motive when a good-hearted, impartial person like the Holy Father says that. When an American says it, with a different motive, it’s different. It looks like the same thing, but it’s different."

The dramatic peak of the press conference came when Menachem Gantz, the Rome correspondent for the Israeli newspaper
Maariv
, asked Aziz if Iraq had any plans to attack Israel, and what Aziz thought about Arab states such as Qatar and Kuwait, which supported the U.S. position. “When I came to this press conference, it was not my intention to answer questions from the Israeli media," Aziz said. “I’m sorry." The president of the Foreign Press Club insisted that Gantz was an accredited journalist and member of the society and asked Aziz to respond. Again, Aziz refused. Some journalists booed and whistled and a few walked out, but the press conference continued. Benjamin told the
National Catholic Reporter
on February 17 that while Aziz’s refusal to respond to Gantz was a mistake looked at through the lens of Western politics, it had to be understood from Iraq’s point of view. “Israel has defied thirty-one United Nations resolutions, and no one is threatening to bomb them," Benjamin said. Anyway, he said, refusing to respond to the Israeli media is official Iraqi policy.

February 15, 2003
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, John Paul’s special envoy, met with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. He released this statement to journalists, in French: “I understand that you have been awaiting the present moment with great interest, given the importance of the meeting I have just left. For your part, you understand that the spiritual nature of my mission gives my words a special tone to which you are doubtless not accustomed. The Church indeed has her own way of speaking of peace, making peace, among those who, for diverse reasons, employ themselves with such great tenacity. The Church, according to words by Pope John Paul II, is the spokesman of the ‘moral conscience of mankind in its purest state, of a mankind that desires peace, that needs peace.’

“It is in this sense that my meeting with President Saddam Hussein touched upon concrete questions that I cannot mention through respect for the person who sent me, as well as for the person who received me. It is a matter of seeing if everything has been done to safeguard peace, while establishing a climate of confidence that allows Iraq to rediscover its place in the international community. At the heart of our meeting were the Iraqi people who, I have noted from Baghdad to Mossoul, aspire so much to a just and lasting peace after years of suffering, for which the Pope and the universal Church have always expressed their solidarity. In the name of the Pope, I dare to appeal to the conscience of all those who, in these decisive days, shoulder the future of peace. For, in the end, it is one’s conscience which will have the final word, which is stronger than all strategies, all ideologies and even all religions."

Aziz, a Chaldean Catholic, visited Assisi. He prayed in front of the Porziuncola, the small church built by Francis, which is now contained within the massive basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Then Aziz moved to the lower basilica and the tomb of St. Francis. The Franciscans gave Aziz a replica of the perpetual lamp John Paul II lit during the January 24, 2002, gathering of world religious leaders in Assisi to pray for peace. They also showed Aziz the ivory horn that Sultan Kamil of Egypt gave Francis in 1219 at the height of the crusades. It is a symbol of Christian/Muslim understanding. The congregation of some twenty-five people then read a prayer the Pope wrote for the January 24 event: “Violence never again. War never again. Terrorism never again. In God’s name, may all religions bring upon the earth justice and peace, forgiveness, life and love."

Some argued that the warm welcome for Aziz was inappropriate, given the human rights record of the Hussein government. Others objected to the presence of Archbishop Hilarion Cappucci, an auxiliary bishop of the Greek Melkite church in communion with Rome. Cappucci, who led a tiny Melkite community in Jerusalem in the 1960s and 1970s, carries the personal title of patriarch. He first came to public attention when he was arrested on August 18, 1974, by Israeli security forces after returning to Jerusalem from a trip to Lebanon. His car was found stuffed with TNT and guns headed for the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In October 2002, Cappucci and Benjamin held a press conference during a trip to Baghdad to oppose a U.S.-led war. “If Bush attacks Iraq, the resentment and hatred of the Arab-Islamic world will be accentuated against him personally and against the interests of the American people," Cappucci warned. In Assisi, Cappucci was ubiquitous alongside Aziz. He spoke freely to the press. “I said to Aziz that he must not give anyone an excuse for attacking Iraq, and hence resolution 1441 must be scrupulously observed. The Iraqis, he assured me, will respect these norms. . . . I pray that the angels may return to sing in heaven of peace on earth." Cappucci then added a critical remark about Israel. “Israel is like a spoiled child that has ended up living a double standard," he said.