Ash Wednesday Call to Confess Error in Iraq

America magazine reports on Baltimore religious leaders speaking out on the Iraq war:

Christian leaders in Baltimore, Md., used the backdrop of Ash Wednesday and props of a dead soldier’s combat boots as they called President George W. Bush’s Iraq War policies immoral and urged Marylanders to take part in an organized antiwar rally in Washington, D.C. The 13 religious leaders from varying Christian faiths—including Auxiliary Bishop Denis J. Madden of Baltimore—chose Feb. 21, the first day of Lent, to launch their collective antiwar platform, because Lent is a penitential season. “The time has come to confess our mistakes and wrongdoing and withdraw our troops” from Iraq, said the Rev. Peter K. Nord, head of the Presbytery of Baltimore, part of the national Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). “The Jesus we follow prays for peace and so do we,” Rev. Nord said at the news conference at City Temple Baptist Church in the Bolton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore. “I’m troubled that our commander in chief neither shares this prayer nor listens to his people.”