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I've found three different articles on this website in today's release. They all share the same tone. This is not good. I feel really bad for our Catholic military men and women.

War Would Be a "Crime," Prelate Charges

VATICAN, Mar 17, 03 (CWNews.com) -- Archbishop Renato Martino has argued against war on Iraq in the strongest language yet used by a Vatican official.
The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told a Vatican Radio audience that a war against Iraq would be "a crime against peace that would cry out for God's vengeance."

Archbishop Martino-- who was until recently the Vatican representative at the UN-- has been among the most outspoken prelates in Rome in his opposition to US plans for military action. He reacted strongly to the news that the US had withdrawn an proposal for UN approval of military plans. The archbishop complained, "To a country that is asking for bread after 12 years [of international economic sanctions], we are preparing to give 3,000 bombs."

If war does break out, Archbishop Martino said, "the Church will continue to insist, all the more strongly, on the necessity and urgency of peace." He added that, "as always, the Church will be the Good Samaritan," providing relief for those who suffer because of the war.

In a separate Vatican Radio interview, Iraqi Bishop Shlemon Warduni, an auxiliary in Baghdad, called upon international leaders to "have pity on the children if Iraq, the young people, the aged, and the women-- who are in desperate need."

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Vatican: Bush Taking Heavy Moral Burden
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VATICAN, Mar 18, 03 (CWNews.com) -- US President George W. Bush has assumed a heavy moral burden by saying his intention to go to war against Iraq, the Vatican has warned.
In response to the American leader's announcement that the US will soon launch a military assault, the Holy See issued a terse one-sentence statement: "Whoever decides that all peaceful means that international law has put at our disposition have been exhausted assumes a serious responsibility before God, his conscience and history."

As far as I am concerned, any religious official that attempts to order soldiers not to discharge their duties is guilty of treason, if an American citizen, and of sedition and/or levying war against the United States if not an American citizen. Not acceptable. This was always the Know Nothings and other Protestants fear of Rome: that the Pope (or bishops) would demand loyalty above loyalty to the Constitution of the US.