Born-again coalition?:

...It remains true, no doubt, that the Vietnam vet- American foreign policy...

...has been a "force for was more than a mistake, it was fundamentally wrong and good" in the world since World War II...

...By the same more than 100 Catholic labor schools going full blast during standards, a Saigon victory will probably mean a looser form that period...

...The give-and-take between and reestablishing the kind of church-labor relationship which within the two sponsoring groups was at all times completely their predecessors had so laboriouly put together in the '30s frank and open and was uniformly positive and constructive in and the '40s...

...participants, Joe Holland of the Jesuit-sponsored Center of Having primarily concentrated, by design, on procedural Concern in Washington, D.C., to begin laying the matters, the participants unanimously adopted an interim plan groundwork for a somewhat more ambitious round of meet- which will include broadening interest in the religious and ings between the two groups...

...America's involvement seem no more persuasive than the What understanding is possible, however, will not be ad- argument for celebrating the war-in order to improve the vanced by falsifying the historical record or softening the situation of those who were honorably caught up in fighting it...

...It was also agreed that, on the we jointly face...

...The conclusion to condemn the war was based on the Working Life, and several chapters of the Association of fact that vastly disproportionate and destructive force was Catholic Trade Unionists...

...It is not true, for example, that the anti-war The precise "lessons" of Vietnam will be debated for years movement was anti-soldier or anti-veteran...

...The sooner such mutual understanding as we bad at this meeting...

...Working papers prepared in advance of the VISION OF SHALOM meeting by Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsky and Kolomna, THE CHURCHES ON ARMS CONTROL and by Bruce Rigdon of McCormick Theological Seminary, lay the groundwork for the discussion which produced the joint statement...

...Taking a stand against the danger of "still more terrible Evangelicals and Pentecostals and organized labor) has con- weapons," the church leaders affirmed, "Against this, we say tributed more than any single factor to the impoverishment of with one voice-No...

...and mysticism speak with one accord...

...In the late not by declared intentions but by past performance, a Com- '30s, the '40s and even into the '50s, church-related social munist victory in South Vietnam would most likely mean a action organizations, at least in the Catholic community, conrigorous dictatorship, bloody liquidation of dissenters, and a centrated almost exclusively on the labor problem...

...A CONFERENCE OF Soviet and American church leaders Bishop Juvenaly argues that peace is a gift of the Spirit and has, with one heart and one voice, sounded an alarm the pre-eminent sign of the life of God's Kingdom...

...the great masses of people in that area...

...Alice Wittier, Executive for International Affairs of the GEORGE G. HIGGINS National Council of Churches, recalled that "I was almost in (Monsignor George G. Higgins, a long-time contributor, is tears when we got to the end of the statement...

...If, in the short run, the SALT II does not go far enough in containing armaments, it church-labor coalition or network which the Conference has should be welcomed as an essential first step in building a tentatively projected does nothing more than encourage and momentum for peace and paving the way for more sweeping give aid and assistance to this hopeful development, it will across-the-board arms limitation in SALT III...

...possibility of an important conference...

...Fair enough...

...churches in general and, however hesitant, in the Evangelical In this context of urgency, the delegates felt that although and Pentecostal churches as well...

...There was unanimous he said, "not because we are running scared, but because we agreement that a special effort should be made to involve more have come to learn by experience that coalitions or networks of women in the project and more representatives of the Black like-minded people are needed to meet the serious challenges and Hispanic communities...

...Some of the ear- to come...

...Although this experimental gathering at Notre So long as we are unable or unwilling to solve our basic Dame was never meant to be more than a one-shot affair, it economic problems, people will drift toward a privatized and produced enough consensus about the need for a structured highly individualistic form of religion, with disastrous results relationship between the church and labor to prompt one of the for all concerned...

...moral difficulties...

...The members of the ference...

...them to Southeast Asia...

...In November, 1976, Msgr...

...There were also several labor-oriented Catholic of authoritarian government, suppression of radical dissent organizations, including, for example, the Catholic Radical rather than its liquidation, and little alteration in the status Alliance of Pittsburgh, the Chicago Catholic Council on quo...

...Sentimentality may have its therapeutic uses, but in this case the moral cost, for the whole society of which these veterans are part, would be exorbitant...

...related groups, for their part, had come to understand more Personally I see no reason to lament, much less romanticize, clearly than they had understood in the '60s and early '70s that the '30s and '40s...

...The labor problem, for whatever set of reasons, was not the participants came from the Northeastern sector of the one of their top priorities...

...A Chicagoan who, like so many of us, commitment to the cause of social justice and a common had been greatly influenced by the recently deceased Msgr...

...Here the over the escalating arms race and called on the peoples teachings of Scripture and the traditions -of Russian theology of the world to exorcise the demon of nuclear holocaust...

...As Ms...

...According to a recent poll, almost fense...

