November 17, 2002	Sunday	Ramazan 11, 1423

LONDON: Catholic bishops in England and Wales joined the growing religious opposition to war with Iraq on Friday by claiming it was a moral responsibility to avoid the conflict.

A statement read out by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, on behalf of the bishops of England and Wales after a meeting in Leeds, in the north of England, called for sanctions to be be lifted and for both sides to step back from the brink of war.

The cardinal said: “War is a route from which there is no return ... It is our moral responsibility to avoid this war unless, in the face of a grave and imminent threat, there is no other possible means to achieve the just end of disarming Iraq.

“Grief for those killed and wounded in war will be the more agonising if their loss results from an armed conflict that could have been avoided without compromise to the common good. We pray that both sides step back from the brink of war.”

The strongly worded statement from the bishops who are usually desperate to avoid controversy in their pronouncements, adds the Catholic voice to those of other churches in Britain and the US who have opposed the drift to war.

The bishops’ statement added that they recognised UN security council resolution 1441 but strongly urged the international community to pursue alternatives to war “before it is too late”.

They also called for sanctions to be lifted: “They have imposed a decade of misery on ordinary people whilst allowing an exploitative regime to sustain itself in power. It is time to find a policy that offers Iraq a positive incentive to comply. In return for genuine disarmament, monitored and verified by the UN, the lifting of comprehensive sanctions and the reintegration of Iraq into the international community is the route which must now be explored.”

This week the Church of England synod supported its bishops’ declaration that a conflict would not meet the just war standards laid down in religious tradition. During the synod debate on Monday several bishops called for sanctions to be lifted as a means of encouraging Saddam Hussein to agree to unfettered weapons inspections.

Both the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey and his successor, Rowan Williams, have pronounced their opposition to an attack on Iraq. Other groups including Baptists, Methodists and Quakers have also spoken out.

In the US the only significant Christian grouping to have supported the administration has been the fundamentalist 16 million-strong Southern Baptist Convention.

Its president, Richard Land, was quoted in September as saying: “The US should not sit idly by waiting for her allies in Europe to indicate their support ... No offence intended, but we have had to extricate the Europeans from conflagrations of their own making twice in the last century.”

Although the country’s television evangelists have been gung-ho for war, the mainstream churches such as the Episcopalians have been much more cautious and the US Catholic bishops were among the first to express their concerns to President Bush about a possible war.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.