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Pope John Paul II's resistance to the invasion of Iraq
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April 2 2005.



After 26 dramatic years of pontificate, His Holiness John Paul II died today.

His last years were characterized by a courageous and principled opposition ---
on religious, moral, and political grounds ---
to the US led war on Iraq and its ideological foundations.

The latter consisted in justifying the "war on terrorism", as a legitimate response to the so-called
"Clash of Civilizations", between the West predominantly Christian on the one hand the Muslim
world on the other hand.

Following his death, we now see many world leaders --- starting with George W. Bush ---
who maliciously attempted to thwart Pope John Paul's antiwar stance,
pouring gallons of crocodile tears over the TV cameras.

However, this media propaganda cannot overshadow the fact that John Paul II’s last big battle was
against the Bush administration's “preemptive war” doctrine.

The Pontiff and his closest collaborators resisted an unprecedented assault by the men of the would
be new roman emperor on the Potomac and told directly Bush and his minions that their war was an
“unjust war.”

Needless to say, Pope John Paul II's rejection of America's military agenda contributed immensely
to weakening the Pentagon's propaganda campaign.

The issue of his succession in the Vatican is, therefore, a matter of paramount importance for
Catholics and non-Catholics.

Will John Paul's principled stance prevail or will his successor succumb to the political pressures
of the Bush administration?

What will be criteria for selecting his successor?

Will the new Pope be chosen as a result of US pressures?

Or will the successor of John Paul II follow and broaden his moral strategy of defending humanity
from the imperial predators?

Will the successor accept the proposal to become the “chaplain of the new world order” that,
reportedly, Bush senior made unsuccessfully to the Pope during the first Gulf war?

Or will he draw --- from the root of Christianity and the experience of the Church ---
the language and the strategy to evoke the resistance of the quasi totality of the peoples of the
world to the new US led empire?

Will he be an instrumentum regni or an instrumentum Christi?

The world has entered now into a critical and momentous period filled with existential dangers of
apocalyptic proportions;
but, at the same time, we have the possibility to create a concrete alternative to this descent into
the Inferno.

In this context, and as a c