216 - The Bishops and the Bomb: Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age

The Bishops and the Bomb: Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age

By Jim Castelli

Garden City, Doubleday, 1983. 283 Pp. $7.95.

The author is a journalist who was allowed unprecedented access to the files of the committee who wrote the 1983 pastoral letter, "The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response." Castelli's skill is evident in his lively account which begins in 1980 when Bishop Frank Murphy of Baltimore asked the American bishops to consider formulating a concise summary of Catholic teaching on war and peace, against the backdrop of the contemporary nuclear threat. The book is replete with anecdotes, personality clashes, ecclesiastical trivia, a sense of urgency, a sense of hope, and the conviction that the American Catholic bishops have the credibility to teach elementary and advanced peace making. Since the book contains the text of the pastoral letter as well as Castelli's backstage account, it is a valuable one-volume study of ethical reflection, personalities, and the process which inevitably accompanies a particular historical explication of moral doctrinal teaching.

The volume is easy to read and moves quickly. Occasionally, readers may find Castelli's account presuming too much on their memory. Scores of particular individuals are introduced in the narrative, but the second time a person is mentioned the naming is done without biographical reference. The reader is left to identify second-string players without a score card (or index).

One gets the feeling that Castelli is balanced and thorough in presenting the events (political, journalistic, and ecclesiastical), interventions, and debates which affected the final document. But since only Castelli read the files and interviewed participants, one cannot be certain about how comprehensive a job he has done. Moral teaching in the Catholic Church has generated a good deal of interest, especially during the past thirty years. Such matters as Catholic ethical conclu-

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sions, absolutes, the hierarchical role in the formulation of teaching, dissent, and the points of convergence and divergence between Catholic and Protestant ethics have each been the focus of examination and debate. Although The Bishops and the Bomb does not treat these substantive issues as such, it does reveal the behind-the-scenes finite attempts to formulate moral teaching consistent with past pronouncements and cognizant of global realities.

Three aspects of the book should be mentioned because they detract from the overall quality of the work. The first is Castelli's willingness to pass out black hats and white hats, and thus to suggest the existence of factions within the bishops' conference. To Bishop John O'Connor of the Military Ordinariate, one of the five bishops on the drafting committee, Castelli issues a black hat. Described as "pious, extremely bright and a workaholic," O'Connor's nit-picking is documented as the pastoral evolves from draft to draft to final form-, and the reader senses -an invitation to join the author in feelings of exasperation. On, the other hand, white hats are liberally awarded to the "peace bishops," and notably to Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, committee chairperson, consensus builder, and exemplar of self-discipline (who recently shed thirty pounds). Perhaps Castelli's classifications were justified, but, in a world where division has led to today's precarious balance of terror, it might be wise to be less judgmental and more tolerant, given the very complex nature of the subject being debated.

The second shortcoming in Castelli's work is his willingness to laud the bishops for the open process they inaugurated. Castelli does not, however, ever define what be means by "open." Certainly what is described is much less than the democratic political process to which Americans are accustomed. Castelli was impressed that the bishops actually read the mail they received about nuclear morality, but he seems willing to accept the fact that the vast majority of bishops did not seek input from the rank and file. In reviewing the first draft, Castelli said, some bishops consulted with one or two experts. Citing the exception, Castelli wrote that "in the Archdiocese of Baltimore where Frank Murphy was co-chairman of the Justice and Peace Commission, [the consultation was] with a broad range of people." Castelli does not deal with the fact that when bishops, generally speaking, are open only to each other, "openness" can be light years away from what the laity are seeking.

The third drawback is seen when Castelli enters territory with which he is understandably unfamiliar. He says, "If people may legitimately disagree over whether or not it is moral to start a nuclear war and still remain Catholics in good standing, the mind boggles at the implications for less cosmic issues like contraception, sterilization, abortion, divorce." Since Castelli does not seem to realize that the theoretical debate on these questions centers on the rational adequacy of positing absolute negatives against entire classes of actions described in non-moral terms, he misses the fact that procreative morality and the morality of war are

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normed according to different schemas. An inviolability is postulated in Catholic ethics in respect to marriage, intercourse, the sexual faculty, and the promise of spouses to fidelity. In contrast, violence in the fighting of war has traditionally been tolerated for a proportionate reason. The bishops had to contend with the fact that modern nuclear weapons probably can never result in a proportionate good, but their deliberations in this regard have no effect on Catholic sexual ethics.

The Bishops and the Bomb will be interesting reading for all concerned about nuclear morality. It should be read by those who consider it their mission to be spokespersons for sanity within the prophetic tradition.

EILEEN P. FLYNN

St. Peter's College
Jersey City, New Jersey