Cardinal Vincent Nichols said that “effective action is necessary” against ISIS in a statement issued hours before MPs voted overwhelmingly for air strikes over Syria, last week. The Archbishop of Westminster said in a statement: “Effective action is necessary to stop the grave harm being inflicted by ISIS on civilians. “While indiscriminate violence is never justifiable, specific use of force to protect the vulnerable is defensible, if it is combined with sustained diplomatic and humanitarian efforts. As Pope Francis has said: ‘Where there is unjust aggression, it is licit to stop the aggressor.’” Last week MPs voted for air strikes after 10 hours of debate. The margin was 397 votes to 223, with 66 Labour MPs backing David Cameron. The Prime Minister said MPs had “taken the right decision to keep Britain safe”. Within hours of the vote RAF jets bombed seven targets in eastern Syrian oilfields. In his statement Cardinal Nichols said he believed “four necessary steps” needed to be taken. He said: “Earlier this year in April during a visit to Iraq, I met with a number of Iraqi refugees and those who are generously sheltering them, led by the local church. In conversation, I came to the conclusion that there are four necessary steps that are required to be taken in Iraq and Syria for refugees and displaced people to return home. “The first is to stop ISIS along with those groups who perpetrate indiscriminate violence, and that will require a proportionate military intervention; the second will be to make villages and towns habitable through clearing land mines and other IEDs along with the necessary reconstruction of houses and infrastructure; the third will be to re-establish the rule of law; and finally to re-establish trust between the different peoples and faiths. “This will take time and requires a long-term commitment to all whose home is in the region and seek to live in peace.” Cardinal Nichols visited Iraq in April. He met displaced Catholics near Erbil, a Kurdish city in the north of the country. “I promise to tell your story when I get home and that the Catholic people of England and Wales will keep you all very much in their prayers,” the cardinal told Iraqi Christians in a homily.