all in the guise of confessing their own sins, the chief of which seems to be "fail[ing] to raise a prophetic voice loud enough and persistent enough to deter our leaders." The Institute on Religion and Democracy has some choice words in response:

The letter was written in the form of a penitential rite, with paragraphs ending in "Lord, have mercy"; "Christ, have mercy"; and "Lord, have mercy." There was some awkwardness in the fact that the U.S. church leaders were mainly confessing the sins of George W. Bush, rather than their own sins. But they insisted on their own guilt, too, because "we have failed to raise a prophetic voice loud enough and persistent enough to deter our leaders."

In fact, U.S. church leaders have issued many statements loudly condemning the Bush administration for its policies. But they were not heeded because they lacked the support of their own most active church members. A majority of U.S. mainline Protestants who regularly attend worship voted for the president in the last election. It was not clear why the U.S. denominational officials believed that another, still shriller denunciation, in this latest letter, would make them any more effective in persuading the president or their own church members....

The letter had not a single positive thing to say about America's role in the world. Its last paragraph projected a tone of pathos: "Sisters and brothers in the ecumenical community, we come to you in this Assembly grateful for hospitality we don't deserve, for companionship we haven't earned, for an embrace we don't merit." As in the WCC's February 14 opening litany of "Cries of the World," it appears that the main contribution of U.S. denominations to the ecumenical council (aside from dollars derived from faithful U.S. church members) is their own self-abasement....