The Catholic Primate, Archbishop Seán Brady, has prayed "that talk of war may not become a self-fulfilling prophecy, an irreversible and irrevocable dynamic" writes Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Preaching yesterday at St Malachy's Church in Armagh, he said "it would be wrong, on St Patrick's Day, 2003, if we were to concentrate only on Ireland and the Irish. We are all God's children, whether American or Iraqi, Muslim or Christian, white or dark. Today we think in a special way of the international community and especially of Iraq, where Patrick is not well known.
"We pray for those who have to make very serious and far-reaching decisions at this time. We recall those on the front line, civilian and non-civilian alike. May peace and justice for all in our world become a reality in our time and in the meantime may this hoped-for reality be actively pursued," he said.
He said that "the forging of peace requires sacrifice on all sides - it involves winning without winners".
Many global commentators were "fond of citing the League of Nations as an example of failure in peacemaking. The principal reason for the league's failure was that the participants in the peace process after the first World War ignored the wise advice of the league's founder, US President Woodrow Wilson - incidentally a man with Northern Irish roots. Wilson warned that a successful peace 'must be a peace without victory. Only a peace between equals can last', " he said.
On the North he said it was "regrettable that a final resolution to recent difficulties in the peace process in our country has not yet been reached".
But "a lengthy peace process is preferable to the long war," he said. Current problems reflected "a lack of belief - a lack of faith in the future and trust in each other."
That, he felt, was understandable "given the sad history of Northern Ireland." But he urged "all those participating in the talks to have faith in their adversaries and to trust in whatever agreement is reached".
The former Catholic primate, Cardinal Cahal Daly, prayed in the US yesterday that "even at this eleventh hour, war may be averted." Preaching at Mass in Notre Dame University, Indiana, he prayed also for a "great coalition against poverty".
