| In Rome, Novak makes case for war
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
While Michael Novak’s efforts to sell the Vatican on a war in
Iraq appeared to make little headway, Pope John Paul II’s diplomatic
activity to stop that war intensified Feb. 9 with the dispatch of a personal
emissary to Baghdad.
The Vatican confirmed that frequent papal troubleshooter Cardinal
Roger Etchegaray, along with Msgr. Franco Coppola of the Secretariat of State,
would go to Iraq for a visit expected to last several days. Etchegaray, 80, is
carrying a personal appeal from John Paul II, signed in his own hand.
The scope of the appeal is for Saddam Hussein to cooperate with
inspectors and satisfy U.N. directives, especially resolution 1441, in order to
avoid a conflict. Etchegaray is expected to meet the Iraqi leader later in the
week.
Hypotheses about other papal initiatives abound.
The Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican raised the unlikely
possibility of a last-minute papal visit to Iraq in a Feb. 10 interview with
the Reuters news agency. Despite the fact that Iraq blocked John Paul’s
oft-stated desire for a visit in 2000, citing U.N. sanctions and no-fly zones,
Ambassador A. Amir Alanbari said the pope now would be welcome.
“For the pope to visit a country that is really about to be
victimized by a superpower, to be destroyed I would say ... would be viewed by
the rest of the world as expressing sympathy even if he does not say a
word,” Alanbari said.
Meanwhile a Roman newspaper hypothesized Feb. 10 that the pope
might also send an emissary to President George Bush, suggesting retired
Italian Cardinal Pio Laghi, former apostolic nuncio in the United States, for
the role.
Laghi, however, told NCR Feb. 10 that he “knows
nothing” of such a possibility, and doesn’t “see the conditions
for it.”
At the same time that Etchegaray was to meet Hussein, John Paul II
was scheduled to meet Iraq’s second in command, Tarik Aziz, on Friday,
Feb. 14. Aziz, a Chaldean Catholic, was expected to go to Assisi, the
birthplace of St. Francis, to pray for peace the next day.
The pope’s drumbeat against the war continued over the
weekend.
“We must all implore from God the gift of peace,” the
pope said in a Feb. 7 message to the Community of Sant’Egidio. “War
is not inevitable.”
Novak’s efforts to change this papal line bore little
immediate fruit. Novak, a leading conservative American Catholic scholar, met
Saturday morning, Feb. 8, with officials in the Pontifical Council for Justice
and Peace and in the Secretariat of State. At State, Novak was received by the
pope’s “foreign minister,” Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, but
Archbishop Renato Martino, president of Justice and Peace, delegated the
session with Novak to his staff.
Novak gave an interview to Vatican Radio on Saturday after his
meetings. On Sunday, Feb. 9, Novak and Ambassador to the Holy See James
Nicholson attended the 10:30 a.m. Mass at Santa Susanna, the American parish in
Rome. Novak met with Italian political figures on Monday, Feb. 10, then
conducted a news conference and lectured before an invitation-only crowd at
Rome’s Center of American Studies before returning to the United States on
Feb. 11.
Nicholson underscored the fact that Novak represented neither the
American government nor the Catholic church.
Novak insisted that an attack on Iraq would not be a case of
“preventive war,” since the United States is already involved in two
wars. The first is the Gulf War from 1991, from which Iraq has never shown
convincing proof of disarmament, and the second is the new kind of conflict
with non-state actors triggered by the terrorist assault of Sept. 11, 2001.
Hence, Novak argued, a war in Iraq would be covered by the traditional Catholic
doctrine of self-defense.
Novak stressed that he hopes a new conflict in Iraq may be
avoided. “If Saddam Hussein is finally serious, 150,000 American troops,
their families and relatives will be delighted,” he said. “Many
Americans will be praying for the success of Cardinal Etchegaray’s
mission.”
In favor of such a war if Hussein does not comply, Novak made two
basic arguments in his public appearances.
First, he said, Saddam Hussein poses a danger to the security of
citizens of the United States, all the more so in the post-Sept. 11 world. In
that context, the Bush administration has an obligation to act.
“The United States’ motive is that we are afraid those
weapons will be used against us,” Novak said. “I would not like to
see the United States at his mercy, whatever other countries may think.
“For the public authorities to fail to conduct such a war
would be to put their trust imprudently in the sanity and good will of Saddam
Hussein. … Those who judge the risk is low, and therefore allow Saddam
Hussein to remain in power, will bear a horrific responsibility if they guess
wrong and acts of destruction do occur.”
Novak said Hussein is driven by “megalomania” and is
“an unusually cruel leader” who has “murdered and tortured more
of his own citizens than Milosevic.”
“When the people of Iraq are able to speak, I think the
conscience of the world will be stricken that we failed to act for so
long,” Novak said.
“Appeasement and weakness bring violence; seriousness of
purpose and determination bring respect,” Novak said.
Second, Novak emphasized, while reasonable people may disagree
about the threat Saddam poses, in the end Catholic moral teaching says it is up
to the responsible public authorities to decide -- in this case, the Bush
administration.
“These authorities bear the primary vocational role and
constitutional duty to protect the lives of the people they serve,” Novak
said. He said the principle of subsidiarity requires “those closest to the
facts, who have access to highly restricted intelligence,” ultimately make
the call.
During his Vatican Radio interview, Novak complained about certain
Vatican comments on American policy, such as the suggestion by the
semi-official Vatican journal Civiltà Cattolica that oil was at
the bottom of American motives in Iraq.
“Some of the comments that have come from some Vatican
sources have been a little bit emotionally anti-American,” Novak said.
“I just wish people would mind their rhetoric a little bit more.”
Novak said that among his friends, “there’s some
pain” about the stronger expressions of opposition from the Vatican. At
the same time, he credited the Vatican with influencing the Bush administration
to seek support within the framework of international law for its course in
Iraq.
Novak suggested that the experience of living through Sept. 11 may
explain some of the difference between American and European attitudes.
“Having lived through 9/11, we’re steeled not to let it
happen again,” Novak said. “Maybe because Europeans didn’t
experience it, they don’t feel the same way.”
Asked how he reconciles his position with the antiwar statement
adopted by the U.S. bishops in Washington in November, Novak said he also found
himself at odds with the bishops’ conference in 1981-82, when it was
preparing a document on nuclear war.
“Even the Vatican was alarmed,” Novak said.
He said leading Catholic lay persons such as Zbigniew Brzezinski,
Henry Hyde and Clare Boothe Luce approached him with similar concerns, and
together they drafted a separate letter.
“The big difference was that the bishops focused on weapons
systems, and we centered on communism. We argued that what kills is not
weapons, but ideologies. We said that if we could penetrate minds in the Soviet
Union, disarmament would follow. Twenty years later, which letter reads
better?” Novak asked. “I believe ours does.”
Novak said the Vatican was happy with the intervention, which
influenced similar documents drafted by the French and German bishops.
“This is the lay role in the church,” Novak said,
“to argue about matters of prudence rather than doctrine.”
One Vatican official involved in a meeting with Novak described
the session as “cordial,” but said, “We didn’t hear
anything we hadn’t heard before.” Noting that both Vatican officials
and Novak cite John Paul’s words about the use of force being a “last
resort,” the official said, “The problem is that my last resort may
not necessarily be your last resort.”
Novak’s comments would not, the official predicted, change
the Vatican’s line.
John L. Allen Jr. is NCR’s Rome correspondent. His
e-mail address is jallen@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, February 21,
2003
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