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Methodist Bishops Repent Iraq War 'Complicity'
by K. J. Smith, 11/11/05

WASHINGTON -- Ninety-five bishops from President Bush's church said
Thursday they repent their "complicity" in the "unjust and immoral"
invasion and occupation of Iraq.

"In the face of the United States administration's rush toward military
action based on misleading information, too many of us were silent,"
said
a statement of conscience signed by more than half of the 164 retired
and
active United Methodist bishops worldwide.

President Bush is a member of the United Methodist Church, according to
various published biographies. The White House did not return a request
for comment on the bishops' statement.

Although United Methodist leadership has opposed the Iraq war in the
past,
this is the first time that individual bishops have confessed to a
personal failure to publicly challenge the buildup to the war.

The signatures were also an instrument for retired bishops to make their
views known, said bishop Joseph H. Yeakel, who served in the
Baltimore-Washington area from 1984 to 1996. The current bishop for the
Baltimore-Washington area, John R. Schol, also signed the statement.

The statement avoids making accusations, said retired Bishop Kenneth L.
Carder, instructor at Duke University's divinity school and an author of
the document.

"We would have made the statement regardless of who the president was.
It
was not meant to be either partisan or to single out any one person,"
Carder said. "It was the recognition that we are all part of the
decision
and we are all part of a democratic society. We all bear
responsibility."

Stith, who spent more than three years after his retirement working in
East Africa -- including with Rwandan refugees -- said going to war over
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks did not solve the real problems behind them.

The real issues are that much of the world lives in poverty, desperation
and depression, he said, while an affluent minority of the world often
oppresses them. Americans need to take responsibility for their world,
Stith said.

"To ignore things and to assume that persons in the government have all
knowledge is to reject our franchise and our democracy," Stith said.

About six weeks ago, Carder discussed the idea of a public statement
with
other colleagues who "had concerns" about the war, and the idea just
grew,
Carder said.

Last week, the statement circulated during a biannual meeting of the
Council of Bishops, "and before the week was out, we had 95 bishops,"
Carder said.

In their statement, the bishops pledged to pray daily for the end of the
war, for its American and Iraqi victims and for American leaders to find
"truth, humility and policies of peace through justice."

"We confess our preoccupation with institutional enhancement and limited
agendas while American men and women are sent to Iraq to kill and be
killed, while thousands of Iraqi people needlessly suffer and die, while
poverty increases and preventable diseases go untreated," the statement
said.

Some bishops declined to sign their names, although they supported the
statement, Carder said.

This week's statement follows years of public opposition to the Iraq war
by the church.

In May 2004, the Council of Bishops passed a resolution that "lamented
the
continued warfare" and asked the U.S. government to seek international
help to rebuild Iraq. The church's women's division called for an end to
the war in 2002. And in 2001, the church's head of social policy, Jim
Winkler, said the push for war was "without any justification according
to
the teachings of Christ," according to a report by The (London)
Observer.

Public approval of the war has steadily declined since the United States
invaded Iraq in March 2003. At the time, seven of 10 Americans said the
U.S. did the right thing. By this October, only four of 10 Americans
did,
according to CBS polls.

About 11 million people belong to the United Methodist Church, including
200,000 in the Baltimore-Washington area.

Carder and Stith said they hoped their statement would encourage more
people to think about peacemaking.

"The only solution seems to be to stay the course. But if you're on the
wrong course, you don't stay the course," Carder said. "At the heart of
the Christian faith is the willingness to acknowledge mistakes."

They should all be sent to Gitmo and tortured until they apologize to Bush
and support the war again.