Sir, - On Friday September 14th, during the service for the victims of the atrocities held in the National Cathedral, Washington DC, prayers were offered for the American nation "that we would not become guilty ourselves of the very thing we are condemning". The rest of the world fervently prays for that same intention.
Zealots have succeeded in bringing the world to a most dangerous juncture. The Government and people of the US, along with the rest of the right-thinking world, are justifiably angry at the slaughter of the innocent.
However, at this grave moment in world history calm reflection is crucial. This is a moral and spiritual clarion call to all nations and their leaders to choose carefully the paths ahead. This is an opportunity that may never come again to radically examine the root causes of the hatred and injustice which threaten to engulf the world.
In the intense anguish of this hour, God does not cease to call the entire human family to its senses and to repentance for the evils that all nations are guilty of perpetrating against the poor and the innocent. Let all examine their consciences. No nation is without sin.
On September 11th, thousands of innocents were cruelly murdered by ruthless fanatics. UN sanctions against Iraq have caused the deaths of several hundreds of thousands of children below the age of five.
God, in loving justice, demands our conversion from those fatal ideologies which have blinded us to the truth of our communion with one another in the human family - each of us equally created and loved by God.
It is time to repent of that heedless materialism which condemns multitudes of our fellow human beings to live and die in abject poverty and misery. It is urgent that we now bring to heel that insatiable greed which is ravaging the planet, poisoning the earth, sky and sea.
It is time to go on our knees before God, loved and adored by Jews, Christians and Muslims, as Most Merciful and Compassionate, to plead for the outpouring of God's kind and gentle Spirit on the pain and brokenness of the entire human family. - Yours, etc.,
Rev Patrick McCafferty, Sacred Heart, Glenview Street, Belfast 14.