Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger does not believe that a unilateral military attack by the United States against Iraq would be morally justifiable, under the current circumstances.

According to the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - who acknowledged that political questions are not within his competence - "the United Nations is the [institution] that should make the final decision."

"The fact that the United Nations is seeking the way to avoid war, seems to me to demonstrate with enough evidence that the damage would be greater than the values one hopes to save," the Cardinal said.

He said that "the UN can be criticised" from several points of view, but "it is the instrument created after the war for the coordination - including moral - of politics."

The "concept of a 'preventive war' does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church," Cardinal Ratzinger noted.

Zenit/Vatican Information Service/Catholic World News
24 September 2002