SERMON PREACHED BY Fr KEVIN MORONEY ON SUNDAY 16TH FEBRUARY 2003
On the Brink of War
Yesterday was an unprecedented day in history - particularly European history.
The Dublin march for peace drew between 8 0 to 100,000 people. London drew one million. There were also marches in Belfast Paris, Rome, of the and Berlin. All in all about 600 cities worldwide, with the strongest showing in Europe, attracted protesters to send a one loud and unified message that a military invasion of Iraq is unjustified Michael on at this time. There were also marches in the United States.
I am also opposed to military action right now, and given yesterday's events, I felt that I needed to address the issue with you. I have to begin by saying that it is difficult to know what to say other than stating the obvious that peace is good and unnecessary war is wrong. Allow me therefore to attempt briefly to boil the situation down to what I believe are some of the essentials.
First -Saddam Hussein is an untrustworthy dictator who had far more weapons five years ago than he can account for now. Any peace is going to have to win to either verifiable disarmament or his removal. We are talking about a man who has had anthrax, and other such lethal weapons available to him, and may still do so.
At a minimum it will have to be guaranteed that he can no longer hurt
anyone or help those who would.
Second - The President of the United States needs to learn that there are
limits to the extent that he can pressurise other countries into co-operation
with his international interests. Our World leaders are going to have to
become more creative in resolving security issues. For example why not
occupy Iraq with an army of inspectors for five years backed by UN peacekeepers?
I'm sure that there are also other options which may be explored.
If this country is invaded because of suspected but unverified links with Al Queida, next it will have to be Somalia, then North Korea then another, then another. Every superpower or Empire as we used to call them eventually overextends itself militarily and creates a tide of resentment and eventually declines. The world would do the US our favour by stopping that country in its journey to military over-reaction.
This leads me to my third point. The United Nations is either going to grow into something more than a US-dominated organisation or it will lose credibility around the world. There is nothing stopping anyone from introducing a resolution which contrives to work for disarmament and also declares that military action is not called for at this time. Then if President Bush invades he also is in the material breach of a UN resolution.
Let me close on a more personal note. What alarmed me as I listened to the speeches yesterday was how often than they lost focus on the impending war, and fell into simplistic anti-American rhetoric.
The United Saves is not to blame for every problem in the world, and Europe has no great record on issues of war and peace. All of humanity is to blame for the wrongs of the world we live in. It is just as wrong to blame George Bush for everything, as it is to blame Saddam Hussein. At emotional times like this it is very important to stay focussed on the pertinent issues.
We need the highest degree of safety, freedom, and justice with the lowest degree of the loss of innocent life.
May God grant our leaders wisdom to achieve in these goals. May God grant
us patience and persistence in working to attain these.