c. 1998 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Sister Kathy Thornton _ standing on a portable wood platform and with the White House as a back drop _ faced a half-dozen TV news cameras Wednesday (Feb. 11) and urged the United States not to launch a military strike against Iraq.”Is it not possible that the United States military action will escalate into a region-wide conflict involving the use of biological and nuclear weapons?”the Roman Catholic nun asked.

Will bombing force Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to bend to U.S. demands he comply with United Nations resolutions concerning the destruction of his suspected weapons of mass destruction? she added. Or might it just result in additional dead”innocent Iraqi citizens?” As the United States prepares for possible military action against Iraq, a number of U.S. religious leaders have become increasingly vocal in their opposition to the use of force with Iraq.

Catholic, mainline Protestant and Muslim representatives have been in the forefront of the opposition. However, evangelical and other conservative Protestant groups have been virtually silent on the issue, as have Jewish organizations, who view Iraq as a threat to Israel’s safety.

The opposition to military action generally stems from a belief that Hussein and his policies will survive any attack, but, as Thornton said, thousands of Iraqi civilians won’t. Some also agree with her view a U.S. attack could trigger a wider Middle East war.

Others say violence is never justified, no matter what the situation, and diplomatic efforts should continue indefinitely.

Outside the White House on Wednesday, some religious leaders took action of their own by joining peace activists and others at a news conference and demonstration against bombing Baghdad. Thornton, national coordinator of NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, was one of them.”The forces of evil are pretty strong, but I’ve got to have hope that military force will not be used,”she said after reading her statement at the news conference.”I couldn’t live with myself without thinking that ultimately good will prevail.” Some 100 protesters _ many wearing”Don’t Bomb Iraq”T-shirts _ took part in the White House demonstration, one of 53 such actions scheduled Wednesday for cities and college campuses across the nation. More such protests are planned for the coming days.

In Pasadena, Calif., Wednesday, some two-dozen religious leaders gathered at All Saints Episcopal Church to read a statement opposing the resumption of American air strikes. Among them were two Reform rabbis who voiced rare public Jewish opposition to the possible U.S. strikes.

Rabbi Steven Jacobs of Temple Kol Tikvah in Woodland Hills, Calif., said attacking Iraq”won’t help Israel”on a long-term basis. Hussein, said Jacobs,”will probably survive (any attack), come out the martyr and the Arab world will rally around him and against Israel even more so in the long run.” Jacobs, who also opposed the 1991 Desert Storm operation, said he expected to be criticized by those Jews”who are saying the kneejerk thing and want the U.S. to go in and bomb the hell out of Saddam for Israel’s sake.” Much of the religious opposition to another U.S. attack has been expressed in letters sent to U.S officials or statements to the media.

Most of those comments also condemned the current U.N. sanctions against Iraq, which have devastated that nation’s economy and led to widespread civilian suffering. More than 1 million Iraqi citizens have reportedly died as a result of the hunger and medical emergencies spawned by the embargo.

_ In a four-page letter to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, U.S. Catholic bishops said”means short of war must be found to contain and overcome the Iraqi regime’s threat to its own people and the world. … The world should unite in non-violent opposition to the intransigence of the Iraqi government,”said the letter, which was signed by Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick of Newark, N.J., the bishops’ international policy spokesman.

_ The Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, general secretary of the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church and Society, said”as people of faith, we cannot support any action that would further the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Iraq.” _ Church World Service, the development arm of the National Council of Churches, the umbrella organization of 34 Protestant and Orthodox denominations, said it would send”desperately needed”medicinal supplies, blankets and infant layettes to Iraq.

_ The American Muslim Council called new U.S. military action”unjust and unwise”and the”third part of a triple victimization of the Iraqi people.”Hussein’s”repressive regime”constitutes the”first victimization,”said the council, and the U.N. embargo is the second.

_ The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, urged President Bill Clinton to refrain from military action and to keep seeking a diplomatic solution.”Diplomacy can work if given enough time, support and creativity,”said AFSC executive director Kara Newell.

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Outside the United States, Pope John Paul II has spoken out against military action, saying through a spokesman that”the recourse to war is not just and war in any case will increase problems, not solve them.” Eight English and Welsh Anglican bishops also published an open letter to the British government _ which supports the U.S. threat of action against Iraq _ saying new bombing attacks”will involve large-scale civilian casualties”and is likely to reinforce the already deep Muslim mistrust of the West.” However, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, the worldwide head of the Anglican Communion, said”so long as President Saddam Hussein’s present attitude continues, there is no risk-free option, and to leave the Iraqi president defying the will of the U.N. and developing a greatly increased capability in horrible weapons of mass destruction would itself be a potentially disastrous outcome, especially for the people of Iraq and Iraq’s neighbors.”

DEA END RIFKIN