wfn.org | ACNS - Episcopalians Speak Out: War with Iraq?

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ACNS 3151 - USA - 1 October 2002

Episcopalians Speak Out:
War with Iraq?

An Editorial Statement

Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk and poet: "If we attempt to act and do things
for others or for the world without deepening our own self-understanding,
our own freedom, integrity and capacity to love, we will not have anything
to give to others. We will communicate nothing but the contagion of our own
obsessions, our aggressiveness, our own ego-centered ambitions."

We, in solidarity with Rowan Williams, the newly appointed Archbishop of
Canterbury, along with numerous other communities of faith, including the
Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches, believe that
unilateral action on the part of the United States against Iraq would be
immoral and unwise. Unilateralism undermines the fragile structures of
international relations. We pray that the United States will see itself as a
member of the family of nations and demonstrate its care for and
accountability to that family.

Intervention in Iraq may become necessary but not without the United
Nations, not without factoring in the possibility of unintended
consequences, and not without further conversations with Muslim countries,
lest the divide of hatred grows larger. Initiating war against a sovereign
country where no triggering event warrants such action establishes a
precedent that could invite chaos among nations in the future. A pre-emptive
strike that initiates a war is not in keeping with the history of our
country; nor is it even in conformity with a religious understanding of a
"just" war. To go to war now would require nothing less than the consensus
of the world's nations.

The Right Reverend William E Swing, Bishop of California
The Very Reverend Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
and the Cathedral Chapter
_________________________________________________________
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