Disaster, no; disappointment, yes

...It supports the principle of unilateral initiatives as an effective step toward disarmament and gives new emphasis to the spiritual bases for rejecting nuclear war coupled with the urgent need to discover and develop a more relevant theology of peace and nonviolence...

...If we apply the familiar cliche and agree that the surest way for evil to triumph is for those who know the good to tolerate the evil in silence, the answer should be obvious...

...At fault is not only what is left unsaid and undone, but the draft pastoral (reluctantly and presumably temporarily) also accepts policies of nuclear deterrence which seem to contradict, in spirit at least, what has gone before...

...World War II and the "terror bombings" which destroyed most of Europe's great cities, the horrors of a "little" war like Vietnam, and now Lebanon- these were all accomplished by "conventional" military action...

...Daniel Ellsberg's challenging and well-documented introduction to Protest and Survive (Monthly Review Press paperback, $4.95) reveals that the United States has been "using" nuclear weapons for the past thirty-five years and that all the recent presidents (with the possible exception of Ford) approved the policies of "nuclear blackmail" we so freely attribute to Soviet intentions...

...At some point the question must be faced: can we as Christians, can bishops as bishops, tolerate, even reluctantly, continued dependence on nuclear deterrence for any "period of grace'' at all...

...The legitimacy of conscientious objection and the need to amend Selective Service legislation to permit selective conscientious objection are reaffirmed and find strong reinforcement in the pastoral recommendations...

...Rather, it is to question what seems to be a reversal of priorities and roles in doing so...

...For the proposed pastoral to content itself with repeating that reluctant acquiescence to the deterrent "paradox," with nothing more than the pious hope that progress will be made toward disarmament in the undefined interim, would be a welcome signal to our policymakers that there is no discernible danger that the bishops' patience will be wearing thin in the foreseeable future...

...that is, for acts defined by Vatican II as an offense against God and man himself...

...In doing this, the bishops admit to being skeptical of claims that the existing deterrent prevents the use of nuclear weapons, but they give these claims the benefit of the doubt...

...Writing in these pages over a year ago, J. Bryan Hehir commended the Physicians for Social Responsibility for restricting their activity to areas of their own special competence and not losing themselves in what he called "the arcane details of the strategic debate.'' Theologians and bishops too, would do well to heed this advice...

...When this document speaks in terms of moral principle and the obligations it may impose, the words ring true...

...it is the task of the diplomatic and military functionaries to devise policies and strategies that meet acceptable moral standards...

...Moreover, its overall thrust is such that it offers real promise of future statements (and, one may hope, actions as well) leading ultimately to a final and definitive condemnation of these instruments of omnicide, including their possession and production...

...As one privileged to testify before the Bemardin committee, I did not expect that my pacifist position would be adopted...

...If not, therefore, at all the "disaster" some critics have claimed, the statement is nonetheless a disappointment for those like myself who hoped for more explicit moral guidance, free from ambiguities, reservations, and exceptions that have always been too much a part of episcopal statements on this most crucial moral issue of our time, perhaps of all remaining time...

...For all of the welcome advances this document represents in tone and thrust, it fails to confront the evil which, as Jonathan Schell has shown, is pushing us beyond genocide, beyond omnicide, to the point where the future itself is foreclosed...

...Cautious disclaimers notwithstanding, there is too easy a readiness to settle for a trade-off in the form of greater reliance on conventional weapons and expanded forces, even-and this is a shocking departure from the church's consistent position since the time of Benedict XV-including peacetime conscription...

...At the same time I fear its failings are substantial and could prove fatal, in the literal as well as the rhetorical sense of that term...

...He is the author of German Catholics and Hitler's Wars, In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jagerstatter, as well as War, Conscience and Dissent, a study of the role conflicts of military chaplains and Another Part of the War: The Camp Simon Story (University of Massachusetts...

...Given the historical lesson that most conventional warfare has long since passed all bounds of moral justification in its means, this is simply too great a concession for the bishops to make...

