Christian presence vanishing from Iraq, Chaldean patriarch fears [CWN]

[CWN_News]

The exodus of Christians from Iraq is “frightening,” the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Baghad has warned. "If measures are not taken soon, in 10 years’ time there will only be a few …

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[Veridical16]

"This judgment [against the invasion of Iraq] of the Holy Father [Pope John Paul II] is convincing from a rational point of view also: reasons sufficient for unleashing a war against Iraq did not exist. First of all it was clear from the very beginning that proportion between the possible positive consequences and the sure negative effect of the conflict was not guaranteed.** On the contrary, it seems clear that the negative consequences will be greater than anything positive that might be obtained**.

“Is the war that has been announced against Iraq a just war? ‘All I can do is invite you to read the Catechism,’ Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger replied with a mischievous grin, ‘and the conclusion seems obvious to me…’** For the guardian of Catholic orthodoxy, the obvious conclusion is that the military intervention that is taking shape ‘has no moral justification**’

antiwar.com/blog/2005/04/20/pope-benedict-xvi-on-the-iraq-war/

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger does not believe that a unilateral military attack by the United States against Iraq would be morally justifiable, under the current circumstances.

According to the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – who acknowledged that political questions are not within his competence – “the United Nations is the [institution] that should make the final decision.”

“It is necessary that the community of nations makes the decision, not a particular power,” the cardinal said, after receiving the 2002 Trieste Liberal Award. His statements were published Saturday in the Italian newspaper Avvenire.

“The fact that the United Nations is seeking the way to avoid war, seems to me to demonstrate with enough evidence that the damage would be greater than the values one hopes to save,” the cardinal said.

He said that “the U.N. can be criticized” from several points of view, but “it is the instrument created after the war for the coordination – including moral – of politics.”

The “concept of a ‘preventive war’ does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church,” Cardinal Ratzinger noted.

RATZINGER: . . . Neither side can rightly claim to be doing what they’re doing in God’s name. The Holy Father has many times stressed that violence cannot be employed in the name of God. Seeing that we’ve been speaking of the Catechism, it’s as well to remember what the Second Commandment tells us: «Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain».

30giorni.it/articoli_id_775_l3.htm?id=775

catholicjustwartradition.blogspot.com/

Should have listened to the Pope twelve years ago.