peace and justice

Panelists Agree: Iraq War 'Morally Unjustified'

By Alfonso Aguilar
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the Issue of 2/8/07)

In a conference to address Catholic teaching on war and peace, a panel of both religious leaders and scholars agreed that the war in Iraq is “morally unjustified.”
All answered “no” when a specific question from the audience asked whether the invasion of Iraq was or was not morally justified.
The panel gathered to participate in the symposium, “What Makes a War Just—What Makes Peace Possible,” organized by the Arlington Diocesan Peace and Justice Commission at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More’s Burke Hall in Arlington last week. More than 100 hundred people attended the dialogue.
Panelists included keynote speaker, Father John Langan, rector of the Georgetown Jesuit Community; Father John Crossin, executive director of the Washington Theological Consortium and former president of De Sales School of Theology; Paula Minaert, a free- lance writer who has worked for the Holy Childhood Association, the Paulist Fathers and Catholic Charities; Hadley Abernethy, education advisorer for Catholic Relief Services (CRS), and diocesan Father Gerry Creedon, pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Arlington and chairman of the commission. Author Dolores Leckey moderated the dialogue.
Regarding the future in Iraq, Father Langan said that sometime in the next two years the United States has to withdraw. “We have to see what the actual balance of forces is, and whether the Iraqis, at any level, want to remain as one society.”
All panelists agreed that the country needs a diplomatic push toward a more collaborative stance, and Father Crossin asked the audience to be more open with those who disagree with their views. “They might have a point. They might have part of the truth.”
“I thought people were engaged and interested,” said Father Langan at the conclusion. “They were a little cautious, which is a reasonable response. I mean these are tough issues. The country as a whole is deeply perplexed.”
Attendees questioned, for example, how Church leaders can justify even one killing of a human being, or why, if Pope John Paul II said, “war is always a failure of humanity,” the Church is not more clear in condemning war as a solution to conflict? One more participant said, “I think we are engaged in what we used to call guerrilla warfare. We can not win the war.”
JoAnn Bisone, a parishioner from St. Bernadette Parish in Springfield, said the conference “went very well. The presenters were very good, and I agree with most of them. The war in Iraq is uncalled for and it is not justified.”
For Nora Collins, a CRS worker in Baltimore, the symposium was just “fantastic. I appreciated the wide range of perspectives, and I think I left feeling challenged to see how peace building can fit into my own work in the Church,” said Collins.
She also mentioned she hopes the Arlington Diocese can become more successful in doing peace building work.
A similar conference in Spanish took place recently at St. Charles Borromeo Church.