...When it strays off into calculating possible policy alternatives to nuclear deterrence, the way to calamity lies open...

...The proposed draft of the November pastoral is unquestionably the strongest statement yet by the American hierarchy in opposition to nuclear weapons and nuclear war...

...Finally, the draft's discussion of consequences and alternatives, even considering the criticisms to be offered here, testifies to the broad range of opinion surveyed in the committee's desire to produce a statement on war and peace that would be informed, balanced, and firmly rooted in Christian spirit and doctrine...

...One might have hoped that the bishops would base their moral judgment on the most likely use as demonstrated by officially declared intent...

...Thus for the reasons indicated at the beginning of this critique, I am generally well satisfied with the tone and the thrust of the draft document...

...Even the slightest indication of willingness to condone the possession and production of weapons that are admittedly immoral to use or even to threaten to use can only undermine the credibility of the entire document and negate its inspirational appeal for a new and fuller commitment to "the Gospel vision...

...Are our bishops prepared to tolerate the continuation of this increasingly hazardous game of bluff...

...In these and many other respects, it succeeds...

...We have a right to look to the bishops for their moral judgment of what is actually being done and being planned, whether it be continued reliance upon MAD, the proposed shift to counterforce and its first-strike implications, or whatever...

...In this case the facts are clear enough: the overwhelming majority of these weapons are designed and many are already targeted for use against cities...

...There is, for instance, the apparent readiness to allow weapons presumably limitable to strictly military targets...

...No serious consideration is given the contrary thesis, namely that reliance upon the deterrent has produced the "balance of terror" which creates and sustains the international tensions threatening the world with annihilation...

...It repeats and strengthens previous condemnations of the use and of the threat to use such weapons, specifically extending those condemnations to retaliatory use and-an important challenge to existing national policy-to first use under any circumstances...

...The appearance of such experts before the Bemardin committee should have been the occasion for probing into the justifications offered for past and current policies-not, as was more likely the case, to solicit their advice as to what the bishops should say in fulfilling their responsibility to provide the faithful with adequate moral guidance...

...This is what is at stake in their apparent willingness, reluctant and contingent though it may be, to go along with possession and continued production of nuclear weapons for the time being...

...Furthermore, even if the so-called tactical weapons could be (or would be...

...It is not their responsibility to fashion alternative strategies...

...This is a kind of updated version of the old "two-battleships-at-sea" scenario which has always been trundled out to forestall any judgment on nuclear weapons as intrinsically immoral...

...Were it not for massive European demonstrations and our own nuclear-freeze movement (neither of which, strangely enough, is mentioned-much less endorsed as one might have hoped), the Reagan policies would still be moving in a direction diametrically opposite to that called for by the cardinal...

...Those of us who have criticized German Christians and their bishops for failing to mount an effective witness against Auschwitz and all it meant have a responsibility to urge our own bishops to go further than this pastoral proposes, and to oppose the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of instant Auschwitzes that are already waiting to be committed in our name...

...Despite the fact that Cardinal Krai's widely cited testimony to the Senate is now three-years-old, and that there has been nothing to indicate it had the slightest effect upon national policy, we find the same rationale incorporated in this draft document...

...GORDON ZAHN is a veteran peace activist who was a conscientious objector during World War II, served on Eugene McCarthy's staff in the 1950s, and was a sociologist at Loyola University (Chicago) and the University of Massachusetts...

...put to such limited use, the unknowable dangers to the environment should be enough to merit condemnation in any event...

...The draft pastoral's basic weakness lies in its perspective...

...Theological technicalities aside, there are times when a prophetic word must be spoken even if there is no one willing to listen or follow...

...The impression is one of troubled ambivalence and a yearning for a compromise on essentially irreconcilable issues...

...This is not to criticize the obvious, and quite legitimate, concern that die relevant moral teachings be considered in the context of empirical situations and the dilemmas they present...

...He is Chairperson of the Coordinating Committee of Pax Christi USA Center on Conscience and War in Massachusetts...