‘Campaign for world peace is a political but a non-partisan act’

The campaign for world peace "is a political but non-partisan act."

Thus was the reply of Novaliches Archbishop Teodoro Bacani yesterday to criticisms from Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) officials who lamented that Sunday’s Prayer for World Peace rally at the Quirino Grandstand in Luneta was "politicized."

In a press conference, Bacani, along with Vice President Teofisto Guingona and leaders of the various groups opposed to a US attack on Iraq, announced the holding of yet another "Nation-wide Prayer Assembly for Peace" on Friday, also at the Luneta Park in Manila.

"Everything we are doing here is political in a sense," Bacani said. "Politics is included in the scheme of religion and religion aspires for the goodness of people here on earth and not only in heaven."

Bacani was reacting to the statements of INC Executive Minister Eraño Manalo who deplored that government officials led buy President Arroyo "came uninvited" to last Sunday’s prayer rally and "even delivered her own political speech written in the guise of a prayer expressing support for the US military action on Iraq."

"What was supposed to be an occasion for prayer turned out to be a political circus," Manalo said. He said that "the unwelcomed participation of politicians and their uncalled-for speeches made a parody of prayer" and while delegates to the rally prayed for peace and eschewed war as the only option to resolve the US-Iraq conflict, Mrs. Arroyo’s prayer focused on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his country’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction."

Bacani said the scheduled rally on Friday, dubbed "Let there be peace: Stop the US war on Iraq," will echo the words of Pope John Paul II calling on the United States not to stage an unprovoked "pre-emptive strike" on Iraq because such actions would be "unjustified and immoral."

Among those who will speak during the rally on Friday are Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin and the Vice President. Some 70 organizations representing inter-faith religious groups, school administrators, students, laborers, peasants and professionals will participate in the rally, Bacani said.