Decrying “political stalemate” in Baghdad and Washington, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will reiterate its call for a “responsible transition” that gets U.S. troops home without a sudden, precipitous withdrawal from Iraq.
“We don’t advocate for retreat. Neither do we advocate staying the course. We advocate for responsible transition” that takes into account the humanitarian crisis that the war has precipitated, said Bishop Thomas Wenski, of the Diocese of Palm Beach, Fla., chairman of the bishops’ Committee on International Policy.
This is at least the sixth statement that the bishops or their representatives have issued on Iraq since September 2002 when they raised “serious questions about the moral legitimacy of any preemptive, unilateral use of military force to overthrow the government of Iraq.” But, at the time, their words were all but lost in the avalanche of media attention to reports about the failure of some bishops to respond to reports of sexual abuse by priests. But, regarding Iraq, the bishops were far quicker with their qualms than they were 40 years earlier during the Vietnam war. Although they condemned the war in 1971 — which made an impact on a middle America that often disapproved of protesting “hippies” — their statements earlier in the war were more equivocal.
As an Episcopal priest AND a soldier serving in Iraq, I can tell you that the what the Catholic Bishops advocate is exactly what is currently taking place. Everyday we work with our Iraqi counterparts to stand up their capabilities and to assist them with the transition from a US-led operation to an Iraqi-led program. Everyone, both US and Iraqi, understand that the ultimate end-state is a complete transition to full Iraqi control. When the bishops make statements such as, “Some policy makers seem to fail to recognize sufficiently the reality and failures in Iraq and the imperative for new directions,” and then offer transition as something “new” it reflects their ignorance of what is actually happening on the ground.
Good things are happening in Iraq – I see it every day, but we still have a way to go. Please keep me and the Iraqi people in your prayers.
Robert Batts+
Robert Batts+, Thank you for your service. I agree with your assessment.
Father Batts,
Good to hear from a person who ‘knows the facts.’
Clergy of the Church Catholic who become involved in secular controversies run the serious risk of ‘labeling’ their portion of the church as a ‘political’ instead of a ‘spiritual’ institution. The end result is that such clergy, on the basis of that clergy’s political utterances, will turn souls away from the church.
When this happens, the church fails in its mission of bringing souls to everlasting Salvation in Jesus Christ. Over the past 2000 years, there have been many many political and military crises involving the Church Catholic and yet those crises are now buried in dusty history books. What should not be buried in dusty Bibles is Christ’s message of Salvation.
I returned home from South Vietnam in late 1969. I had served in a lush agricultural area that had been turned in a war zone by communists who insisted that communist ideology, of recent Western European origin, be imposed upon the Vietnamese who had just been liberated from Western European, i.e. French, colonial occupation. The Vietnamese. in fits and starts, would have developed their own form of self-governance, but a small circle of foreign trained Vietnamese communist leaders wouldn’t permit that development process to continue. The Vietnamese communists decreed that the governance of Vietnam had to be done their way or there would be war. And there was war.
Our leaders in the Church Catholic, back then, supported the Vietnamese communists, directly and indirectly, through their clerical utterances.
So I am not surprised at their current utterances.
Once again I call for the Joint Staff to prepare a capstone document on the Rubrics of the Mass. A supplement to the Enchiridion Indulgentiarem would be nice too.
The bishops are the bishops, but I wish they’d quit issuing guidance to DoD and State as if they had applicable expertise on war and statecraft beyond that of ordinary educated civilians.
As a RC I give a big round of applause to all the above posts. The statement by the Bishops is a very timely reminder of how much the Bishops and other clergy need our prayers.
Thanks be to God for this statement – it is truly a shame how religious leaders throughout the US were used in the campaign of fear that the Bush Regime perpetuated.
#6: be specific please.
Jeff, don’t feed the troll
#7
Of the major religious groups in the United States, evangelical Christians were the biggest backers of Israel and Washington’s planned war against Iraq. When this war of choice began, some 69 percent of conservative Christians favor military action against Baghdad; 10 percentage points more than the U.S. adult population as a whole.
”The single strongest group for this war, apart from Jews, is conservative Christians,” declared Ralph Reed, co-chairman of Stand for Israel and former executive director of the Christian Coalition.
James Dobson said “You know, if you go back to World War II, people have been very critical of Roosevelt for not responding earlier to the holocaust that was going on. In fact, he was tone deaf to that misery. Well, that was happening in Iraq. Saddam Hussein killed, as far as we know, at least a million people, murdered them in cold blood, and that required some kind of response.
I think what the president did was right and correct to do that.”
“Military action against the Iraqi government would be a defensive action. … The human cost of not taking [then-Iraqi dictator Saddam] Hussein out and removing his government as a producer, proliferator and proponent of the use of weapons of mass destruction means we can either pay now or we can pay a lot more later,” said Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics agency, in a Sept. 2002 article published by the denomination’s news service.
Land later organized a group of prominent conservative evangelicals who signed an open letter arguing that the proposed Iraq invasion satisfied classic Christian theological criteria for justifying a war — often referred to as “just war theory.”
#8, a troll in the Internet context is defined as:
One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.
In that definition, StandFirm & t1:9 would have to considered troll bridges, right ?
Bob just a short history note, I believe Bill Clinton, Hillery Clinton and several other prominent people felt that Sadam was a major threat, it wasn’t just Bush!
Thanks for the history lesson Dave B – from now on you’ll be my go-to guy when I wonder what Bill or Hillery feel.
One minor point though – Bill Clinton, George Bush & Hillary Clinton are all politicians. My point was how cravenly folks like Reed, Dobson & Land sold out their faith for cannon fodder.
I expect that from people who are politicians – not from pastors, preachers or prophets. The history of people like me – who follow Jesus – is riddled with cases where the church became a pawn of the empire. Much of what Jesus taught spoke to this directly.
The fact that conservatives backed the war (as a libertarian, I did too) is uncontroversial. Your contention that religious leaders were “used” is entirely unsupported by what you’ve posted. Believe it or not, Ralph Reed and James Dobson are allegedly able to come to their own conclusions without marching orders from Chimpy Katrinaburton.
Yes, Jeffersonian, the quotes bob cites show that several religious people and groups thought the war was justified. Strong statements from leading Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton and President Clinton and a number of Clinton administration officials about the dangers to the Middle East and the world in general could also be posted.
What is not clear is why people like bob think all these liberals and conservatives of a variety of political persuasions were “used” or “misled.” They reacted to information believed by all to be correct.
Roman Catholic bishops have been consistently negative about the Iraq action. They, however, did not have access to any of the intelligence information as did both Democratic and Republican leaders.
Further, the WMD argument was only one of many in favor. Iraq appears now, in spite of strong al Qaeda effort over the past two years, to be on the way to being the first major Arab majority-Muslim country to have a genuinely parliamentary governing system, not dominated by a “strong man” dynasty. This is a big step in a positive direction for an area recently dominated by Islamist and nationalist-socialist regimes.