Catholic World News News Feature

Pope will scold Bush on Iraq, cardinal says May 13, 2004

When Pope John Paul II meets with George W. Bush on June 4, the Pontiff will tell the US President that America has taken the wrong course in Iraq. That is what a former apostolic nuncio to the US told a leading Italian newspaper.

Cardinal Pio Laghi told Corriere della Sera that the Pope will repeat the same message that Bush "chose not to listen to" before the war. Cardinal Laghi met with President Bush in March 2003, as a personal envoy from the Pontiff, in a last-minute diplomatic effort to stop the war in Iraq.

The 82-year-old Italian prelate, who served as apostolic nuncio in Washington during the 1980s, said that the American leader would be received with appropriate honors in rome, as "the successor to the President of the United States who, in 1944, liberated Rome and restored the rights of the people." But today, the cardinal argued, the US leader must be reminded that "the actual choices made by America are not bringing the Middle East closer to respect for human rights."

The Pope's message, the cardinal continued, would stress that "the fight against terrorism cannot be confined to repressive and punitive measures, but must address the deeper causes that nourish the injustice." He added that the struggle against terrorism cannot be used to "justify a renunciation of the principles of a state under law, because the end does not justify the means."

Cardinal Laghi said that President Bush had been insistent in seeking a personal meeting with Pope John Paul. "I think he changed his agenda to make this meeting possible," he revealed.

Speaking for himself, the Italian cardinal sadi that he was stunned by the reports of abuse of prisoners by US troops in Iraq. He said: "This is not America; it is the madness of a few people."

However, the cardinal also said that American policies in Iraq showed a failure to understand the mentality of the Muslim world. "To bomb mosques, to enter into the holy cities, to put female soldiers in contact with nude men-- these are acts that show an incomprension of the Muslim world, which I find surprising." He added: "We must build bridges toward Islam, not deepen the divide."

Cardinal Laghi insisted-- as he has in the past-- that the top priority for American policy in Middle East should be a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That conflict, he said, is "the primary source of terrorism."