Vatican officials and diplomats have expressed support for US airstrikes in Iraq amid fears of genocide against religious minorities.
Islamic forces have swept northern Iraq in recent weeks, killing or expelling Christians and religious minorities like the Yazidis in a campaign that some consider tantamount to genocide.
The Vatican’s nuncio in Iraq, Archbishop Giorgio Lingua told Vatican Radio that airstrikes ordered by the Obama administration were “something that had to be done, otherwise [the Islamic State] could not be stopped”.
The Vatican’s top official at the United Nations in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, also signalled the Holy See’s openness to airstrikes in an interview with Vatican Radio.
Archbishop Tomasi said while reconciliation was a long-term goal, in the short run, Iraq’s Christians needed “practical action” that would include “even effective military protection”.
The Vatican’s signals on military action are carefully calibrated and are coming in part because pleas from Iraqi Christians themselves, the Religion News Service reported.
Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako called President Obama’s decision to limit the extent of American military strikes “disappointing”.
But Rome also does not want to be seen as endorsing war as a first option to achieve peace, RNS said.
Back in 2003, Pope John Paul II lobbied forcefully against the American-led invasion of Iraq.
Vatican officials view the current catastrophe as a direct result of President George W. Bush’s decision to ignore John Paul and other critics.
“From that time, the situation has never improved,” said Cardinal Fernando Filoni, who Pope Francis sent to Iraq on August 12 with an unspecified “papal donation” to help refugees.
But Church officials do not want to cut off the possibility of a “humanitarian intervention” that necessitates the use of force.
That is a position that popes have embraced in the past under the principle of the “responsibility to protect” victims suffering immediate threats.
“No one here is celebrating,” one Vatican diplomat told The Boston Globe, referring to the airstrikes, “but when people are at risk, they have to be defended . . . that’s clear.”
The Vatican also called on Muslim leaders to condemn the “barbarity” and “unspeakable criminal acts” of Islamic State militants in Iraq.
It said a failure to do so would jeopardise the future of interreligious dialogue.
Pope Francis has made impassioned pleas for peace, including asking the United Nations for action.
Sources
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News category: World.
