171 - Crosiers into Plowshares

Crosiers into Plowshares
(Or Catholic Bishops as Peacemakers)
By John Deedy

"We are seeing a remarkable turn of events. The God - and - country mentality, so pronounced in the late Cardinal Spellman, is as dead as the Dred Scot decision ... The bishops are against the arms race; they reject the concept of peace through a balance of terror; and they seem to be coming rapidly to the view that the just - war theory, for centuries the cornerstone of Catholic moral teaching, is no longer operative. "

IT comes as something of a shock to those of us whose memories go back to Cardinal Spellman's Christmas with the troops. His Eminence year after year boarded and departed airplanes, waving in his hand a miniature American Flag. In those days - which stretched from World War II, through Korea, to early Vietnam - Cardinal Spellman was symbol and stamp of the American hierarchy, a two - hundred per cent patriot and loyalist. He was the Pope's good servant, and the President's too.

Half the equation has changed. The person of the bishop, whom Spellman so precisely symbolized for a quarter - century, is still the Pope's good servant; indeed, some of the time bishops seem more Catholic than the Pope. But today's bishop is not necessarily the President's good servant too, and that's very big news, not only in the United States, but across the world. Journals in both England and France, for example, have requested me to write about the phenomenon of the "peace bishops", and just the other day a journalist in Switzerland wrote to clarify points in connection with an article he was doing on "the bishops and the bomb" for a German magazine.

I

The world is interested in prelates such as: Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen of Seattle, who is withholding fifty per cent of his Federal income tax in protest against "our nation's continuing involvement in

John Deedy is an editor and consultant for Claretian Publications and serves on the Editorial Council of THEOLOGY TODAY. Formerly on the editorial staff of Commonweal, he has recently written a biography of Father Daniel Berrigan, SJ.

172 - Crosiers into Plowshares

the race for nuclear supremacy"; Bishop Leroy T. Matthiesen of Amarillo, who has asked Catholic workers at a neutron - bomb assembly plant to examine the morality of their employment; Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan of Worcester, Massachusetts, who is calling upon the country to start the process of disarmament, "unilaterally, if necessary"; Bishop Michael Kenny of Juneau, Alaska, who questions not only the possible use, but the very possession of nuclear weapons. The list could go on like a long litany. In the past year, more than forty American bishops have issued statements soundly critical of American nuclear policy, and some seventeen bishops, members of Pax Christi, an association with pacifist leanings, have raised the question whether any morally justifiable warfare is possible in view of modern weaponry.

What makes the story of these bishops such a compelling one? Part of the answer, of course, has to do with the novelty of the situation. In the past, bishops have traditionally been supporters, not critics, of national defense policy. But part of the answer also has to do with the implications of the position toward which the bishops are moving one by one, and which seemingly could build into official policy for the American Catholic Church. For what if the hierarchy as a body. condemned nuclear weapons as immoral? Would young Catholic men and women then be morally free to serve in the Armed Forces? And what of Catholics already in service, a number placed by one source at forty per cent of those in uniform? Would they be expected by the bishops to lay down their arms, or fight only with conventional weapons? What of Catholic officers who fly bombers or work on nuclear submarines? Would they be expected to resign their commissions and quit the service?

The questions are not irrelevant, for the responses affect everyone -the national family, and friend and foe around the world. Small wonder that interest is so high. The nation's fifty million Catholics comprise twenty - three per cent of the population. If the bishops sought to bind them to a pacifist position, it would be a whole new ball game for everyone.

II

Probably the first point to be made in connection with the peace assertions of so many Catholic bishops is that there is more smoke than actual fire. The "peace bishops" are approaching the problem of nuclear weapons from several different directions, and there are wide ideological gaps among individuals, whom headline writers tend to lump in one category. For instance, Bishop Flanagan opens the door to unilateral disarmament, while Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco, another" peace bishop", specifies that disarmament must be bilateral. Moreover, the statements for peace and against nuclear weapons tend to be much more guarded where prelates have to be more concerned about the impact of their words, as in Washington and New York, for example.

Indeed, New York's archbishop, Cardinal Terence Cooke, has gone to

173 - Crosiers into Plowshares

great lengths to provide counterbalance to scales which he obviously thought were being tipped at provocative angles. Thus we have his statement of last winter "that a strategy of nuclear deterrence can be morally tolerated while a nation is sincerely trying to come up with a rational alternative". Cardinal Cooke went further, saying he was "personally proud of the dedication of our military men and women" and that he considered them to be true guardians of peace. Cardinal Cooke issued his statement as vicar to chaplains in the Armed Forces, but be said quite candidly that his statement had also been prompted by letters asking if the church bad changed its views on military service, and whether a Catholic must refuse to have anything to do with nuclear weapons. Obviously he feels otherwise.

