Letters seek remorse for war, urge pope to confront Bush

Catholic activists ask pope to tell Bush to end Iraq War while in U.S.

By PATRICIA ZAPOR
Catholic News Service
Washington

More than 3,000 people, many involved in the Catholic Worker Movement and peace activism, have signed a letter to Pope Benedict asking him to call for an immediate end to the Iraq War during his U.S. visit in April.

Another statement circulating among faith leaders marks the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq March 19 with a call to repentance for "the sin of this war."

The letter to the pope asks him to reconsider his plans and refuse to meet with President George W. Bush until the Iraq War, which the pope has opposed, is ended.

'Legal' war?

The pope and the president are scheduled to meet at the White House April 16.

"If you kneel in grief and outrage before the cross of the tortured Christ, can you offer your blessing to a head of government who excuses the most terrible abuses of human minds and bodies as 'legal?'" the letter asks.

It adds that "if you meet with him, you must then meet as a prophet should - issuing a warning and an invitation to repentance."

Stephen Kobasa, a Connecticut teacher and peace activist, told Catholic News Service March 10 the letter had been hand-delivered to an aide to Pope Benedict at the Vatican and copied to Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

The signers of the letter included retired Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, hundreds of priests and nuns, and laypeople from across the United States. Many of the signers listed connections to Pax Christi or Catholic Worker programs.

Prophet Ezekiel

The letter gives the example of the prophet Ezekiel, "who was repeatedly reminded of his responsibility to admonish those doing evil if he desired to escape sharing in the responsibility for their sins.

"Shouldn't any of us who recognize the horror of what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan be condemned if we are silent?"

It concludes by noting that Pope Benedict is scheduled to be in Washington on his birthday, April 16, and adds: "We feel sure that you will be thinking of the countless children of Iraq who never reached their fifth birthday.

"In 2005 alone, 122,000 Iraqi children under age five died. There are many, both within the Church and outside of it who long for your voice to speak for those innocent dead and - face to face with those whose policies denied all respect for their lives - demand that the killing stop."

Kobasa said the letter grew out of conversations among people in the Catholic Worker Movement and spread through informal networks. Its text can be found at www.unobserver.com.

The separate anniversary statement, titled Call to Lament and Repent: Guide Our Feet to the Path of Peace, has spread through email networks, but was started as a Lenten project through Sojourners, an evangelical Christian community.

Its text can be found at: http://go.sojo.net/campaign/iraqstatement.

Signers include well-known evangelicals such as the Revs. Tony and Bart Campolo, father-son ministers and authors, and the Rev. Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, and Catholics including Franciscan Father Richard Rohr and Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

"This season of Lent, we are truly living 'in darkness and in the shadow of death' as we mark on March 19, 2008, the fifth anniversary of the war with Iraq," it opens. "It is a war that is being waged by our country, financed by our taxes and fought by our sisters and brothers. As U.S. Christians, we issue a call to the American Church to lament and repent of the sin of this war."

The statement says, "We lament the suffering and violence in Iraq . . . (and) the effects of this war on our country."

"We repent of our failure to fully live the teaching of Jesus to be peacemakers."

Repentance means more than "just being sorry," it continues. "Repentance requires a change of heart and a commitment to a new direction."

It concluded with signers pledging to pray "for the nation to learn lasting lessons from the tragedy of the war in Iraq and commit to greater wisdom in the future," to help heal the nation by seeking reconciliation of divisions and to reach out to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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