Bishop honored for calling war against Iraq immoral

Published: 2003-10-23

NOTRE DAME, Ind. (CNS) -- The U.S. bishop who instructed Catholics that the war in Iraq was unjust and that cooperation in the war was a mortal sin was honored Oct. 11 by the Catholic Peace Fellowship at a conference at the University of Notre Dame. The Catholic Peace Fellowship, originally founded in 1964 with the help of Dorothy Day and Fathers Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit, and Thomas Merton, a Trappist, gave its first St. Marcellus Award to Bishop John M. Botean of the Romanian Diocese of St. George in Canton, Ohio. In a letter issued last Lent, Bishop Botean instructed the Catholics in his care that "any direct participation and support for this war against the people of Iraq is objectively grave evil, a matter of mortal sin." The bishop concluded "with moral certainty" that the war does not meet the minimum requirements of the Catholic just-war theory. The award was given in "grateful recognition of his courageous moral leadership as a true peacemaker in the Catholic Church."

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