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By KASIA KOPEC kkopec@leader.net
Sunday, March 09, 2003 Page: 1A
Two weeks ago, the Rev. Paul Mullen, pastor of a suburban Mountain Top
church, found himself entangled in the passionate debate that has captivated
the world: Whether to pursue war or peaceful alternatives to disarm Iraq.
Mullen had invited a fellow priest, a representative of Pax Christi, an
international Catholic peace organization, to address his St. Jude’s
congregation at each of the weekend’s six Masses.
But after the first, a 4 p.m. service on Saturday, two veterans approached
Mullen to say they were offended by the message of nonviolence.
“You could see the pain on their faces,” said Mullen, who over dinner
later that evening asked his invited guest not to speak at the subsequent
Masses.
It was a difficult decision, but one Mullen said his guest accepted without
protest.
“He’s a truly nonviolent person, he didn’t even argue,” said Mullen, who
asked the Pax Christi priest not be identified so he won’t be prevented from
delivering his message to other area churches.
Mullen said some parishioners said they wished he had allowed the visiting
priest to talk about alternatives to war. Other members of the parish of
nearly 7,000 voiced support for the 30-year priest’s approach.
“I’ve heard both,” Mullen said. “Some people said I should have
retracted everything he said and others asked why can’t we preach the
Gospel?”
In the end, Mullen, who said he is personally struggling with whether war
against Iraq is justified, decided his parish wasn’t ready for the Pax Christi
message, which advocates total nonviolence.
Instead, Mullen talked about his dilemma, the stance taken by Pope John
Paul II, and the Catholic Church’s just-war doctrine.
“It’s not an easy issue,” said Mullen. “On one hand the pope has taken a
very strong position, calling war a failure for humanity.
“On the other hand you look at what Saddam (Hussein) has done to his own
people and you know something has to be done to stop him.”
The question of what should be done is one Rabbi Larry Kaplan has addressed
with his congregation at Temple Israel in Wilkes-Barre on four or five
occasions during the past couple of months.
“It’s a tough and tense subject,” said Kaplan, who prefaces his talks
with an acknowledgement that though he supports going to war in Iraq he has no
personal stake in the decision about whether military force is used. “I’m not
going over there with our troops, my children aren’t going over there; the
truth is, I’m not in the line of fire at all.
“That being said, as a Jew I have a strong connection to Israel, and I
think you’ll find even the most liberal Israelis believe Saddam poses a very
real threat to them.”
For that reason, and because Kaplan doesn’t believe diplomacy or
inspections alone will be enough to disarm Iraq and remove Hussein from
office, he publicly supports President George Bush’s plans to use force if and
when necessary.
“Peace sounds good to all of us; we all want peace,” Kaplan said. “The
problem is we don’t have peace now and not going to war doesn’t leave peace.”
Mahmoud Fahmy, a retired Wilkes University professor and a practicing
Muslim, will join Kaplan in an interfaith dialogue on the subject at 2 p.m.
today at Wilkes’ Marts Center. The dialogue will include representatives from
each of the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which
Fahmy said is unique from the other two in that it’s more free form.
“In Islam, there is no church, so to speak,” Fahmy said. “You can pray
anywhere as long as the place you’re praying is clean. So while we have
mosques, they are more gathering places, places for socialization, where a
church or synagogue is a place Christians or Jews go every week for prayer.”
Fahmy, who calls himself a proud Muslim and a proud American, agrees with
Kaplan that war is necessary, but he said the issue isn’t as clear cut as it’s
been made out to be.
“I think the situation is bigger, more, beyond Saddam and Iraq,” said
Fahmy, a native of Egypt, who has been an American citizen for more than 45
years. “To understand what it is all about, you have to understand that
historically, whoever controls the heart of Asia, the Middle East and
Southeast Asia, controls the world.
“This war is not about weapons of mass destruction, it’s about
reorganizing the power structure in the Middle East.”
Fahmy said the path to peace begins with ousting Hussein, but it doesn’t
end there.
“The first we have to do is bridge the gap between the haves and the
have-nots. … The second thing we have to do address hot spots around the
world … and the third thing that has to be done, the thing I’m most
interested in is, religious people, around the world have to get together and
discuss what’s happening and what has to be done to bring about peace.”
Fahmy said though there are many differences among religions world wide,
there is much in common too, and it’s those similarities that need to be
brought to the surface.
“Extremism, fanaticism, terrorism will always exist,” Fahmy said. “It
can’t be eliminated, but it can be minimized and education, dialogue, that is
the only way to accomplish that goal.”
Kasia Kopec, a Times Leader staff writer, can be reached at 970-7436.