Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 1998, Pages 117-118

Christianity and the Middle East

Deliver Food, Not Missiles, to Iraq, Churches Tell U.S. and U.K. Governments

By Rev. L. Humphrey Walz

As American and British missiles and military manpower massed in the Persian Gulf in early February for possible action against Iraq, church leaders in many countries, including Iraq, vigorously urged diplomacy rather than ultimatums, food aid rather than missiles and peace rather than war, according to Patricia LeFevere of Ecumenical News International (ENI), a religious news service, who prepared the following roundup of such statements and actions:

Three Roman Catholic bishops in the U.S. began a fast to draw public attention to the plight of millions of Iraqi civilians suffering from a seven-year embargo laid down by the United Nations and enforced by the U.S.

Fifty-four of America’s 350 Catholic bishops sent a letter to President Bill Clinton requesting a meeting with him and calling for “the immediate cessation of sanctions” which, they said, not only violated Catholic church teaching, but also “the human rights of the Iraqi people because they deprive innocent people of food and medicine.”

Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, one of the three bishops on a fast, visited Iraq in September, and told ENI that he was “stunned” by the disease, death and malnutrition he witnessed there.

He spoke of more than a million Iraqi civilian deaths—60,000 of them children who are succumbing at a rate of 4,500 a month—since sanctions were imposed in August 1990. Similar figures have been confirmed by U.N. agencies.

U.N. Resolution 986—the so-called “oil-for-food” resolution—was not resolving the problem, the bishop said. Only 53 percent of the $2 billion that Iraq receives every six months from its U.N.-approved oil sales is available for food and medicine for 22 million people. The rest paid for reparations to Kuwait and for U.N. expenses in Iraq. The “oil-for-food” resolution had diverted world attention from the tragedy, while in some respects aggravating it, Bishop Gumbleton said.

Retired Bishop Albert Ottenweller, aged 81, of Steubenville, OH, and Auxiliary Bishop Peter Rosazza of Hartford, CT have also been fasting. Bishop Rosazza told ENI he hoped his fast would draw attention to the crisis with Iraq. “Will we look back eight years from now and say that what our government is doing was prudent?” he asked.

The bishops said they had been influenced by a hand-written appeal forwarded to U.S. bishops by eight Iraqi bishops representing six Catholic and two Orthodox dioceses.

“We appeal to all Catholics and to all Christians in America and the world,” the Iraqi prelates wrote. “The sanctions are killing our people, our children, the ones Christ has given us to protect. They are killing our beloved Muslim brothers and sisters. They strike at our poor and our sick most of all. In the name of God’s people we ask you: tell your government to end the sanctions against the Iraqi people. End the seven years of war against Iraq.”

Those who signed were the Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, the Chaldean Bishop of Baghdad, the Latin Archbishop of Baghdad, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad, the Archbishop of the Armenian Catholicos in Iraq, the Archbishop of Basrah, the Archbishop of the Church of the East and the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop.

In another episcopal letter on Feb. 5, Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who chairs the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ International Policy Committee, wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright requesting a “reshaping” of the embargo.

Archbishop McCarrick’s letter cautioned against the use of military force, which he said “could pose an undue risk to an already suffering civilian population, could well be disproportionate to the ends sought, and could fail to resolve legitimate concerns about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.”

Pope John Paul II, who made 50 appeals for peace before and during the Gulf war, said in Rome on Feb. 8 that he hoped international leaders would use “instruments of diplomacy and dialogue to avoid any use of weapons.”

In Britain, debate on the morality of a second incursion into Iraq began on Feb. 10 in both Parliament and at the general synod of the Church of England. Although British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the responsibility of sanctioning military strikes that could kill innocent people “weighs seriously” upon him, he felt he had the backing of the British people.

But at least 10 Anglican bishops did not lend Prime Minister Blair their support. Instead, in an open letter to the government, they opposed the action, noting that innocent Iraqis “have the right not to become the target of threats and violence.”

The bishops of Monmouth, Kingston, Bangor, Croydon, Manchester, Aston, St. German, Truro, Sheffield and Worcester also appealed to their political leaders to avoid a “super-power mentality” and to work to build trust between peoples.

“We do not write from a pacifist position but from a common concern to urge the government to search for alternatives to violence,” the bishops declared. Calling war “morally weak,” they feared it would “reinforce the already deep Muslim mistrust of the West.”

However, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. George Carey, said on Feb. 11 that he was convinced, after discussions with Britain’s foreign secretary, that the British government was “fully aware of the complexity and seriousness of these dilemmas; of the very serious concerns of church people and others about the use of military force; and of the risks and dangers whatever course of action or inaction is chosen.”

