Speaking Sunday with BBC Radio 4's program "Sunday," Archbishop Vincent Nichols said that something must be done in Syria, but military intervention is not it.
"Nobody's suggesting inactivity," said the president of the bishops' conference of England and Wales. "To suggest it is military action or nothing is misleading."
Instead, the archbishop called for a "genuine leadership" that will recognize the halting of the Syria conflict as "the most important thing facing the world" such that "other issues have to be put to one side."
He called on Russia, France, Britain and the United States to "act together and put differences aside."
"The fate of six million more people depends on this," Archbishop Nichols emphasized. "It's not a simple question of military action or nothing."