An Editorial Statement

Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk and poet: "If we attempt to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening our own self-understanding, our own freedom, integrity and capacity to love, we will not have anything to give to others. We will communicate nothing but the contagion of our own obsessions, our aggressiveness, our own ego-centered ambitions."

We, in solidarity with Rowan Williams, the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, along with numerous other communities of faith, including the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches, believe that unilateral action on the part of the United States against Iraq would be immoral and unwise. Unilateralism undermines the fragile structures of international relations. We pray that the United States will see itself as a member of the family of nations and demonstrate its care for and accountability to that family.

Intervention in Iraq may become necessary but not without the United Nations, not without factoring in the possibility of unintended consequences, and not without further conversations with Muslim countries, lest the divide of hatred grows larger. Initiating war against a sovereign country where no triggering event warrants such action establishes a precedent that could invite chaos among nations in the future. A pre-emptive strike that initiates a war is not in keeping with the history of our country; nor is it even in conformity with a religious understanding of a "just" war. To go to war now would require nothing less than the consensus of the world's nations.

The Right Reverend William E Swing, Bishop of California
The Very Reverend Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
and the Cathedral Chapter