Ecumenical News International, Switzerland
Sept 22 2004

Trading, and possession, of nuclear weapons denounced by WCC head

Peter Kenny

Geneva (ENI). Revelations that nuclear weapons technology have been
traded are a scandal, but it is equally disgraceful that countries
possessing nuclear arsenals are unwilling to renounce their use and
are even developing terrifying, new technologies, the head of the
World Council of Churches, Samuel Kobia said on Tuesday.

Kobia, who is general secretary of the world church grouping, said
that the United Nations has called on all its member states to
observe 21 September as the International Day of Peace and the WCC
observed it in accordance with the International Day of Prayer for
Peace.

“Nuclear proliferation is an outrage to all humanity,” said Kobia,
noting that “violence as the opposite of peace, as a damage to the
image of God in us, takes many forms, including poverty.

“Poverty degrades human dignity and the human spirit,” said Kobia.
“Indifference to poverty and to the aspirations of those who have
been subjected to historical humiliation is as big a threat to global
peace as terrorism.”

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Orthodox
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I of Constantinople, and the head
of the Evangelical Church in Germany Bishop Wolfgang Huber were among
more than a dozen Christian leaders and peace-makers from all over
the world who affirmed churches’ and faith communities’ work for
peace and justice in a series of messages broadcast and Web cast
around the world.

Tutu said: “God weeps over God’s world, aching because of conflict in
Darfur, in Beslan, in Harare, in Colombia, in Jerusalem, in Belfast.”
The retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town said, God depends on
Christians to use their “influence on the powerful to use their power
for justice, for peace, for compassion, for gentleness, for caring,
for sharing”.

Patriarch Bartholomeos, who has spiritual authority over the world’s
300 million Orthodox Christians said in his message: “All of the
ideologies and convictions on the necessity and effectiveness of
violence are wrong and are to be condemned.”

His message was backed by Aram I, Catholicos of the Armenian
Apostolic Church and WCC central committee moderator who said: “Peace
is an essential dimension of our Christian life and witness. Peace is
a gift of God given to humanity through the incarnation of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Peace is also a God-given vocation that must be
fulfilled in obedient response to the call of God.”

:: Peace messages of church leaders Web cast on: