Catholic bishops and Iraq.

Vatican - It is well-known that the Vatican opposes the use of economic embargoes as fruitless endeavours which only hurt civilian populations without bringing about political changes among the elite. Thus it rejects the validity of current economic sanctions against Cuba, Libya, Burundi and Iraq, all of them initiated by the United States.

At his public audience on November 16, the Holy Father once again emphasized the need for a peaceful solution. A few days later, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein thanked him for "his constant interests in the sufferings of the Iraqi people," just as he had done in 1991 (CWN, Dec. 1, 97).

Throughout the following three months Vatican diplomats kept busy seeking a peaceful solution. At the reception of the new American ambassador to the Vatican, Mrs Linda Boggs, on December 16, the Holy Father gently warned the United States that the commitment to the ideals of its Founding Fathers had to be renewed by each generation.

The Pope noted that "the original separation of Church and State in the United States was certainly not an effort to ban all religious conviction from the public sphere . . ." (Editor: as is contended today by the American Civil Liberties Union). "Indeed," he said, "the vast majority of Americans . . . are convinced that religious convictions and religiously informed moral argument have a vital role in public life."

He also recalled that as the Year 2000 draws near, he had appealed for a serious examination of conscience "regarding the shadows which darken our times."

Washington - Meanwhile, at the November annual meeting of the American bishops, Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton introduced a motion calling on the U.S. to end its sanctions against Iraq. The majority refused to support it although roughly one-fifth of the 280 or so bishops did.

On January 19, 1998, 54 bishops sent a letter to President Bill Clinton asking him to end the embargo which has been in effect since 1990. The embargo, the bishops said, has killed one million people in Iraq.

Written on the letterhead of Bishop Gumbleton, the letter said the sanctions "are not only in violation of the teachings of the Catholic Church but they violate the human rights of the Iraqi people because they deprive innocent people of food and medicine."

(Editor: In December UNICEF reported that currently almost one million Iraqi children are suffering from malnutrition. In 1996 the organization estimated that 4,500 children under the age of five were dying every month.)

On February 8, Pope John Paul once again pleaded for a peaceful solution. That same week, Feb. 13, the seven active U.S. Cardinals and Bishop Pilla, president of the American Conference of Bishops, wrote President Clinton saying, "We . . . urge that instead of using the military option, you reinforce the diplomatic initiatives by widening the participation of other governments, especially Arab states. . ."

That Sunday, Feb. 15, Cardinal O'Connor of New York made a face-to-face appeal to Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary-General, during a sermon at Mass. He appealed to Mr Annan, who was worshipping in a front pew, "to go personally and almost immediately to Iraq before the outbreak of hostilities."

The Cardinal's appeal won loud applause from those in the filled Cathedral. After Mass and a short private meeting with Cardinal O'Connor, Secretary-General Annan called the Cardinal's plea "energizing" and "inspirational," indicating that a trip to Iraq was not being excluded and that a decision would come soon.

A few days later, Mr. Annan also met with the Vatican's U.N. representative, Archbishop Renato Martino, who delivered a personal message from the Pope asking him to go to Iraq. In Rome, meanwhile, Cardinal Sodano, explained again the Holy See's conviction that "armed military intervention. . . will not resolve the issue." Among those advising the Pope was Baghdad's Chaldean-rite Catholic Patriarch Raphael Bidaw who also lamented the death of a million children since 1991.

On Feb. 26, after the successful negotiations in Baghdad, the Italian journal Tracce reported that Kofi Annan had asked the Pope for a written message of support for his trip to help convince other countries to do the same. He also reportedly asked for the Pope's prayers for the success of the mission.

Archbishop Renato Martino now also expressed the hope that the new agreement could be a "great stride toward the lifting of sanctions" on Iraq. (Sources: CWN reports, The Wanderer, Feb. 26.)