US ‘Betraying’ Ideals of Pope, Says Rafsanjani
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04-09-2005
TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani paid
homage to John Paul II during Muslim prayers in Tehran yesterday and
urged the Vatican to recall the Pontiff’s ideal of Christianity which,
he said, was being betrayed by the US.
“His actions in favour of peace, his opposition to war – in
particularly the war in Iraq – the denunciation of American crimes at
Abu Ghraib prison conferred on John Paul II a greater international
stature than that of his predecessors,” said Rafsanjani, one of Iran’s
most influential personalities.
The former president, widely expected to stand again in Iran’s June
presidential election, heads the Expediency Council – Iran’s top
political arbitration body.
Rafsanjani also recalled the Pontiff’s opposition to “heretical
ideologies, communism and Marxism.”
The cleric, in his sermon to thousands of the faithful and broadcast
on state radio, offered his condolences to the Christian world on
the death of the Pope, adding: “Christianity and the Vatican would
do well to recall these lessons.”
He said: “The precepts of Christ have disappeared from the Christian
world.”
Rafsanjani, whose country was described as part of the “axis of evil”
and alleged by US President George W Bush to support terrorism,
charged: “In the name of the struggle against terrorism, (Americans)
commit numerous crimes across the world. They impose (themselves)
by force in international institutions and pillage the wealth of
other peoples.
“All this goes against Christ’s ideals and (Christians) should tell
the US that it dishonours Christ,” he said.
Reformist President Mohamed Khatami, in Rome for Pope John Paul’s
funeral, took a similar line in an interview with Italian daily
Corriere della Sera.
“For me, it is very important to pay a full tribute to John Paul II.
He was a man of spirituality, ethics, justice. I hope that the road
he paved will be pursued in the future,” said Khatami.
“Unfortunately, the current US leaders, more than their predecessors,
resort to violence, to military means, to impose their own will.
“They believe in a principle that is absolutely dangerous which
generates terrorism – the pre-emptive strike which provides a simple
pretext to launch a military intervention.”
Meanwhile, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Gholam-Ali Hadad-Adel,
joined Iran’s tiny Roman Catholic community for a requiem mass.
Several thousand faithful crammed into Tehran’s small brick-built
Saint Joseph’s Cathedral to hear Bishop Ramzi Garmo remember the
Pope’s commitment to “peace and dialogue between the civilizations
and religions.”
Hadad-Adel said he had decided to attend the service as a “sign of
the Iranian people’s sympathy with their Catholic compatriots.”
Iran counts some 10,000 Catholics among a Christian community of
80,000, a tiny minority in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation of 67mn
people. Most of the rest are Armenians or Assyrians.
Assyrian MP Younatan Botkilia attended yesterday’s mass along with
Iran’s chief rabbi, Yusef Cohen Hamedani, and Jewish MP Maurice
Motamed.