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Read more of Bob Abernethy's November 15, 2004 interview in Washington, DC with the Hon. James Nicholson, U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See:
Q: Let me start out with the Vatican's view of the war in Iraq. Many top Vatican officials were very critical of the U.S. decision to go into Iraq. Twenty months later, how would you describe the Vatican's view of what we did?
A: Well, the pope said no to war. He said war should only be the last resort; war is a defeat for humanity; war is not always inevitable. And we agreed with that. But we disagreed over the imminence of the threat of Iraq. We also agreed on the purpose of trying to get Saddam Hussein to stop the ruthless killing of people, to abide by the UN resolutions, and to open his country up for inspections by the UN inspectors.
We did what we did. The president met with a cardinal emissary of the pope's, Cardinal Laghi. The pope sent a cardinal to Baghdad to meet with Hussein. And the war has happened. Now we are looking forward together, working together on humanitarian relief, and the Vatican is saying to us, "Don't leave Iraq. You are needed to fulfill the goals of trying to leave a free Iraq, with religious freedom for all people of all stripes in Iraq."
Q: But no weapons of mass destruction were found. Since the original fighting, there's been an insurgency that has spread all over the country. Is anybody at the Vatican saying to you, "See, we were right"?
A: Nobody is saying that. They're not saying, "I told you so." They're saying, "You're there." There's a commitment to try to make this a free and open society, giving all people a shot at having a life of dignity and professing their faith openly, and we need now to work very closely together to see that this happens as a result of this invasion and the war and the killing that's gone on there. It has to become worth the price, because we share the goal of having it be a free and open society. They just disagreed over the premise of doing it.
Q: And what are they telling you now?
A: Well, it's interesting that the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church of Iraq -- there are 850,000 Chaldean Catholics in Iraq -- came to Rome and to my residence, and the first thing he said to me upon arriving was, "I want to thank you for coming to my country and freeing our people." We had an hour-and-a-half breakfast meeting where he had a lot of other suggestions and some criticisms, but that was where he started out -- freeing the people.
Q: You worked very hard to present the U.S. view of going to war in Iraq to people at the Vatican. If you had known then that there were going to be no weapons of mass destruction found, would you have supported the war?
A: Well, it's so difficult, you know, to answer a hypothetical question like that. Everybody thought there were weapons there, because there were weapons there at one time. [Saddam Hussein] stipulated to the United Nations he used them. He used them on his own people; he used them on the Iranians. He was a murderous, brutal, ruthless dictator. And we also know, of course, that he was spawning terrorism outside the borders of Iraq. He was inducing suicide bombers with a $25,000 stipend to the families of those who gave their life in the name of God to blow up Israelis or other people.
It's clear that he is a very evil person, and we still have to wait and see where all these weapons of mass destruction went, because we know he had them. That was clearly one of the premises of going in there, and the question is what happened to them?
Q: But it also raises the question of whether being a really terrible leader is enough of a reason for us to go into another country and try to change the regime.
A: As the United States Ambassador to the Holy See, I represent the president to the pope, and it's important, I think, for people to realize that the pope and the Holy See, the Catholic Church, is not pacifistic at all. The doctrine of the Church recognizes from the days of St. Thomas Aquinas that there are evil forces in the world that want to hurt people, and that those innocent people need to be protected. That's why the pope has been so supportive of us against terrorism writ large, supportive of us going into Afghanistan to take out the Taliban, because he continually says that we have to stop this killing in the name of God. He gave a speech recently where, again, he said that sometimes the use of military force is justified.
Q: Did he come around to thinking that it was justified in Iraq?
A: Oh, I can't say that he thinks it was justified in Iraq, and I'm not saying that. The first meeting I ever had with the Holy Father was on September 13, 2001, and he said he had 48 hours to think and pray about the events of New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, and he thrust his finger at me and said, "That was not an attack just on you, the United States." He said, "That was an attack on humanity," and then went on to imply that humanity had to take steps against these people who would kill in the name of God. He just asked me to ask President Bush to maintain the sense of justice that the United States has become so respected for. I passed that along and, of course, that has happened.
Q: I want to be clear about what the Vatican is telling you they would like to see us do now in Iraq.
