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“L'Osservatore Romano” and “Avvenire”: The Two Discordant Voices of the Church of Rome
The Pope’s newspaper and that of his vicar are speaking different languages with regard to the war in Iraq. But the realists have the upper hand, even in the Secretariat of State

by Sandro Magister • VERSIONE ITALIANA •

ROMA – Above is the front page of the February 24-25, 2003 edition of the “Osservatore Romano,” showing the word “never” framed by the words of John Paul II at the Angelus on Sunday, February 23.

The media have almost unanimously interpreted this “never” as an absolute “No” from the Pope to the war against Iraq being threatened by the United States and its allies.

Even more so as the next day, the Holy See’s foreign minister, Archbishop Jean Louis Tauran, seemed to confirm this absolute “No” to war in a speech in Rome on Monday the 24th. At least, that’s the way almost all the newspapers reported it.

There was a conspicuous exception, however: the newspaper “Avvenire,” which is owned by the Italian bishops’ conference and very close to the thought of Camillo Cardinal Ruini, the president of the conference and the Pope’s vicar.

On Tuesday the 25th, just when the “Osservatore Romano” was on the newsstands with its gigantic “never,” “Avvenire” came out with this headline on its front page: “UN, the United States is Picking Up the Pace.” And just below it: “Archbishop Tauran: Only the UN Can Decide.”

Inside, the article on the Vatican foreign minister’s speech carried a title that stretched across the page: “Tauran: The UN Has the Last Word.” On another page, the words of the Pope at the Angelus were given this title: “We Christians Are the Guardians of Peace. ‘No’ to the Logic of Terrorism and War.” The Osservatore’s huge “never” was reported as a news item.

Moreover, in the same edition of “Avvenire,” on its very popular “letters to the editor” page, the leading letter with a reply by the paper’s editor carried the title: “No Peace without Justice.”

In the reply, editor Dino Boffo, after describing the horrors of Saddam Hussein’s regime, made this conclusion:

“We would wish that not even one Iraqi or one American soldier should die in a conflict that, fortunately, is yet to be fought, and therefore, it can be hoped, may never begin. But can we meanwhile overlook the million Iraqis and Kurds who have already been massacred? Are lives of unequal value? Can peace fall into place without the conditions for justice? [...] As a citizen, I find the theory of ‘preventive war’ unsustainable, and I hope the United States will reconsider it soon. But I believe that in some circumstances the use of force to disarm an aggressor and restore justice can be legitimate, or even a duty. If international bodies cannot do this, why do they exist? Here I think should be added the indication that the Pope repeated to Prime Minister Blair last Saturday: the UN is the way through which every initiative should be channeled, a responsible UN free from ambiguity and private interests. The stronger and more credible it is, the greater its power of dissuasion will be.”

From this synoptic reading of the two newspapers most representative of the Church’s leadership we can gather that on the question of Iraq two tendencies coexist, and sometimes have been at odds with each other: a idealistic one, and a realistic one.

The idealistic tendency prevails on the communicative level, at the risk of being confused with pacifism.

But the realistic tendency – in both opposing the war and admitting it as an extreme solution undertaken by the UN – is substantially the victor.

It is the realism of Angelo Cardinal Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State, when he said: “Is it worth it to irritate a billion Muslims? Is it a good idea? We will have the hostility of that whole world for decades.”

It is the realism of Archbishop Jean Louis Tauran when he admitted, near the end of his “pacifist” speech on Monday, February 24, that “the Security Council of the UN can decide that some circumstances constitute a threat to international security,” and consider the appropriate measures.

It is the realism of John Paul II with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as found in a document released by the Vatican after their meeting on Saturday, February 22: “The Holy Father hopes that, in the solution to the grave crisis in Iraq, every effort be made to avoid new divisions.” Which is as much as to say that the armed Iraqi threat is a serious problem that must be resolved, possibly without recourse to war.

Among the recent official pronouncements, the one that reflects most accurately the Vatican’s realist position is the speech given in New York on February 19, before the UN Security Council, by the Holy See’s new permanent observer to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore.

In his speech, Migliore invokes all of the possible initiatives for arriving at the peaceful disarming of Iraq. But he does not exclude war as a last resort in the context of the United Nations, in the case of “failings” on the part of Saddam Hussein:

“The Holy See encourages the parties concerned to keep the dialogue open that could bring about solutions in preventing a possible war and urges the international community to assume its responsibility in dealing with any failings by Iraq.”

Here is a link to the full text on the Vatican’s website:

> Intervention of H.E. Msgr. Celestino Migliore at the Meeting in the Chamber of the Security Council of the United Nations on the Iraqi Issue, Wednesday, 19 February 2003

One particular that the press failed to pick up on is that in this speech Migliore made public the essence of the letter from John Paul II to Saddam Hussein, delivered to Baghdad in mid-February by Roger Cardinal Etchegaray.

The letter – said Migliore – insisted on “the need for concrete commitments in faithful adherence to the relevant resolutions of the United Nations.”

And it appealed to the conscience of its recipient with these words: “because, in the end, it is conscience that will have the last word, stronger than all strategies, all ideologies and also all religions.”

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