Terrorism
«From September 11 to Iraq»
Speaking at the “Giornate internazionali del pensiero filosofico” [International Study Days on Philosophical Thought], organized by the Fondazione Liberal in Trieste, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger answered journalists’ questions concerning the currently debated war against Iraq
by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
“It is important not to attribute simplistically what happened on September 11 to Islam,” the Cardinal replied to journalists. “It would be a great error. It is true that the history of Islam also contains a tendency to violence, but there are other aspects, too: a real openness to the will of God. It is thus important to help the positive line, which does exist in its history, to prevail and to have sufficient strength to win out over the other tendency.”
But could the currently debated war against Iraq compromise the efforts that are being made in this direction?
Ratzinger replied that political questions are outside his sphere of competence, but he explained his ideas with great precision. “Does this war,” he was asked, “have a moral justification?”
“In this situation, certainly not,” answered the Cardinal. “There is the United Nations. That is the proper authority for making the decisive choice. It is necessary for the community of peoples to decide, not an individual power. And the fact that the United Nations are looking for a way to avoid war seems to me to demonstrate sufficiently that the damage would be greater than the values that one seeks to save.” The Cardinal did not hide his conviction that “the UN can be criticized” from various points of view, but “it is the instrument created after the war to provide a coordination, also from the moral standpoint, of politics,” he pointed out. The journalists continued to press him, asking the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith if the Catechism of the Catholic Church permits “preventive war” in exceptional cases.
“The concept of preventive war does not appear in the Catechism,” Ratzinger stated, adding in clarification, “We cannot simply say that the Catechism does not justify war, but it is true that the Catechism has developed a doctrine which on one hand does not deny that there are values and populations that must be defended, in certain circumstances, and on the other proposes a very precise doctrine on the limits of these possibilities.”
