Hearing the drumbeat of war and hoping to tamp it down before a wrong decision is made, U.S. Catholic leaders from a number of religious orders and peace and justice organizations call on President Trump and his advisors to listen to the voices of peace and take the path of diplomacy and dialogue.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best, 50 years ago shortly before his assassination, in his historic address at Riverside Church in New York when he publicly spoke out against the war in Vietnam:
“We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation … The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.”
Members of the Catholic Coalition are understandably and justifiably outraged “at the suspected use of chemical weapons” but this must not “serve as a rationale for expanding the war in Syria and causing further suffering.”