Threat of
war
A
familiar and unsettling song of war
Cardinal James Francis Stafford, president of the Pontifical
Council for the Laity and one of the highest-ranking Americans in the Vatican,
was contacted in late January by Inside the Vatican magazine for a
comment on the possibility of a U.S.-led “preventive war” in Iraq. In
early February, he released a written statement to several news agencies in
Rome, including NCR. The following are excerpts from that
statement.
From the past several years, two contrasting memories of young
people constantly surface in my thoughts. Both involve the use of power. The
first memory is the moral uneasiness expressed by a U.S. Army officer after the
1991 Desert Storm War. What haunted him most was the massive guilt over his
order to his men to bury living Iraqi soldiers during the American sweep across
their front lines. Since they were surrendering in such large and unexpected
numbers, the Iraqis seemed to constitute a threat to the security of the allied
forces. Obeying his order, the young American soldiers used their bulldozers to
bury alive hundreds, possibly thousands (the numbers vary), of Iraqis in the
desert sand. This horrific memory recalls the words of the Holy Father:
“War is always a defeat for man. One cannot be doing the work of peace
while radically violating the human rights of others.”
A memory of a second use of power stems from the World Youth Day
2000 in Rome. The silent lines of young people from nearly every nation are
etched forever in my memory. Hundreds of thousands passed through the Holy Door
of St. Peter’s Basilica during the Jubilee Year 2000 and prepared to
receive the sacrament of reconciliation later at the Circus Maximus. Here the
church was using her God-given power on behalf of forgiveness and
reconciliation, thereby educating the young on the meaning of the peace.
The question frequently arises concerning the two powers: Which
will achieve hegemony in the new millennium? My daily prayer is that the second
will prevail.
But with the wars in the former Yugoslavia in 1999, in the Middle
East, in New York and Washington in 2001, in Afghanistan in 2002 and elsewhere,
the use of violent power seems on the ascendancy. These wars carry strong
echoes from the opening line of Virgil’s Aeneid, “I sing of
arms and of the hero … ” The song is becoming familiar and
unsettling. …
The American government has not offered conclusive evidence of
imminent danger to its national security. Its case rests on the alleged
imminent threat of mass destruction by the Iraqi government of urban centers in
America and elsewhere. Thus far the case has not been convincing to many
citizens in most countries.
Moreover, in the just war tradition there is a strong moral
presumption against initiating a preemptive war. … The [Catechism of the
Catholic Church] uses three significant phrases in its teaching on a preemptive
war: “lawful self-defense,” “legitimate defense” and
“damages inflicted by an aggressor.” These phrases indicate that
legitimate public authority cannot decide for war unless the nation or
community of nations have undergone prior damages from an aggressor or is
actually under a very imminent threat. …
Furthermore, the concept of a “preventive” war is
ambiguous. Prevention does not have a limit; it is a relative term and is
subject to self-serving interpretations. … Nor has the American
administration shown that all other options before going to war have proven
“impractical or ineffective.” …
In these early years of the new millennium, American, British,
Iraqi and other political leaders have been calling their young people to war.
The pope has been doing the opposite. At the World Youth Day in Rome 2000 and
in Toronto 2002 he educated them in the principles of peace. His constant
vision at these gatherings of the young people of the world has been a call to
the establishment of a new culture of reconciliation, forgiveness and selfless
love in the third millennium. …
The government of the U.S.A. has recently threatened to use
nuclear weapons against Iraq. This is unworthy of the oldest representative
democracy in the world founded on the universal rights of peoples to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. … Furthermore, the government of the
United States has compromised its own basic principles by implicitly endorsing
the use of torture since Sept. 11, 2001.
On the other side, President Saddam Hussein is one of the few
heads of governments who has not condemned the suicide-terrorism of Sept. 11,
2001. This is inexplicable. The question arises, “Where does the
government of Iraq stand on the organized terrorism engulfing the world?”
…
The peacemaking efforts of many Catholic laity are relevant to the
discussions. This lay phenomenon is one of the most significant developments in
the Catholic church. … As is generally known, at the invitation of
national governments some lay Catholics from these movements have exercised
their skills of peacemaking successfully in some very conflicted situations.
They enter these discussions with the conviction that the natural human
inclination to friendship is factually the basis of every society and
transcends all cultures. …
Cultural, economic and historical realities have created huge
obstacles to dialogue between Western and Eastern peoples. Consequently, some
form of skilled mediation may help the recovery of this natural bond of
friendship among peoples of diverse cultures and religions. … Of course,
such mediating efforts would have to be founded upon the 1991 U.N. Security
Council Resolution 687 requiring that Iraq accept “the destruction,
removal or rendering harmless under international supervision” of all
weapons of mass destruction. Likewise, in such a scenario, the relation between
national energy policies, the priority of oil production and reserves, the need
for cheap oil and the rivalry among oil companies on the one hand, and the
pursuit of human rights and democracy on the other require frank, open and
comprehensive discussions. The former cannot trump the latter.
My daily prayer has been that the universal vision shared by Pope
John Paul II with the young people of all the nations of the world -- Arab,
Asian, American, European, African -- will prevail and not the nightmares
envisioned for Iraq by many political leaders. …
International openness among political leaders will require the
exercise of enlightened statesmanship on the part of President Hussein of Iraq,
President Bush of the U.S., Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain and the
leaders of other concerned countries. But another war, the fourth in five
years, would cripple, if not disable, the attempt to recover the “
‘connaturality’ between man and the true good” (Veritatis
Splendor). It is sobering to recall the ending of one of the founding
political epics of the West, “the classic of all Europe.” The
Aeneid, which begins with a song about military arms, ends ominously
when a young warrior slain by Aeneas descends in anger into the shadow of
another magnitude, that of infernal darkness.
The full text of Cardinal Stafford’s statement is
available in the “Documents” section of NCR’s Web
site, www.natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, February 14,
2003
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