The leaders of the UK's Catholic and Anglican churches have cast doubt on the moral case for launching military action against Iraq. In a joint statement, they say war inevitably brings "a sense of failure", and call for United Nations weapons inspections to be given more time.
"How much time?"
"How about another twelve years?" |
They urge the Iraqi Government to show its total compliance with UN resolutions on weapons of mass destruction. But the statement - signed by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, archbishop of Westminster and leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales, and by his Anglican counterpart, Dr Rowan Williams, the archdruid archbishop of Canterbury - also says the moral alternative to military measures is not inaction.
| "It's, ummmm... something else." |
The country's two most senior archbishops say "inaction, passivity, appeasement or indifference" cannot be embraced and instead urge for all sides to give UN weapons inspectors more time. They say: "It is vital therefore that all sides in this crisis engage, through the United Nations - fully and urgently - in a process, including continued weapons inspections, that could and should render the trauma and tragedy of war unnecessary."
| "This is good. We should keep doing this forever. Eventually, Sammy will die of old age, and maybe when he does he won't have killed anybody we know." |
|