ARE YOU REALLY A CATHOLIC....THEN ACT, DON'T SIT THERE. WRITE YOUR CONGRESS PERSON, PUT SIGNS ON YOUR CAR AND LAWN....NO WAR!! THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO SOLVE PROBLEMS. LIVE WHAT THE POPE SPEAKS! STAND UP AGAINST WAR IN IRAQ! Be Christ's voice!

Pope Calls on World to Avert Conflict in Iraq 53 minutes ago

!By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul (news - web sites), in his Christmas Day message to the world, urged the world to avert a conflict in Iraq and appealed for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

In his appeal, his first public reference to the crisis in Iraq, the pope said believers in all religions should build peace.

Looking frail but resplendent in gold vestments, the 82-year-old Polish pontiff said they were called on "in the Middle East, to extinguish the ominous smoldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided."

The Vatican (news - web sites) believes that any action in Iraq must be approved by the United Nations (news - web sites).

The message of hope was echoed by Christians at church services around the world, even as the United States stepped up preparations for war in Iraq and worshippers in Asia were nervous over possible fresh acts of terror by Islamic militants.

In Iraq, the country's Christian minority put on a brave face to celebrate Christmas but there was little joy.

The mood was somber as President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), in a Christmas message to Iraqis, warned the drums of a U.S.-led war against Iraq were beating louder.

Some Iraqis said they were celebrating Christmas as an act of defiance.

"We celebrate Christmas and practice our normal life despite the American threats and the embargo," said a Baghdad restaurant owner.

In Bethlehem, traditional birthplace of Jesus, hundreds of Palestinians made their way through rain-swept streets to mass at the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square, a brightly lit center of festivities in happier days.

An Israeli army pullback to the outskirts of the Palestinian-ruled West Bank town failed to bring much joy to residents who had been largely confined to their homes under military curfew during a month-long reoccupation.

"It is the saddest Christmas ever for us here," Estella Mubarak, a 60-year-old grandmother, said inside the church built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born. "The worst thing is we cannot afford to buy any presents for our children."

ARAFAT BARRED FROM BETHLEHEM

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) was but a ghost of Christmas past at Midnight Mass in Bethlehem, his empty chair a symbol of holiday gloom for Palestinians in a town ringed by Israeli armor.

Israel for the second year barred him from making the short trip from his battered headquarters in Ramallah. It accuses Arafat of fomenting violence in an uprising for statehood, an allegation he denies.

The Latin Patriarch in the Holy Land, Michel Sabbah, issued a strong appeal for an end to strife and freedom for Palestinians from Israeli occupation.

But violence continued on Christmas Day. Israeli soldiers killed a senior militant from the Islamic group Hamas in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.

In Latin America, several thousand people opposed to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez prayed for peace during an open-air mass in Caracas as a strike kept a stranglehold on the nation's vital oil industry.

Christians in Muslim countries in Asia flocked to churches for services that passed off peacefully despite concerns over bomb attacks. Police had considerably tightened security in the run-up to Christmas.

In India, armed robbers attacked a church during a Christmas service, injuring at least six people, including a priest, police said.

Around 20 attackers armed with daggers, home-made pistols and crude bombs attacked the church in Maliapota in West Bengal state, where hundreds had gathered to attend a midnight mass, N.C. Ghosh, deputy inspector general of police, told Reuters.

ASIA PEACEFUL

In Indonesia, Christians packed churches across the world's most populous Muslim nation.

The mood was festive but tinged with somberness in the wake of the violence that has bedeviled Indonesia, such as church bombings two years ago that killed 19 people and the Bali bomb attacks in October that left almost 200 dead, mostly foreigners.

"It should be that Christmas does not make people scared like it does these days. It seems that anywhere we go, we are full of fear," priest Yong Ohoitimur told worshippers at a church in Manado, a largely Christian city in Indonesia's east.

While Indonesia had been peaceful over Christmas, a bomb in the volatile southern Philippines on Tuesday killed 13 people including a Muslim town mayor and several of his colleagues.

Security forces in the Philippines, a Roman Catholic nation of 80 million people, were on high alert on Wednesday for attacks on crowded churches and malls by Islamic militants.

In Muslim Pakistan, up to nine people were wounded on Tuesday by a small explosion near a hotel in the city of Rawalpindi, close to the capital Islamabad, officials said.

-- TOM (tjmax@www.com), December 25, 2002

Answers

In his Christmas, 2002, "Urbi et Orbi" (to the City and to the World) message, which I watched live not long ago, the pope did not mention Iraq (contrary to what is stated above). The pope did not tell the American (or other) people to "stand up against war in Iraq." What he actually said was:
"Believers of all religions, together with men and women of good will, by outlawing all forms of intolerance and discrimination, are called to build peace:
in the Holy Land, above all, to put an end once and for all to the senseless spiral of blind violence,
and in the Middle East, to extinguish the ominous smouldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided;
in Africa too, where devastating famines and tragic internal conflicts are aggravating the already precarious conditions of entire peoples, although here and there signs of hope are present;
in Latin America, in Asia, in other parts of the world, where political, economic and social crises disturb the serenity of many families and nations."

The apparent reference to the potential conflict in the Middle East was one reference among six to areas of concern. "ALL" are called on -- including (and I would say, primarily) the offending nation, Iraq -- to put forth a joint effort to avoid further conflict. However, the pope knows that Catholics are not required to be cowards, doormats, or pacifists.

The text of the pope's address is already online here.

-- (Let's.Do.@What's.Just), December 25, 2002.