Monsignor Giussani Views the Debates over Iraq

MILAN, Italy, FEB. 27, 2003 (Zenit.org).- The debates over what to do about Iraq are linked, says the founder of Communion and Liberation, to an "educational problem."

Monsignor Luigi Giussani summarized the debate on Tuesday in a letter to the director of the newspaper Corriere della Sera.

"It is true that all nations must submit to the judgment of the U.N.," he wrote, "but given that it seems impossible to reach a satisfactory decision for both sides, then Iraq could say: 'As the U.N. is at the service of the U.S. and England, we will not respect its decisions'; and, on the other hand, the U.S. and England could say: 'We will respect the U.N. only if it supports our positions.'"

"In this way, both would have their reasons to say: 'Let the war happen,'" added the founder of the ecclesial movement.

He continued: "To come out of such a terrible equivocation, it is necessary to acknowledge that it is not enough to discuss or agree -- as certain peace 'lovers' maintain, who later turn out to be the worst warmongers -- because each one of the belligerents starts from the conviction that the other wants the war to defend or destroy a primacy of power."

"The solution is not in aligning oneself with one or another band," Monsignor Giussani wrote. "When society finds itself at a decisive crossroads, approval or condemnation, in the first place, it should be aware of the urgency to educate young people and adults, that is, all men, because we all need to enhance our capacity for justice and goodness.

"If it refuses to educate in a true appreciation of man and, therefore, in real justice, humanity remains trapped by the disasters that it itself courts. And it sees itself obliged to address them by taking recourse to instruments of death to justify the same error it seeks to combat: the use of war."

"It is really about an educational problem and the only one who says so is the Pope, as the court that is needed to judge another calls for an education in real unity and justice," the monsignor concluded.