LONDON, Aug 11: The Archbishop of York, the Church of England’s second-highest figure, reprimanded US President George Bush on Friday for risking division by warning that the West was at war with ‘Islamic Fascists’.

John Sentamu, an active critic of current affairs, said Mr Bush’s comments — made in the wake of the foiled bomb plot to blow up flights from Britain to the United States — were not helpful.

“I actually want to see this society becoming a good neighbourly place and you are not going to do it by that kind of language on a ranch in Texas,” he said on BBC radio.

Sentamu, 57, also announced plans to camp inside York Minster in a week-long fast to show solidarity with those caught up in the war between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

He scrapped his holiday to Salzburg, Austria, choosing instead to sleep alone in the 13th-century gothic cathedral.

He said that the world should have heeded United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s July 20 plea for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East.

“The UN has a role, diplomacy has a role and our government has a role to play in bringing this conflict to an end,” he said.

“But we as people also have a role to play in showing our common humanity with all those who are suffering.

“Just like those sleeping on the floors of bunkers, car parks and churches, I will also spend the week camped out sleeping in the minster.”

The cleric will pitch his tent and arrange his sleeping bag on Sunday beneath the alter of St. John’s Chapel, part of York Minister.

He hopes to encourage other Britons to join him in spirit by forgoing a meal and donating the money they would have spent to charities active in the conflict zone.

The Ugandan-born cleric and former High Court judge was a critic of Idi Amin’s dictatorial regime there in the early 1970s, for which he served a prison sentence. He moved to Britain in 1974. He became Britain’s first black archbishop in June last year.—AFP