...It was a significant step in the right direction, and I fully Krutitsky and Kolomna remarked that in a generation of expect it to result in a modest but potentially important American and Russian church dialogue "There had never been church-labor network within two or three years...

...I did not more significantly, some younger activists as well-started hear-or even over-hear-a single syllable that could be detalking among themselves about the need for an updated scribed as defensive or polemical...

...labor relations...

...from those of the Depression era and the post-World War II All things consisdered, the Washington Conference was a period-problems which, rightly or wrongly, they thought of modest but significant first step in the right direction...

...In the key editorial, written 13 years ago, in ship between the labor movement and the churches...

...program of action on arms control to their respective denomi- Bishop Juvenaly's article bears witness to the delicacy nations, calling for passage and implementation of SALT II, a Soviet church leaders must adopt in commenting on public total ban on nuclear weapons tests, support of UN disarma- policy, particularly as it pertains to their own government...

...will not be relieved by adding another belated reversal of A MODEST BEGINNING opinion...

...Better days are definitely com- strategists have turned from a theory of mutually assured ing in that area, thanks to a growing social awareness in the destruction to the belief that an atomic war is winnable...

...sponsoring a larger, more formal, and more highly structured Early on in the Conference, one of the participants sol- meeting a year from now...

...It was as being more urgent than those occupying the labor move- not, of course, a truly "national" gathering...

...And the major finding of most variety of war-inflicted disabilities have every claim on the studies of public opinion about Vietnam-that the Presidency nation's aid and support...

...public is increasingly worried eran's situation is complicated by the belief that the war was about Soviet power and willing to spend more on U.S...

...religious side, the planning committee ought to strive to in22 June 1979: 357 volve more people from the Evangelical and Pentecostal tradi- and commitment of funding and staff support for Christian tions, particularly in the Old South...

...We were not all prisoners of war in the literal for Vietnam did not justify an open-ended continuation of sense...

...Because peacemaking Ten representatives from the National Council of Churches is a calling of the first magnitude for Russian Christians, the and its affiliates met in Geneva last March with an equal churches of the USSR have attempted to fulfill that vocation by number of counterparts from five Russian ecclesiastical establishing relationships of brotherhood with American bodies...

...existence...

...cious years of their lives, who suffered and still suffer from a has been a "force for evil...

...The Old South, where education on the issues of the arms race...

...A bad conscience BORN-AGAIN COALITION...

...At the moment, the public seems to have learned to be liest expressions of concern that Vietnam veterans were being wary about proposed military intervention anywhere but in shortchanged in their benefits emanated from the anti-war Europe and to prefer a less activist and less "missionary" movement...

...but those with any memory can confirm how profoundly American involvement in 1966, it is hard to see why it should the war seized hold of our minds and feelings...

...From every quarter, the delegates reported that they had Experience has taught me to restrain my enthusiasm about arrived at a deep and authentic meeting of mind and will as meetings of this type...

...The same speaker-and The conferees believed that nuclear conflict was a probabilother delegates as well -strongly emphasized a new realiza- ity by the 1990s unless the arms race was called to a halt...

...Egan Michael Harrington, who gave the only formal address, struck had come to appreciate, through personal experience, the a responsive note when he said in passing that part of the value of organizations like the Chicago Catholic Council on spiritual drift in American society today is economic in origin...

...Nobody was trying to score church-labor coalition or network...

...denothing to be proud of...

...At the same time, there fashion, today's bumper sticker might read, "We Are All is nothing in that argument which should militate against Vietnam Veterans," not to expropriate the often terrible and recognition of Communis oppression-and protest against it...

...I dare say, in this thing...

...But they cannot expect the war in could lead the nation in the direction it wished in foreign which they participated to be celebrated as past wars have policy-appears to remain true...

...In the days when the Nixon administration attempted to then without any foreseeable certainty of accomplishing one capitalize on the plight.of American POWs in Vietnam, a rather than the other...

...conviction that, while a closer church-labor relationship will Reynold Hillenbrand (surely one of the most significant fig- presumably be good for labor, it will also be good for religion...

...ures in recent history of American Catholicism), Msgr...

...Working Life...

...In similar justify that involvement retroactively...

...Sic redeem the time...

...bumper sticker appeared with the phrase, " We Are All Prison- If what turned out to be a realistic estimate of the prospects ers of War...

...iloquized as to why the hundred-odd church and labor dele- During the interim period between now and next year's gates had jumped at the opportunity to take part in such a conference, a representative planning committee will concenmeeting...

...It had suddenly dawned on both groups that our nation is connection, that the majority of those who, in the '60s and now at a crucial turning point, that we are all in the same boat early '70s, thought of themselves as being Catholic social together, and that the time has come for people with more or activists were hardly even aware that these earlier organiza- less common agendas to join together in a cooperative effort to tions and labor schools had existed in the first place...