A: What I'm hearing from the Vatican is that we need to stay in Iraq and provide the stability that our military provides, and try to secure the environment so that we can do the reconstruction and the humanitarian relief and restore this society in a free model, and that we just can't pull out of there and allow that not to mature. And that seems to be a unanimous view of the people in the Vatican with whom I speak.
Q: Some people might argue that those goals can be best achieved by our getting out.
A: It's difficult to see how we can have elections in Iraq if we don't have some security and confidence in the people to go to the polls to elect a leadership. That newly elected leadership, whoever they are, will have a chance at being able to govern because their efforts to suppress the insurgents and to pacify the country -- it's a very important part of this transition that's going on to try to change that society from a murderous, dictatorial, barbaric society into a free, modern society. That's a big step.
Q: Is Iraq the biggest issue between the United States and the Holy See?
A: Iraq was the issue about which we had the most divergence, no question. Most other things, we have convergence because we have a shared value system. The United States foreign policy is hinged on its priority of trying to enhance human dignity. It states that right in the statement of our policy. Well, that's all fours with the Vatican. That's what they're about. They have no geopolitical agenda. They have no territorial aspirations. We don't have military basing or trade issues. We're seeking to enhance the condition of life for man, and that's what the United States is really about. That's our number one priority. And being hinged with the spiritual superpower of the world gives us a great opportunity to work together, to try to strengthen the family, strengthen marriage, to ban cloning and human engineering, to bring relief to the starving people. Twenty-five thousand people a day die of starvation, and we're trying to feed them new miracle foods that we have, and that's resisted in Africa.
Q: Just before the United States went into Iraq, a move that many people in the Vatican thought was premature, your job was to try to represent the position of the president to the Vatican, but you had great loyalties both ways, as a Catholic and as an American. How was it to negotiate there between those two loyalties?
A: Well, it caused me no conflict because the just war theory of the church is very clear in the catechism, and it says the decision will be made by the appropriate civilian official. In our case, in our country that's the President of the United States. So the Church acknowledged that while they may disagree with the president and with us about going in there, he certainly had the right to do it, and that also is in there for a purpose, so that those people he orders into combat have no tinge of conscience, because they have been told by the person the Church rightfully acknowledges has the authority to do it. So I had absolutely no conflict. I also happened to believe in and agree with the judgment of the president about the dangers of Iraq, and I still do, and I still think it was the right decision.
Q: Did it cause you any sadness that the policy you were representing to people in the Vatican was one that so many of them felt was wrong?
A: I suppose any ambassador would like to have every day be peaches and cream and harmony but, you know, you don't always have that, even though we have general agreement on most of the big issues that we stand for about life and about the family and marriage and peace. We agreed on Afghanistan. We agreed on going after terrorists. But Iraq was a point that the pope just didn't see the same way as the president, where two very fine men disagreed. They had engaged each other through cardinals, had good dialogue, and through me an almost a daily engagement at their foreign ministry, but we just were never able to convince them of the predicates that convinced us to go in there. But there hasn't been a lot of second-guessing and looking back and "I told you so" and so forth. It's forward-looking. We're working together on humanitarian relief. We're working together in trying to make sure this ends up with a free Iraq, and people have religious freedom in that country as well.
Q: We hear about so much anti-Americanism in Europe generally. Do you sense that, and how does that affect what you're trying to do?
A: I don't think there is an intense anti-Americanism. I think that Iraq has been unpopular in Europe, and there are a variety of reasons for that. Because of its history, probably, and having gone through so many wars, Europe in general would like to just kind of, you know, sit it out and hope that terrorism would go away. And so Iraq has become kind of a rallying point for that point of view. The media has been quite anti-Iraq. But they're certainly not anti-American in chief. I mean, there are exceptions to that, but in Italy, where I live, it's clearly not anti-American.
Q: Anti-Bush?
A: Well, you know, there are circles in Europe, and I think it's fair to say the media has not been very kind to President Bush. I think Iraq has been the main precipitator of that. Europe is going through a transition. It's trying to reassert itself as a unified, continental force, and we're the great superpower of our time, sort of, because we've been deficient as an industrial base, and people work hard in this country, and in some ways people look down their nose at us for that, just kind of the big public utility syndrome, if you will, and Europe is not immune [to] that syndrome either.
