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Thread ID: 5282 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-03-01
2003-03-01 23:17 | User Profile
Religious leaders say Bush won't hear them
RELIGION NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON
Anti-war religious leaders have met with the heads of Great Britain, France, Germany, and soon, Italy and Russia. On Wednesday, they met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, asking him to address the United Nations to oppose a war with Iraq.
But for all their diplomatic globetrotting, the church leaders have been unable to land a meeting with President Bush. I
n a snowy Capitol Hill rally with European religious leaders, the churches said that Bush can no longer ignore their moral voice.
"The only government that refuses to speak with church leaders is our own," said a frustrated Jim Winkler, the head of the social policy agency for the United Methodist Church, of which Bush is a member.
The loose-knit coalition of church leaders, coordinated by the National Council of Churches, has mounted a full-force diplomatic assault against the war. Council General Secretary Bob Edgar is a co-founder of the Win Without War coalition, which has sponsored television and print ads featuring Methodist bishops rebuking Bush's war plans.
Nearly all U.S. and European churches have voiced opposition to the war, saying that it cannot be morally justified and will sow the seeds for future terrorism.
Only the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations and selected members of the Southern Baptist Convention have voiced support for the war.
Edgar said Bush has been "isolated" by advisers who are afraid that the "third force" of church opposition will weaken the president's resolve to remove Saddam Hussein.
The White House denies that Bush is unwilling to listen to anti-war voices. "
The president meets with religious leaders on a regular basis," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told the Washington Times.
"There's nothing he would like more than to see a peaceful resolution in Iraq."
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