Europe, Headlines, Middle East & North Africa

IRAQ-ITALY: Vatican Deploys Media Forces against War

Leonardo Sacchetti

MILAN, Italy, Mar 4 2003 (IPS) - The legions of Pope John Paul II have been deployed to the battlefield to silence the drums of a war in Iraq, an army of tens of thousands of pacifists backed by the powerful Roman Catholic communications media in Italy.

“John Paul II has his own troops: the faithful,” says priest Pasquale Borgomeo, director of Vatican Radio, the pontificate’s broadcaster with programmes in 40 languages reaching the entire world.

The objective is “to offer new arguments that are not against Washington, but rather against a war that does not seem to us to be inevitable,” he told IPS.

“The future of humanity must never be determined by terrorism and the logic of war,” said John Paul himself in the pages of L’Osservatore Romano newspaper last week.

The official daily of the Vatican has a circulation of 100,000, and its editorials are often picked up by the rest of the Italian media.

In this country, where 98 percent of the 57 million inhabitants are Roman Catholic, no politician ignores the Vatican or its media outlets.

This is the first time that the pope’s entire media army has come out in force to oppose a war, in this case, the attack planned by the United States against Iraq with the motive of eliminating the presumed threat of chemical and biological weapons.

There was no comparable deployment by the Vatican in 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, when a U.S.-led coalition of 34 countries expelled the forces of Iraq from neighbouring Kuwait. Nor did the Vatican turn to its media during the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

L’Osservatore Romano and Vatican Radio represent the official viewpoint of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Following their line are Avvenire newspaper (circulation 100,000), Famiglia Cristiana weekly, and the magazines Civiltá Cattolica (of the Jesuit Order), and Jesús, with monthly circulations of around 42,000.

Even from their different perspectives, these media are united behind one concern.

“With a war against Iraq, (U.S.) president (George W.) Bush will only make the terrorism problem greater, especially in Christian communities,” warns Antonio Sciortino, editor of Famiglia Cristiana.

The editorial line of Famiglia Cristiana, guided by the Italian Bishops Conference, represents all of the country’s parishes. During the massive peace marches in Italy on Feb 15, many demonstrators waved the cover of an edition of this magazine that bore the colours of the rainbow, adopted as a symbol of peace.

In Sciortino’s opinion, “all Catholics have to know that this war against Iraq could turn into a war without end.”

As such, his publication is pressuring the Italian government of conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (a Bush ally) to withdraw support for a U.S.-led attack against Iraq.

According to the results of a poll published in mid-February in La Repubblica newspaper, nearly 60 percent of respondents said they consider the Catholic Church an institution capable of mediating to prevent the war.

The editors of the Catholic media underscore this strength of the Church. And of its organised faithful.

“Civil society is, today, the only global power capable of confronting the United States, and our journalistic effort seeks to prove that there is no Christian moral behind a preemptive war,” said Sciortino.

There are other Catholic media outlets that are not at the forefront of the anti-war effort, though they do share the anti- war opinion.

“The task of our magazine is not to mobilise civil society, but rather to inform Catholics about the political and religious spheres,” priest Michele Simone, assistant editor of Civiltá Cattolica, said in a conversation with IPS.

“Many believers are convinced that this crisis can be resolved through United Nations diplomacy,” added Simone.

“Never before have people been so aware of the enormous risks of a new war,” commented Vincenzo Marras, editor of Jesús magazine, which has been bringing such threats to the attention of its readers.

The mobilisation of the Catholic media can also be seen on the Internet.

Vinicio Albanesi, editor of Redattore Sociale, an Internet portal for Catholics working in the social sector, says the site receives around 40,000 visits per month, and in recent days there have been several on-line discussions about what it means to be a pacifist in the 21st century.

“Bush uses the Gospel to justify this war?” asks an incredulous Albanesi. “One thing is certain – no offence intended – the Protestantism that Bush practices is much more aggressive than our Catholicism.”

The Vatican’s peace strategy goes beyond social mobilisation. The pope’s representatives are working with Catholic communities in Asia and Africa – where there are countries with large Muslim populations – to promote a “friendlier” stance towards Islam.

“The efforts of the Vatican secretary for relations with states, monsignor Jean Louis Tauran, and of the pope’s special envoy, monsignor Roger Etchegaray, are concentrated on deactivating the bomb of Catholic-Muslim clashes,” explained Roberto Monteforte, an expert in Vatican affairs and a reporter for the Rome newspaper L’Unitá.

According to Monteforte, the pope believes that Bush “could drag the West into a clash of cultures with the East, with Islam.”

In addition to its campaign against Bush’s “preemptive” war, the Vatican has launched a global initiative for a day of fasting and prayer for peace, planned for Mar 5, Ash Wednesday, according to the Catholic liturgical calendar.

How far will the pope and the Catholic pacifists be willing to go? Would John Paul II go to Baghdad, for example, to protect the Iraqi population with his presence?

Activists in Italy continue to fill city squares and the Catholic media continue to publish – voicing their opposition to war.

But there is a limit. “The Church is not pacifist, but rather a builder of peace,” points out Radio Vatican’s Borgomeo. “We are only attempting to build a new culture of peace.”