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New archbishop of Canterbury challenges plans for attack on Iraq
2002-192-2
8/14/2002
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[Episcopal News Service]
Archbishop of Canterbury-elect Rowan Williams of Wales has joined other church leaders in questioning the legality and morality of plans for an American-led attack on Iraq in a declaration that was sent to Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The declaration was written by Pax Christi, the international Roman Catholic peace movement, and says that 'it is deplorable that the world's most powerful nations continue to regard war and the threat of war as an acceptable instrument of foreign policy, in violation of the ethos of both the United Nations and Christian moral teaching.'
The statement, signed by over 3,000 leaders, added, 'The way to peace does not lie through war but through the transformation of structures of injustice and of the politics of exclusion, and that is the cause to which the West should be devoting its technological, diplomatic and economic resources.'
Williams has said that it would be immoral and illegal to support an American war on Iraq without authorization by the United Nations. Bishop Richard Harries of Oxford said it would be difficult to see how military action in Iraq could meet the criterion for a 'just war.' Church of England theologians argue that a war must have 'proper authority and right intent.'
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