Remarks of President John F. Noonan
Prayer Service – The War in Iraq
March 26, 2003
We met 18
months ago on the Quad to ask God to bless our troubled world.
We meet again today to make the same request – to ask God to bless this troubled world and the men, women, and children whose lives this war in Iraq has changed or ended, or whose lives will be changed or ended soon by it.
Nothing is less like a college than a war, where protagonists who have abandoned reason and persuasion and negotiation turn to bombs and bullets and fire instead.
Nothing is
more certain in war than the suffering of the innocent.
So, let’s begin today by asking God to bless the innocent, whether civilians or soldiers, whether Iraqi or American or British. War sweeps up the innocent and rips them to shreds; so let us remember them this afternoon.
