In 2002 Pax Christi, with the help of theologians and members, issued a Christian Declaration on the Morality and Legality of war with Iraq . “ It is our considered view that an attack on Iraq would be both immoral and illegal, and that eradicating the dangers posed by malevolent dictators and terrorists can be achieved only by tackling the root causes of the disputes themselves. It is deplorable that the world’s most powerful nations continue to regard war and the threat of war as an acceptable instrument of foreign policy, in violation of the ethos of both the United Nations and Christian moral teaching. The way to peace does not lie through war but through the transformation of structures of injustice and of the politics of exclusion, and that is the cause to which the West should be devoting its technological, diplomatic and economic resources.”
Between June and August 2002 it gained more than 3,000 signatures of Church leaders, academics, theologians and concerned Christians, attracting the interest of the national and international press. It was presented to Tony Blair on 6 August 2002. Read more here and here
