To LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, the war in Iraq can be justified as defending liberty and unseating a dictator. He also believes in supporting the U.S. government, but acknowledges that Mormons in other nations may have different views.
"We are now a world church with members in most of the nations which have argued this matter," Hinckley said Sunday during the faith's 173rd annual General Conference in Salt Lake City. "There have been demonstrations for and against."
Hinckley, considered a prophet and revelator by the 11 million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, urged more than 20,000 members in the downtown Conference Center and millions more watching via satellite feed not to disparage one another for their views on the war.
"We can give our opinions on the merits of the situation as we see it, but let us never become a party to words or works of evil concerning our brothers and sisters of the church in various nations on one side or the other," Hinckley said. "Political differences never justify hatred or ill will."
Last Sunday, he said, he received word that Staff Sgt. James W. Cawley of the U.S. Marine Reserves, who had served an LDS mission to Japan 20 years ago, was the first Utahn killed in action in the war.
"His life, his mission, his military service, his death, seem to represent the contradictions of the peace of the gospel and the tides of war," Hinckley said.
Many other Latter-day Saints serve in the military and are sworn to protect their country, he said. But God will not hold men and women in uniform responsible "as agents of their government in carrying forward that which they are legally obligated to do."
After all, one of the church's Articles of Faith says that members believe "in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates, in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law."
LDS scriptures urge members to "renounce war and proclaim peace," he said, but also spell out times and circumstances when nations are justified in going to war: to fight for family and for liberty, and against tyranny, threat and oppression.
Even if the war is justified, there are terrible costs in human lives and well-being.
"There are other mothers, innocent civilians, who cling to their children with fear and look heavenward with desperate pleadings as the Earth shakes beneath their feet and deadly rockets scream through the dark sky," Hinckley said.
Mormons have "no quarrel with the Muslim people or with those of any other faith," he said. "We recognize and teach that all the people of the Earth are of the family of God."
He said he hoped that the Iraq conflict would be over soon and that it will result in a better life for all concerned.
Other speakers at the conference, which concluded Sunday, also mentioned the war.
Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles said that even in the midst of global conflicts, the faithful should not lose sight of "the life of the soul."
"Uncertainty as to world conditions does not justify moral uncertainty," he said. "Nor do the raging, human hatreds lessen God's perfect and redeeming love for all his children. The obscuring mists of the moment cannot change the reality that Christ is the light of the world."
In the concluding session Sunday afternoon, Hinckley again said he hoped God would "stretch forth his hand and let his spirit brood upon the people that the nations may not rage one against another."
He also asked members to pray for an end to the five-year drought in the western United States.
"I am satisfied that if enough prayers ascend to heaven for moisture upon the land," Hinckley said, "the Lord will answer those prayers for the sake of the righteous."