Then we have Cardinal Cooke's follow - up statement on World Day of Peace, stating that "people have a right to protect their existence and freedom by proportionate means against an unjust aggressor." These statements, if not characteristic of the Cardinal himself (though they probably are), certainly are characteristic of the way the office of Archbishop of New York has been conducted at least since World War II, when Cardinal Spellman was President Roosevelt's good friend (at least until Yalta), and good friend with several of Roosevelt's successors. This is not to suggest that Cardinal Cooke is in Ronald Reagan's back pocket. It is only to say that a certain amount of native patriotism and loyalty (call it prudence, if you will) imbues the office of Archbishop of New York.

Thus, while it might seem that a tide of episcopal pacifism is sweeping Catholic America, there are also forces that would hold it back, including some in the hierarchy. For Cardinal Cooke is not the only prelate attempting to stem the currents. There are bishops, too, like Edward W. O'Rourke of Peoria, who is cautioning his episcopal colleagues against being stampeded into a total condemnation of nuclear arms and into willingness to endorse unilateral disarmament. These counter voices are not blatantly hawkish, but they could have a decidedly moderating influence on any statement on nuclear weapons, one which could come as soon as this fall from the bishops, speaking as a hierarchy. A committee was named a year ago to draft a position paper on the nuclear arms emergency.

In fairness to Cardinal Cooke, it should be noted that four months after his message to the military chaplains, he issued a letter to priests of the New York archdiocese asserting the church's abhorrence of the arms race, and urging priests and people to consider the "moral necessity" of efforts "toward disarmament and the reduction and eventual elimination of all weapons of massive destruction." The letter was made public as the organization Pax Christi was announcing that the number of U.S. Catholic bishops endorsing a bilateral nuclear - weapons freeze had risen to 133. A spokesman for the cardinal, however, declared that the letter represented neither backing for any of the several proposals before Congress for a freeze, nor an essential change in Cardinal Cooke's

174 - Crosiers into Plowshares

position. On the other hand, as Kenneth Briggs of The New York Times noted, the cardinal's letter did appear to move him closer to the emerging call by many Catholic bishops in the United States for new initiatives to end the arms race.

III

The question is, of course, what weight will a national Catholic statement on nuclear weapons have on those to whom it will primarily be addressed, Catholics in the pews? Clearly the answer is not so much as many might hope or expect. The reason is simply that the Catholic Church is far less the knee - jerk entity some people think it is, the American Catholic Church especially. The mind of the lay person is not to be presumed from the pronouncements of the bishops. Yet some obviously do. Some analysts take the episcopal statements one by one, and conclude that the American Catholic Church is well down the road to becoming a peace church on the order of the Quakers and the Mennonites. It isn't. Some even think that the time is not far distant when the word Catholic will become synonymous with" anti - war", "anti - nuclear", "peace", and "protest." Thus, Arthur Jones, Washington bureau chief of the National Catholic Reporter, has written that "the 1980s will see a significant proportion of the U.S. Catholic community, directly and indirectly, peaceably and through patronage, alone and with others, willingly and unwillingly say 'no' to U.S. militarism and the nuclear - dominated national security mentality" Very doubtful.

Oh, Jones could be right, I suppose, in the sense that anything is possible under the sun. Or almost anything. But I don't believe it. For Jones' scenario to take place, just too much will have to happen in the meantime. To begin with, the average American Catholic will have to shed layers of native patriotism and loyalty to the national leadership, qualities long fostered among Catholics by the bishops themselves. They won't. Secondly, average American Catholics will have to become far more attentive to the admonitions of the bishops than they have been certainly in recent years. They won't.

If average American Catholics are not to be dictated to by the bishops on matters of sexual morality (a behavioral area in which lay receptiveness to direction was once almost automatic), it is hard to imagine them taking cue from the bishops on issues of national defense. Said another way, if average American Catholics are not to be dictated to on birth control and even abortion (fifty - five per cent of American Catholics reject the church's right to teach what one should believe about abortion, according to the National Opinion Research Center), they are not likely to take direction about working or not working at Pantex, the neutronbomb assembly plant near Amarillo, or serving or not serving on a Trident submarine. It is extremely doubtful if the bishops as a body would ever become so pacifist that matters would come to such a head.