The “most humane, just and peaceful way forward would be for President Saddam to comply with U.N. requirements on weapons inspections in full,” Dr. Carey said.

Dr. Carey said he intended to maintain “close contacts” with the British government “to ensure that they remain fully aware of the deeply felt concerns and insights of the Anglican Communion and its ecumenical partners around the world.”

Members of a seven-member World Council of Churches (WCC) delegation which recently returned from a visit to Iraq presented their report to a meeting of the WCC executive committee in Geneva from Feb. 17 to Feb. 20. The team recommended that churches world-wide urge their governments to oppose military action as a means to force Iraq to comply with U.N. Security Council demands.

The delegation spoke of the growing death toll and worsening of health, education, agriculture and the infrastructure of Iraq since sanctions began. Rather than undermining popular support for President Saddam Hussain, the sanctions had “galvanized” Iraqis against foreign intervention and “forged stronger bonds among various ethnic and religious communities,” the delegation reported.

Christians, who comprise five percent of the Iraqi population, had been “substantially impaired” by the embargo, causing many to emigrate for economic reasons and leaving churches with a “sense of abandonment by and isolation from the broader Christian fellowship,” the delegation said.

The delegation had held extensive meetings with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and with a number of church representatives, health and social workers, with children and teenagers and with U.N. and other humanitarian workers.

A meeting of 20 church leaders from the Middle East—Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic—held in Cyprus on Jan. 23 and 24 also called the world’s attention to “the tragic circumstances through which the Iraqi people are living as a result of unjust and unjustifiable sanctions, causing extreme suffering among civilians, mostly children, old people and the sick. We call upon the churches of the world to stand in solidarity with the people of Iraq for their right to live in dignity.

Mideast Churches Unite on Fears of Erosion of Christianity

At an historic meeting in Cyprus, 20 leaders of Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in the Middle East have called attention to the falling numbers and resources of Christians living in the region where Christianity began, according to Edmund Doogue of Ecumenical News International in Geneva.

Church leaders attending the high-level meeting also promised to cooperate with each other and with their Muslim neighbors to overcome difficulties faced by Christians. At the same time, the church leaders took care not to create “alarmism” over the issue, pointing out that “The first Apostles who preached the Gospel only numbered 12.”

Dr. Tarek Mitri, an academic World Council of Churches staff member who was involved in the preparation of the meeting, said that a “pastoral letter” released at the end of the gathering was a result of a decision by the church leaders to “speak publicly” about something that had been “widely whispered” about in the region—the falling number of Christians living in the Middle East. But he added that the statement was also significant because it showed that the church leaders did not believe that the way to ensure the continuation of “Christian presence” in the Middle East was to call for outside intervention. The meeting of leaders organized by the Middle East Council of Churches was held in Nicosia, Cyprus during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and was hosted by Archbishop Chrysostomos, Primate of the Church of Cyprus.

This willingness among church leaders to cooperate is reflected in the “pastoral letter,” which states: “We cannot properly carry out our mission nor are we even to be able to carry it out at all, unless we strengthen our bonds of love and cooperation. We are all responsible for that which Christ the Lord has entrusted to us.”

Dr. Mitri told ENI: “The pastoral letter reflects the fact that the problem of Christian emigration and the erosion of various aspects of the Christian presence in Middle Eastern societies have generated serious preoccupations, not only among Christians, but among Muslims as well. It has become an issue of public debate in the region and beyond. In the U.S., for example, this is addressed as a question of religious persecution.

“But they [the church leaders] are also warning against sensationalism and sweeping statements of those who predict the imminent eradication of Christianity in the Middle East.

“Also, the document says that numbers [of Christian residents] are important, but it doesn’t get into a fever about them. Let’s not fetishize numbers or make little idols of them. Faithfulness is more important than numbers.”

Dr. Mitri said the church leaders also stressed the need for any difficulties to be solved in cooperation with Muslims. “Rather than complaining to the world about what Muslims, or at least some of them, are doing to Christians, churches are saying, ‘We prefer to discuss this with our Muslim neighbors,” Dr. Mitri said.

The church leaders did not want to fall into a “minority-centered” trap—that of seeking protection from foreign governments. “However, it is extremely difficult, for you cannot say that the Christian communities don’t face problems,” Dr. Mitri said. “But you don’t want these problems to be instrumentalized by politically motivated forces abroad and be used—or rather misused—in a crusade against Islam.

“The churches are trying to say: “There are problems, and they are to be solved here.”