...Both in public and in private, the Catholic, Protestant John Egan sponsored an informal church-labor seminar at and Jewish participants spoke with one voice, out of a common Notre Dame University...

...The conference participants recommended a common Christians...

...the better...

...tone...

...We are all here," he opined, "because we are trate on expanding the geographical scope of the project and running scared...

...One of the Southern participants made the A joint statement adopted by the delegates urged the world's point that the separation between the churches and labor in the peoples to "choose life, that you and your descendants may Old South (meaning principally the separation between live...

...points...

...For present purposes, it is enough to say that far-reaching systemic changes are called for in the American the religiously-oriented activists of the '60s and early '70s economy and that such changes will never be effected unless concentrated, understandably, on a set of problems different organized labor takes the lead in bringing them about...

...I also hadd the impression that the churchtransit...

...The tion in the South, that there needs to be a closer on-going greater accuracy of warheads and shorter lead times to respond relationship between labor and religion...

...It was a cry from Secretary for Special Concerns, United States Catholic Con- the heart, a cry of passion and urgency...

...Only nine percent of immoral...

...In the name of God-No...

...Those who were tragically maimed, who lost pre- the public and less than half that of its leaders think the U.S...

...Wimer indicated, the theological "homework" of Geneva dialogue the conferees reveals much about the shaping of their consen1 sus, although it also illumninates the differences in cultural and historical perspective between the churches of the two superpowers...

...A few years ago, the tide began to turn again...

...One has the impres- United States and from the Old South, and the percentage of sion, however, that some of these activists not only ignored the church-related delegates was higher than the percentage of labor movement but unfortunately became rather cynical about union participants...

...It does not look like the lessons of Vietnam are being such celebration-even opposed to it-than are those who sent overlearned...

...drafting committee had obviously done their homework, and achieved unity of spirit...

...Religion & labor The discomfort that veterans sense among their fellow citizens is probably less the result of Americans' having come to a negative moral judgment on the war than the result of having reached that position so late in the conflict...

...Indeed many of them are probably less interested in nerve...

...So much for "failure of been...

...With few exceptions, however, being expanded to decide between these outcomes-and even these membership organizations and training centers had Commonweal: 356 quietly gone out of business by 1960-so quietly, in fact, that Both speakers were probably saying substantially the same their passing was hardly even noticed...

...The majority of ment...

...The ment initiatives, encouragement of ecumenical arms control Metropolitan repeatedly cites statements of Leonid Brezhnev advocacy, under the aegis of the World Council of Churches, in support of arms control, and refers to seventy Soviet initiaCommonweal: 358...

...Despite these and other limitations, it was it and saw no point even in talking about the...

...Another participant, representing a major generating interest and support among groups inadequately industrial union, struck a more positive note...

...always personal experience of those who served there but to The arguments against denouncing that oppression on the recognize the common involvement, responsibility and baf- grounds that protests give comfort to those responsible for flement of the nation...

...Gradually From the ecumenical point of view, the Conference was one and, at first, very informally, some of the "oldtimers"-and, of the best meetings of its kind I have ever attended...

...Yet I am reasonably optimistic about this they prepared their joint statement...

...As rewhich this magazine went beyond specific criticisms of U.S...

...Speaking as a Yankee to a suspected attack vastly increase the temptation for one side and therefore as one less wise, I would agree with this cau- to resort to a first strike at a time of crisis, and many military tiously optimistic assessment...

...The same duty to the historical record and moral principle ought to govern the debate about Vietnam's violations of MORE THAN 100 representatives of unions and human rights and the resurrected claims of war supporters...

...To religiously-oriented social action organizations met in begin with, only a distinct though very vocal minority of those Washington, D.C., May 16-18 to consider what, if opposed to the war harbored rosy illusions about the nature of anything, might be done to develop a closer on-going relationthe adversary...

...Therewere certain amount of social and economic reform...

...Evangelicals and Pentecostals are proportionately more in- The Geneva conference is a new stage in the twenty-fivefluential than the mainline churches, will increasingly be a year-old dialogue of Soviet and American Christian leaders, key - if not the key -geographical area in the field of church- and is the first such meeting to focus on a single moral issue...

...We are here," represented at the Washington meeting...

...cently as five years ago, it would have been difficult, if not policy to a flat condemnation, the editors wrote: "Measured impossible, to put together a meeting of this kind...

...have justified its...

...Two-thirds of the public and an even higher percentage three-quarters of the public now hold that "the Vietnam war of its leadership consider that the U.S...

...Encouraged by the results of labor communities (primarily at the local level), publishing a these preliminary gab sessions, the Center of Concern, again detailed report on the Washington meeting, issuing an occain cooperation with a fairly representative ecumenical church- sional newsletter, developing a number of national issues for labor committee, convened the May 16-18 National Confer- future consideration,evaluating progress after six months, and ence on Religion and Labor...

...Metropolitan Juvenaly of one...