Fearing a genocide of Christians, the Vatican has given its approval to US military air strikes in Iraq — a rare exception to its policy of peaceful conflict resolution.
Permanent Observer of Holy See to the UN in Geneva Silvano Tomasi last weekend supported US air strikes aimed at halting the advance of Islamic State militants, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, calling for “intervention now, before it is too late.”
“Military action might be necessary,” he said.
While the Vatican vocally disapproved of the US-led campaign in Iraq in 2003 and last year’s plan for air strikes on Syria — fearing both might make the situations worse for Christians on the ground — fears of ethnic cleansing by Islamists has forced a policy change.
Tomasi’s appeal followed warnings from church leaders in Iraq that the persecution is becoming a genocide, with urgent help needed to protect Christians and Yezidis in the north of the country, where tens of thousands have been forced to flee for their lives.
Military support was needed “to stop the wolf getting to the flock to kill, eat, destroy,” Rabban al-Qas, the Chaldean bishop of Amadiyah, told Vatican radio.
“Those supplying arms and funds to the fundamentalists, [and] the countries tacitly supporting them, must be revealed,” Tomasi said, while Qas pointed the finger at Saudi Arabia.
Others, such as the Iraq-based leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Louis Sako, called for wider intervention, saying the US strikes offer little hope the jihadists would be defeated.
“The position of the American President [Barack] Obama only to give military assistance to protect Erbil is disappointing,” said Sako, who has been trying to persuade his flock to resist attempts to drive them out of Iraq.
The Vatican had been accused of being slow to react, with Pope Francis limiting himself to calls for a peaceful resolution, expressing on Sunday his “dismay and disbelief” over the violence and calling for an “effective political solution.”
The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue on Tuesday called for Muslim leaders to denounce the brutality of Islamic State militants, saying there was no possible justification for their “unspeakable crimes.”
The council said Islamic State militants were guilty of the “heinous practice of decapitation, crucifixion and stringing up bodies in public places,” insisting that “no reason, certainly not religion, could justify such barbarism.”
Religious watchers said Tomasi’s support for air strikes did not mean a change in Vatican policy on war spearheaded by Francis.
“There has been no change in thinking. The Vatican’s take is that the reality now is apocalyptic and there is no alternative,” said Vatican expert John Allen, who writes for the Boston Globe.
“They believed overthrowing [then-Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein in 2003 or [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad in 2013 would make things worse for Christians. In 2014, what could be worse for them than the Islamic State’s victory?” he said.
The Catholic Church’s catechism defines the concept of a “just war,” which includes the prevention of genocide among other war crimes.
For Sandro Magister, who writes for La Stampa’s Vatican Insider, the crisis should have elicited a stronger stance from the pope: “His timid response has been very surprising. He talks about the persecution of Christians in Iraq as if it was some sort of natural disaster.”
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
RSS