Middle Eastern Catholic patriarchs oppose war with Iraq

Human Quest, Jan/Feb 2003

Patriarchs from the Armenian, Chaldean, Coptic, Latin, Maronite, Melkite and Syrian Catholic churches at a five-day meeting of 33 leaders in Lebanon in early November said in a statement, in part: "There can be no just war, since men have the choice to negotiate and arrive at peaceful solutions or to unleash a general destruction." The statement, issued after the 12th Congress of such leaders, criticized "the policy of double standards" of not holding Israel accountable to U.N. resolutions while condemning Iraq for not abiding by them.

"Equity demands that countries in the region are treated according to the same criteria - if we wish to finish with weapons of mass destruction, all the region's countries should be disarmed together, including Israel." (National Catholic Reporter, November 22, 2002)