Sir, Mr Charles Farrell (letter, November 19) is wrong to say that clergymen should not be involved in making judgments about our waging war on Iraq: the prophetic role is a major one in a priest’s job description.

That said, too many of the Church’s senior clergy make public pronouncements on this and other political and social issues which show them to be either inadequately or selectively informed; therefore their judgments lack wisdom.

We are called to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves”, because we are sent out “as sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matthew x, 16). If we are not so, how can we expect anyone to take the Church seriously?

Yours faithfully,
R. CAMPBELL PAGET,
The Vicarage, 8 Broadoak,
Brenchley, Kent TN12 7NN.
November 19.

From Mr Ahmed Shames

Sir, As an Iraqi living in Britain, I was very hopeful that the day my country was freed from dictatorship and oppression was getting closer. In his speech to the UN last September, President Bush said: “Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal”, and I totally agreed with him. But the language seems to be changing. No one is talking about my people any more. It is all about inspection and weapons that can threaten neighbouring countries.

America should not abandon the “moral cause” it believed in only two months ago.

Yours sincerely,
AHMED SHAMES,
15b Walm Lane, NW2 5SJ.
November 22.

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