WAS IT ALL WORTH IT? Archbishop of Canterbury criticises Blair at funeral

[dArKeR]

Blair hears war questioned at Iraq service No amount of talking about ideals makes this easier, you know the cost in a uniqueway ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY ROWAN WILLIAMS YESTERDAY

By Tom Newton Dunn


TONY Blair went to a sombre service yesterday for Britain's fallen heroes in Iraq - to hear the war criticised by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Another churchman insisted on remembering the Iraqi dead alongside our own.

And a heckler shouted: "You bastard!" at Mr Blair as he left St Paul's Cathedral.

The Prime Minister looked uncomfortable when Archbishop Rowan Williams openly questioned whether the war was a success.

He told the 2,500 congregation, including the Queen and 13 other royals: "We have to acknowledge that moral vision is harder to convert into reality than we should like.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13502558_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-WAS%2DIT%2DALL%2DWORTH%2DIT%2D-name_page.html

As our religious leaders call for more blood and murder and calls for our own leaders to find death and kill them through praying bombs will be dropped by God on Americans... Robertson, Falwell, Graham... and our Catholic leaders remain silent! Is there any wonder of what the world thinks of America?

[Paschall]

1. Here's more

Archbishop Rowan Williams prepares to deliver his address as the Choir of St Paul's Cathedral sing the anthem Bring us, O Lord God, by William Harris
Photo: Matthew Davies/Anglican World

"We have to go back and test what has happened in the light of the original vision; we have to find out what we have learned, what now looks different, where our integrity has been stretched or challenged. We don't just put this complicated and tragic history aside without asking if our values and commitments are still intact."

Full text of Archibishop Rowan Williams's address here

(BTW, darker, it helps others if you use HTML for those extra, extra long links. Otherwise, we have to scroll left and right to read each sentence. ;-) )

[Nlighten1]

2. Any critisizm of Blair in this respect is...

also critisizm of Bush.

[leesa]

3. Remain silent?? Robertson Foulwell and Graham are cheering it on

They are long-time haters and racists.

[Barad Simith]

4. Take a look at that church...

...in Paschall's post (#1).

The neglect and abuses in the Catholic Church could be stopped within one year, never to be restarted.

If Catholics stopped paying their church to be neglectful and abusive, the church would be unable to afford the upkeep on all those buildings.

The church has built an empire that depends on continuing contributions; therefore, the church's offenses have been propagated as much by its members as by its leaders.

[Shakespeare]

8. uh....not sure what that has to do with this topic...

And isn't that an Anglican church, anyway?

[Barad Simith]

9. you're right, I stand corrected

I allowed myself to get a little carried away. I was off-topic.

[lanlady]

16. that's not a Catholic Church

What exactly are you on about? Why the gratuitious Catholic-bashing?

[Barad Simith]

21. I've been cutting my coffee with a half-dose of decaf...

...and my ill-conceived reply above is evidence of that. Sorry.

[Classical_Liberal]

20. The RC Church denounced the war

repeatedly.

[GCP]

5. An informed population speaks out

Oh, how I would love the opportunity to yell "Bastard" at Bush.

Ordinary people are not allowed to get anywhere near him nowadays, apart from the faithful.

[realFedUp]

6. Love that line

"We have to acknowledge that moral vision is harder to convert into reality than we should like."

Send the Archbishop over here for one of those funerals...
oh I forgot, Bush doesn't do funerals of the fallen. He
does fundraisers in front of the brain dead.

[UTUSN]

7. Kick n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. The heads of the major Protestant denominations in the U.S.

DID protest against the Iraq War before it started. I remember specifically that the heads of the national Evangelical Lutheran, Episcopal, United Methodist, and Presbyterian (and most likely others) gave a joint statement against the war, and that individual churches from these denominations sent delegations of members to anti-war rallies.

But of course, those things typically ended up on page 22B of the newspaper and got no mention in the broadcast media.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. And I would like to add

that the Episcopal bishop of Washington DC was very critical of many of Bush Sr's policies, and accordingly, Poppy ignored him and favored the much more conservative Roman Catholic archbishop.

[JewelDigger]

12. The official position of the Catholic Church - straight from the Vatican

was that pre-emptively invading Iraq (oops sorry - liberating them from their freedoms) - oh geez, (sorry again, liberating them from that 'bad guy' Saddam Hussein) was not acceptable. Pope John Paul IV specifically asked * not to begin this 'clash of cultures'. The pope even sent a special envoy to Washington to speak w/ * and hand deliver a letter to GW from the pope himself.

As I recall, that visit from the envoy lasted all of about 20 min (tops).

It appeared to ME at the time, that the pope's view on the 'Iraq situation' wasn't getting through to the 'flock', including many/most of the Catholic priests, sisters, and 'lay people' who do so much to make the church what it is.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Pope John Paul IV???

Do you know seomthing we don't?

[T_i_B]

14. Many people in the church were opposed to the war

Indeed it was noticable how many men of the cloth were at the Febuary 15th Demo. The position many based their opposition to the war on is summed up very nicely in this article by the Bishop of Oxford. I strongly reccomend taking a look at this explanation of the Just War doctrine.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,768874,00.html

Some dismiss the 'Just War' tradition as outmoded. But although the context has dramatically changed, with nuclear weapons and terrorism, the principles remain unchanged.

Others, understandably but wrongly, see this tradition only as a spurious device for justifying military action which would be undertaken anyway.

What it provides, however, is a set of criteria by which a potential military action might be judged morally licit or illicit. If a potential military incursion into Iraq is judged morally unjustified, it will in fact be on the basis of criteria which have long been part of Just War thinking.

The main task of the Churches at a time like this is to put forward and press these criteria, probing and testing whether or not they might be met. In the end political and military judgments have to be made and those who hold power have the awesome task of making them. Churchmen do not hold power and do not have to make those decisions. But on the basis of what we have and know at the moment those criteria are not being met.

[PsychoDad]

17. Many

Many people, who are now accused of remaining silent, spoke up after 9/11 and in objection of the war.

The voices were silenced by a media thirsting for the ratings a war would bring.

When Bush, et al, are accused for this war, let us remember that our media was a very willing bedfellow. A whore that was more than willing to sell out and plunge our nation into a war that has murdered hundreds of thousands and continues to claim American lives everyday.

Without the press, bush would have never been able to comit this act.

[emad]

15. Don't you just LOVE those Christian services for the military,

especially in light of one of their prime directives - the commandment that says THOU SHALT NOT KILL...

which has never been qualified by any coda (such as "but it's ok if it's a Just War/crusade/bunch of Iraqis" etc etc...)

[0007]

18. Has junior attended a funeral

of any American soldier?

I don't believe I've ever heard.

[Supply Side Jesus]

22. I think your are right

never attended a funeral for his fodder.
and only recently did he visit any troops at the hospital.

[omshanti]

23. can you imagine if someone heckled Duh-bya?

If someone shouted "you bastard" at Duh-bya, they would probably be hauled off to an 'undisclosed location' under the Patriot Act.

[Classical_Liberal]

19. The Catholic Leadership were not silent on this

The pope denounced the war, and so did the American Council of Bishops.

[omshanti]

24. I remember the Pope sending an envoy

to ask Dubya not to start the war. I remember it very clearly because the media hyped it up before the meeting took place, and if indeed the meeting did take place, the media was strangely silent afterwards.

Clearly the likes of the UN, the Pope and Nelson Mandela have no influence on our Arrogant Leader. Clearly Duh-bya and his cabal know better than everybody else on earth and don't have to listen to no-one.

I just wish that the Bush Cabal's arrogance wasn't being repaid by Iraqi civilian and US soldier deaths.