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| Archbishop Tomasi |
When is war justified? Can it ever be justified? What is the proper Christian response to war? These are questions that the Christian Church has struggled with through most of its existence. The apostles did not teach on this. The church during the first century did not have influence over matters of state. Jesus taught in Matthew 24:6 that we are not to be alarmed by wars because these are among the things which must take place.
But the Roman Catholic Church does have a great deal of influence in the world. For centuries they have been influencing matters at the highest levels of government. After pressing for peace between warring parties for the last several years, they have now decided that it is time (for others) to go to war. The pope sent a letter to Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-moon urging him to use the assets of the United Nations to take action against the Islamic State in northern Iraq.
While the pope was not explicit in his letter to the secretary general as to what he expected from the UN, his man at the UN in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, was much more clear. He said "when every other means has been attempted,
article 42 of the Charter of the United Nations becomes possible
justification for not only imposing sanctions of economic nature on the
state or the group or the region that violates the basic human rights of
people, but also to use force. All the force that is necessary to stop
this evil and this tragedy.”
So what we have here is the Roman Catholic Church, led by a man who considers himself Christ vicarious, urging the United Nations to go to war in the land of Babylon and Nineveh.
Iraq: Abp Tomasi on Pope’s appeal to UN’s Ban Ki-moon
(Vatican Radio) The Holy See’s
Permanent Observer to the United Nations in Geneva Archbishop Silvano
Tomasi, says Pope Francis’s appeal to the United Nations to
intervene in Iraq shows the Holy Father feels the international
community is “compelled” to take action. Islamic State militants
in northern Iraq have purged entire towns and villages of people,
threatening to kill all those who fail to embrace their brand of
Sunni Islam. Tens of thousands of Christians, Yazidis and other
minorities have fled their homes – many have been without food,
water and shelter for days.
In an interview with Vatican Radio,
Archbishop Tomasi describes Pope Francis’ recent letter to U.N.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as reflecting the “sum total of the
different appeals coming to the international community. The World
Council of Churches has been writing to the Secretary General
invoking some action on behalf of the people of the northern Iraq
region – so has the Organization of the Islamic Conference and many
other people beginning with the Patriarch of the Catholic Chaldean
community, Patriarch Sako.”
“All of these people,” continues
the Archbishop, “take note and condemn in the strongest way the
violation of the fundamental, basic human rights of the Christians
and other religious minorities in Iraq.”
“What seems to be particularly
important in the letter of the Holy Father,” observes Archbishop
Tomasi, “is the expressions that he uses: the tragic situation
‘compels’ the international community. There is a moral
imperative so to (speak), a necessity to act.”
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