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Church leaders in Philippines lament public apathy to anti-war drive
2002-246-4
10/23/2002
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[Episcopal News Service]
Church leaders lament that public support for an anti-war campaign has been lukewarm after a series of terrorist bombings in the Philippines.
'Public support for the anti-war campaign had been lukewarm, despite the clear anti-war positions of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines and the National Council of Churches in the Philippines,' Bishop Allan Ray Sarte of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines told reporters on October 24.
Government critics see the bombings as a reaction to their government's all-out support for a possible United States war against Iraq. The National Council of Churches, which groups mainline Protestant churches, and the Roman Catholic bishops issued separate statements earlier this month advising the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to rethink its support for a possible US intervention in Iraq without United Nations sanction.
Many religious groups and churches are talking to parishioners and others, trying to drum up support for a campaign 'officially rebuking an imminent American military campaign against Iraq and the Philippine government's subservience to the US agenda,' Sarte said. But despite these meetings many Filipinos are simply indifferent, he noted. The Rev. Israel Rada of the Philippine Independent Church explained the apparent apathy, saying: 'Filipinos participate only if they are directly affected.'
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