The bishops & the critics:

...Those in political power play a kind of intellectual shell game with their critics...

...And it would be naive to think that we are so fully in control of ourselves that in the event of an attack we would not say, "What the hell," and hit them with everything we've got...

...I do not like the word "pacifist," but that is no doubt how I would be de-scribed, since I believe any killing of other human beings to be completely inconsistent with the Gospel I try, badly, to follow...

...The episcopal silence in Germany during the Nazi period was not one of Catholicism's high points...

...That is beyond anyone's power to know...

...They dismiss non-violent resistance as naive, ignoring the fact that it brought about the only successful democratic revolu-tion in our century, and wish to pursue a course which even they admit might destroy millions of lives, if not all life...

...Jesus said that his teaching would set brother against brother and divide households...

...So it is not quite right to say that what the bishops have called for amounts to unilateral disarmament...

...That is the argument that nuclear deterrence has kept the peace, and that the alterna-tive to a nuclear deterrence will be the massive build-up of conventional forces...

...JOHN GARVEY...

...This dishonesty is the reason why such critics as Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute are naive at best when they claim that the bishops are leaving their clerical territory and invading a field best left to lay experts...

...That is not necessarily a bad thing (though I believe the division will not occur...

...It is not wrong, however, to point out the inconsistency between what they are prepared to do, and the Gospel preached by one who "made no distinc-tion between man and man," who told us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us, and who died rather than let his followers try to save him through violent means...

...Reagan is too amiable a fellow to be called a fox...

...You may say that you would never think of using doomsday weapons, and you may mean it with all your heart, but as long as you have them your enemy doesn't know that for sure...

...Threats in this case are too risky: the stakes are too high, since the existence of the threat contributes to a hardening rather than a softening of the enemy's position...

...The most stupid criticism the bishops received was the argument that they are not expert in these issues...

...He is more like a lemming, the one in the lead of the horde heading for the edge of the ocean...

...One of them, Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle, is often called an extremist by his opponents...

...The problem is obvious: if your enemy knows that you will absolutely refuse to use a weapon, what you have is no longer a weapon and is therefore use-less even as a bargaining point...

...when experts - atomic physicists and physicians who know what the effect of nuclear war would be - disagree with them, they claim that the experts don't have the political information that they themselves possess...

...This is not the whole of the Gospel, but it is no small part of it...

...they have not yet called Reagan "that fox," as Jesus called Herod...

...and when those who do have such information or know how to get it criticize them, as a number of arms controllers, retired CIA and military people have, they accuse them of being ideologically motivated, and so forth...

...government pol-icy...

...Another problem is one raised by Richard Cleaver, for-merly of the Des Moines Catholic Worker, now with the American Friends Service Committee: too much of the debate has assumed that this issue is and will remain a matter of debate between the superpowers...

...As citi-zens as well as moral leaders the bishops have every right to indicate practical procedures, to support them in any way they like, and to urge others to do so...

...It is not at all un-Christian to point out that there are some things you may not do, even if your survival is at stake...

...He simply calls on his fellow Christians to pray and search their consciences...

...In the latter case the bishops did support specific legislative courses - first a constitutional amendment, more recently the Hatch initiative - and while it could be argued that they would have been better advised simply to state their opposition to abortion and to af-firm the Catholic teaching that abortion is wrong because it is the deliberate taking of human life, they did not in any case say that Catholics who disagreed, with them about the implementation of this concern were out of line...

...The bishops are much milder than their master...

...This does not take into account the fact that any nuclear war will cer-tainly involve vast civilian populations, and it assumes either that this stand-off can go on forever, or that when it breaks down the devastation will have been worth it...

...If it were only that it would be deadly enough, but nuclear technology is now available to any nation with the will and re-sources to afford it, and if we are to avoid nuclear disaster a profound inter-national effort will be required...

...This might indeed divide the Amer-ican church, as some critics and some of the dissenting bishops have charged...

...The moral problem is that one may not threaten what one does not intend to do - would there be circumstances acceptable to the bishops in which one could threaten abortion...

...Several commentators noted an inconsistency: the current draft says that we may possess nuclear weapons only so long as we absolutely refuse to use them, the justification being that this possession is tolerable as a tempo-rary state of affairs while we move to-wards complete disarmament, using our weapons as bargaining chips...

...our way of life is worth the risk of annihilation...

...They claim that bishops, for example, are not experts...

...There would be a point to the argument if the bishops said that Catholics must, under pain of sin or excommunication, support a certain legislative course...

...Archbishop Bernardin properly pointed out that edi-torialists sound off every day on any number of issues, ranging from the finer points of economics to every area of foreign policy...

...His concern, and the concern of the majority of bishops, is that the problem of the arms race must be seen as the morally urgent issue it is...

...There is one argument which opponents of the pastoral letter make which is not without merit, though it does not go to the moral heart of the matter...

...Arms race proponents seem to be saying that any-thing at all is permitted...

...The bishops may have a good political point here, even if it is not a morally impress-ive one...

...Conservatives did not com-plain that they were not experts on human sexuality or reproduction when the bishops addressed the question of contraception, nor were there com-plaints that the papal authors of social encyclicals did not hold graduate de-grees in political studies and econom-ics...

...What worries the right is that the bishops are saying something which runs counter to U.S...

...Catholic bishops' pastoral letter on nuclear arms has caused a lot of comment, much of it foolish and most of that (though not all) from the right...

...The issue of expertise is a red her-ring...

...Many of the bishops prepared themselves quite well, in their reading and consultations, and a few have probably brought a more searching intelligence to the question of the arms race than even our president possesses...

...Nevertheless, I would oppose any attempt to tell those who work for the arms industry or are in the armed forces that they are in sin...

...Fear of divisiveness has in the past kept bishops silent where they should have spoken out...

...He has specifically said that the way he has chosen (the refusal to pay a portion of his income tax) is not necessarily the way for others...

...Lemmings always know exactly what they are doing, and they are always sure, right up to the end...

...Lay experts are at least as tainted by the source of their income as bishops are, maybe even more so...

...There are plenty of lay experts who agree wholeheartedly with the bishops...

...Are they experts on all, or any, of them...

...JOHN GARVEY...

...But the bishops have not done that, here or in the parallel case of the debate surrounding abor-tion...

...The bishops have pointedly not told people what they must do under pain of sin in this case, and they are not likely to...

...The bishops are right not to surrender to those who call themselves experts on the issue...

...But it is not enough for oppo-nents of the arms race to work for a reduction of nuclear arms without any attention at all to the political and moral dangers inherent in a build-up of con-ventional forces...