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Q: What could the president do, and what do you think the president should do in his second term that would help restore some of the respect and affection for the United States in Europe?
A: Well, you know, the most important thing to do in any situation is to do the right thing. And the President of the United States knows that his responsibility is to secure the people of the United States and other freedom-loving people, and we take that responsibility very seriously. And, by the way, that's very consistent with the doctrine in the catechism of the Catholic Church, which says that the ultimate decision of whether or not to go to war will be made by the appropriate civilian official, exercising his or her prudential judgment. So the president was clearly morally justified by going into Iraq, and the Vatican has never said otherwise. The pope has never said it was immoral. He's never said war was immoral.
Q: But a lot of people in the Vatican said that.
A: I wouldn't agree that a lot of have said that, but certainly some have. Some senior members of the Roman curia have, which exhibits the lateral freedom that they have -- which was a surprise to me, frankly, when I went there to be our ambassador. I'm a lifetime Catholic, and I thought the Church was very hierarchal and everything flowed down from the pope, but that's not the case. These cardinals and bishops have a lot of autonomy, except on matters of faith and doctrine. So some of them did opine that they thought it was immoral and so forth, but never did the pope. They often speak up, and then that's quoted as saying, "A senior Vatican official said," and then the next day in the news cycle, it just says, "The Vatican," which isn't the policy of the Vatican at all. But as our ambassador there, I have to continually seek from that government whether that is the policy, what that cardinal said the day before. Of course, they have to say, "That's not our policy. He is speaking his own mind."
Q: And that happened frequently in the build-up to going into Iraq?
A: That happened very frequently. Particularly one archbishop in the Roman curia chose to speak out almost on a daily basis against going into Iraq, but it was always the pope's position that war is not always inevitable and that we should do everything we can to avoid it. The pope made that clear, but never ever said it would be immoral for us to go into Iraq.
Q: How is the Vatican working these days? The pope seems so frail. What's your sense of how they're getting the work done?
A: The Vatican is doing fine. The pope is such a strong figure, with so much stature and gravitas and moral authority, that when he speaks it flows not just through the Vatican, through the one billion-plus Catholics, but really throughout the world. He has a very powerful, I call it, "moral megaphone," and he uses it judiciously, and he uses it to propound his goals of trying to bring peace to the world and trying to get men to live together and to accept each other, and to accept their differences, including their religious differences. He has a great vision about trying to go to Russia and reconcile with the Orthodox Church, and having diplomatic relations with China so that the Church can surface and be free there. He wants to continue to be a force for the reconciliation of the world.
So, on the big issues, the Vatican is doing wonderfully. You can question some of the management things and so forth, but to the pope these are minor matters.
Q: What do some of the top officials at the Vatican think about the troubles of the American Catholic Church in recent years -- the sex abuse scandals, how some of the bishops dealt with that? What do they think? What do they say?
A: Well, I haven't gotten into that. You know, I represent my country to that sovereign country, and it has internal issues and that has certainly been one of them. They have recognized that that has been a problem. One, I suppose, has to keep in context that there are a billion-plus Catholics that they're in communion with, and six or seven percent of them live in the United States, so they have, you know, a broad array of interests and issues. But they appreciate the Catholic Church in America because it's a very vital church. It's a very strong supporter of the Holy See and its humanitarian and charitable missions. It has taken it seriously, but I have not been involved in that.
Q: What's your reaction to the resignation of Secretary of State Colin Powell?
A: Secretary Powell is an amazing person who has had these different careers where he has risen to the top in each and inspired those around him, because of his leadership and his God-given talents and the concerns and compassion he has. I'm not surprised that he is not going to stick around for another term. I didn't think he would. He's an old friend of mine. I never talked to him about it, but I'm not surprised by it. I don't know what he'll do now, but whatever it is, it will be for the good of mankind in trying to move [toward] this shared goal we have -- elevating human dignity in the world.
Q: You're in the process of leaving, too. As you look back on your time as ambassador to the Vatican, what have you learned?