175 - Crosiers into Plowshares

But if they did, the bishops would find the gap enormous between them and the laity in yet another area besides sexual morality.

So what then is one to expect? One can expect that the bishops will in fact issue a statement on nuclear weapons. It will be a good - statement, but it is not likely to draw an unbending line between them and Washington; it will be circumspect enough to allow individual Catholics to follow their own consciences on the question of nuclear readiness. In a word, the bishops will be pragmatic. This is not said to disparage them. Quite the opposite. They are displaying an awareness and a courage that is admirable; and they will have a strong influence both on the conscience of the nation and the consciences of individual Catholics. But they will not confront Catholics in either/or fashion. Nor Washington either. They are astute enough to realize that the day is well past when bishops could thunder and the earth would quake. They are also wise enough to sense that their role in the matters at hand is to offer guidelines, not ultimatums. We can look for the guidelines to be solid.

IV

It goes without saying, nevertheless, that we are seeing a remarkable turn of events. The God - and - country mentality, so pronounced in the late Cardinal Spellman, is as dead as the Dred Scot decision, and likely to stay so, given existential equations. Yesterday, the American bishops' support of the national leadership was as presumable as its support of Rome, even on the shakiest of issues (Humanae Vitae). Today nothing is to be presumed, particularly so far as weaponry is concerned. The bishops are against the arms race; they reject the concept of peace through a balance of terror; and they seem to be coming rapidly to the view that the just - war theory, for centuries the cornerstone of Catholic moral teaching, is no longer operative.

Paradoxically, Commonweal, the American Catholic lay journal of generally impeccable liberal credentials, closed out 1981 with an editorial saying that it still believed "the just - war theory provides better guidance for the preservation of peace" than pacifism. Two weeks later, Civilta Catholica, the prestigious Jesuit Roman biweekly, which has its major articles and editorials reviewed by the Vatican Secretariat of State, appeared with a fourteen - page editorial, maintaining that a "just wa"r cannot take place in the nuclear age, and that further build - up of nuclear arsenals cannot be morally justified. The American bishops thus find themselves not only far out front of the people in the pews on the issue of peace, but also in advance of the journal which has spearheaded so much new thought in Catholic America. It is an amazing turn of events when the bishops "out - liberal" Commonweal.

V

How does one account for this astonishing switch on the bishops' part to bold voices of conscience? I examined that question in a recent issue

176 - Crosiers into Plowshares

of The Nation and came to the conclusion that at least three factors have been at work on the bishops over a period of years.

First would be the persistent condemnation of nuclear weapons and the arms race by Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II, the last two within the United States itself while on visits to the United Nations. It was inevitable that the American bishops would at last begin to hear.

Second would be the vindication of the Catholic peace activists of the Vietnam era, including perhaps the most notable of them all, Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan. Berrigan merits special mention, because since Vietnam no one has done more than he to keep the arms issue alive in the country. When other Vietnam - era activists were turning to new and sometimes frivolous interests, Berrigan stuck with the fight that has been his since the 1950s. It is perhaps extravagant to say that he has educated a whole new generation of bishops on questions of peace and nuclear arms, but it is fair to say that he has helped shape the thinking of very many bishops, including some who may not even realize their ideological indebtedness to him.

Third would be the impressing on the bishops of the inescapable accuracy of the words of Archbishop John R. Roach, President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, at last November's annual meeting of the hierarchy: "What is spent for guns directly reduces what is available for the quality of life for the least among us."

Archbishop Roach's statement is a truism that has come to touch every bishop in the diocesan pocketbook, since up to sixty per cent of diocesan charities and social - welfare budgets are based on the availability of public funds. Example: the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts, estimates that as a direct result of social service cuts in the 1982 Federal budget, it could have $968,986 less in funds, a huge sum for a small diocese. The bishops have eyes to see where the social service cuts are going: mainly to the Pentagon. Inevitably as individuals committed to the social as well as spiritual welfare of the people, bishops would react to policies that place arms before oleo.

VI

Thus the new times in American Catholicism, and welcome they are. Yesterday such strong public episcopal commitment now directed at peace was reserved for issues of sexual morality, such as birth control and abortion. The American Catholic bishops are still rabidly opposed to abortion (they've softened on birth control), but their horizons have broadened to catch sight of the gravest danger of all to humanity: nuclear arms. That they are contesting the construction, deployment, and possible use of nuclear weapons so passionately gives the bishops and religion in general a relevance that both were in danger of losing in the eyes of millions here and around the world. They put us all in their debt.