A: I've learned that my country is even greater than I ever realized, and that is not just a platitude. I have a basis for that, which is now knowing better than ever how much humanitarian support we give to the world. I'm working against trafficking in people, this new 21st-century slavery. I'm working on food in Africa and trying to get American food and food technology into Africa. I work a great deal on HIV/AIDS, particularly in Africa, and on religious freedom and, of course, on the Middle East and trying to stop this killing. And in each of these areas, my country plays a leadership role, not just on values, but on the resources, because there's a great amount of resources. The World Food Program feeds 75 million people a day. The United States provides almost two thirds of the food -- the generous taxpayers of our country.
So my country is really a generous humanitarian country. And unfortunately, I have also learned, it's not appreciated for all of its generosity and humanitarianism and its [support for the] primacy of the human condition. That's one of the challenges still out there for us as Americans and as American diplomats.
Q: You were a very successful head of the Republican National Committee. Let me ask you a question about American politics. In recent years and especially, I think, since the election, people have expressed concern about the growing political power of religious conservatives. What's your take on that?
A: I think that's exaggerated. And I think there's definitional license. I think sometimes people who believe in God, practice their religion, go to church once a week are seen as some kind of religious conservatives or religious wackos or something, and they're not at all. They're people that have a value system. They're people to whom God and their faith are important. And I think, happily, that number of people in our country is growing. I'm not threatened by it or see any problem with it. In fact, I think it's good for our country, and I think it would be good if that phenomenon could happen in Europe, which is, unfortunately, going the other way and becoming far more secular.
Q: There's also a concern, as I'm sure you know, about what appears to many people to be a growing divide between, very broadly, religious conservatives on the one hand and religious moderates, liberals, seculars, on the other. Talk about that a little bit.
A: I think that's real. There are definitional problems, and I don't throw around these terms -- "religious conservatives" and "religious moderates" and so forth. There are clearly people that fall different places on that spectrum of religiosity, and they're allowed to do that. I mean, religious freedom is a tenet of our country, and I believe in that. I've fought for that. I advocate that. But it's about values, and I think that there are a growing number of people in this country, for example, who think that marriage ought to be defined as between a man and a woman. I think they think the family is an important unit and structure of our society. Does this make them wild-eyed, dangerous conservatives? I don't think so. In fact, that's another area where we converge so closely with the Holy See, and one of the reasons they have so much respect and regard for President Bush is this shared value system. They're both against human cloning, human engineering, [and they are] trying hard together at the UN to get a ban on those things.
Q: But the divide that a lot of people see is not something of concern to you?
A: Well, you know, my country is very important to me, and I would like to see as much harmony as I can in our country, having a pretty good understanding for the two-party system, and the value of the two-party system, and the competition and the tension that are organic to that, which is good for the people of this country, and also the role of a free media in that. But I think sometimes we can make what appears to some to be a divide become a divide by the overemphasis of it in the media. If you go into these states where we just had an election, I don't think you see a great amount of civil unrest or civil tension in these communities between the people that go to church a lot and some that go once in a while, or some that don't go at all. I don't think it plays out, out there in mainstream America. I think it's more in the mainstream American media.
Q: Let me go back and invite you to define the extent of human slavery, the trafficking that you've been working to oppose and minimize. How big is the problem?
A: Trafficking in human beings has become a huge problem. Somewhere between a million and two million people a year are taken against their will, held in bondage, held in slavery, performing either labor and/or sex acts for others. And it's everywhere. Nobody is immune from it. It's in Washington, it's in New York, it's in Denver. Women are taken from Eastern Europe, northern Africa and Southeast Asia, smuggled into other countries, and are sex slaves. It's one of the most dehumanizing things that I have ever become aware of and having become aware of it, I've gotten very involved in it in my embassy because it's a constituent part of a life of dignity. And I think we're starting finally to make it retrograde. It's run by organized crime.
What we have to do is to inform more people in the world, get a bigger critical mass of outrage, and then start getting the laws on the books and the enforcement so we can stop it. We stopped slavery once in this world. We can stop it again, and we must. And I'm proud to say the U.S. is leading the way.
Q: And why are you leaving this post at the Vatican?
A: It will be three and a half years that I've had the rare opportunity to represent my president, my country, to the pope and to the sovereign entity of the Holy See. I will return to the United States, where our three adult children are living, and take up our life again back on this side of the Atlantic, having had one of the most fulfilling, unique experiences that I can imagine anyone ever having.
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