Editorials

...So far, the thrust of their activities is consistently and almost entirely directed against what are conventionally considered "left" positions among religious activists...

...That capitalist imperialism is a root cause of oppression...

...Consider the Institute on Religion and Democracy, not a specifically Catholic group although it has Catholics on its board and letterhead and has given a good bit of attention to Catholic issues...

...Or, for that matter, what does he think of another article that appeared in the same "anti-left" publication and which attributes the post-Vatican II removal of bad religious art from churches to "the heresy of Modernism" enjoying "Satanic assistance...

...Despite their sprinkling of liberal names to "balance" the conservative ones, these initiatives are not "centrist...

...Exactly how sane this writer's particular center is, can be seen a few paragraphs later when he takes up the subject of war...

...Because "public and private moral practices in the United States call out for divine punishment" - in particular, abortion...

...Whatever one may think of Finn's conclusions, his argument was eminently reasonable, dare we even say "sane...

...They can judge for themselves...

...At a moment when villagers are slaughtering each other in India, when atrocities against civilians in Zimbabwe seem to be repeating the pattern under the black socialist Mugabe that they took under the previous white regime, when Iran and Iraq continue their pointless battles, when the Soviet Union carries out its Mylais in Afghanistan, when Communist nations consistently demonstrate their incapacity to provide either economic well-being or political freedom (who, one wonders, are the liberation theologians from the Communist "second world...

...The threat of nuclear war is not due to "some bloodlust in the Pentagon," nor to the possibility that "the citizenry is inadequately aware of what bombs can do," nor even to "the global designs of the Soviet Union...

...One finds among the sponsors of these organizations the same names, individuals associated with various conservative and neoconservative political institutions like the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Institute on Religion and Democracy...

...Meantime, the new organizational effort presents some novelties and a general character that deserve comment...

...But what does Mr...

...At the same time, we have to admit that this and other reports of the conference, at least as they stand in cold type, leave us a bit skeptical, to put it gently...

...Finn think of the nuclear-war-as-divine-punishment-for-abortion approach that we previously described...

...So why are we in danger of nuclear annihilation...

...Having announced itself as opposing the political misuse of religion across the political spectrum, it has in practice relentlessly scrutinized the mainline Protestant denominations for signs of left-wing deviationism while breathing scarcely a word about right-wing abuses of religion...

...mind of cant...

...War, he says, referring to Our Lady of Fatima,"is not the crime, it is the punishment...

...Differences of opinion on these matters - for example, the specificity and authority with which church leaders should speak out on public issues - have long existed, and will long continue to exist...

...Indeed, some pacifists argue that the widespread accommodation to abortion has its roots in our earlier accommodation to nuclear weapons...

...FOR a LONG TIME it was standard operating procedure among historians and cultural critics to see the Catholic church as the antithesis of modern flux, a fortified island of permanence in the sea of change...

...Now we would not deny that there is some scriptural and theological warrant for talking about war as "punishment...

...Change continues, both good and bad...

...No doubt there was much said at this conference that has escaped these few condensed formulas, and there was probably much meant that even these formulas scantily represent, and there was perhaps even some amount of the self-criticism that is largely lacking in these reports...

...The immediate stimulus for the formation of these groups is opposition, ranging from mild to Fierce, to the bishops' pastoral letter...

...Left, right, and center are notoriously slippery (and potent) labels in political discourse...

...Writing in a totally different kind of journal - in a recent issue of America - James Finn mounted a case against unilateral nuclear disarmament and against the policy of no-first-use endorsed in the second draft of the bishops' pastoral...

...That argument goes too far for us, but at least it has chronology on its side...

...What, exactly, is a root cause, and can there be more than one of them...

...Is the center automatically sane simply by virtue of being the center, or is there also a "neurotic center" and perhaps even a "psychotic center...

...Beyond the question of nuclear arms, the chief areas of contention are the degree of moral legitimacy to be granted the current form of American capitalism, the critical stance of U.S...

...bishops and many other Catholics toward Washington's policy in Central America, and the appropriate focus for the peace-and-justice activities of the church, both at the level of the U.S...

...Such, evidently, is the allure of the new Catholic "anti-left...

...We don't know...

...That whatever you call it, capitalist muscle is still exerted in many ways from the centers of Western power so as to retard and distort the striving for human dignity...

...Consider, too, the Catholic writer who claims his new publication represents the "sane center...

...Is the "sane center" to be contrasted with an "insane" left or right...

...All we do know is that Mr...

...But we would think that, when contemplating-the possible deaths of hundreds of millions in a nuclear war as well as the possible consequences on a planetary scale, the "sane center" might proceed cautiously in describing this punishment as "divine...

...Both views reflect reality-and exaggerate it...

...Clearly, our correspondent was impressed...

...LIBERATION VERBALITY The allure of the "anti-left" can partially be explained by the report in this issue of the recent dialogue between first-world and third-world liberation theologians (see page 134...

...Although the direction of the new Catholic groups appears firmly in the hands of such conservatives, their boards usually list the names of several individuals with reputations as moderate liberals...

...Accordingly, the new groups insist on their broad representative character and prefer to describe themselves as "centrist...

...Peadar Kirby, the author of this report (which parallels other news stories about the conference), was on the scene...

...Catholic Conference and the dioceses...

...But to the extent that these bald and sweeping declarations are to be taken at face value, well, it's hard not to think of something said-Thomas Powers, take note-by Samuel Johnson almost exactly two hundred years ago: "Clear your mind of cant...

...It is now the style to see just the opposite: the church swept away by a whirlwind of updating...

...Likewise, whenever the pope reasserts established moral doctrine on a topic like abortion, some observers seem wide-eyed with astonishment and wonder what obscure Eastern European idiosyncrasy could be at work, as though the norm for popes since Vatican II were to take one's ethics from the New York Times...

...If the IRD wants to be an "anti-left" organization, that is its own business, but why not admit it...

...we weren't...

...If left, right, and center are tricky terms in political and religious debate, that is doubly true about psychological terms...

...Thus the press portrays the bishops' pastoral letter on nuclear armaments as a radical departure from past teaching when in fact it is a document that largely synthesizes and applies traditional approaches to a new situation...

...otherwise they appear to be window-dressing...

...That third-world theologians need to assert their independence and underline the urgency of their concerns and that if this requires hyperbole, so be it...

...The IRD is a kind of prototype for these operations...

...Are there not many other ways of reading the Geneva conference's statement...

...Are we being too literal...

...Centrists and moderate liberals are quite welcome insofar as they are criticizing positions further to the left...

...But if one is to give those terms, any rough validity at all, it can be seen that the new groups are flying under a false flag...

...The latest development is a spate of committees, centers, and publications presenting themselves as lay-initiated counters to the excesses of the clergy and hierarchy...

...He has described the deliberations and conclusions sympathetically, and we've passed on that description to our readers...

...it strikes us as more than slightly simple-minded to declare that the root cause of world oppression is "capitalist imperialism...

...So does resistance to change, both good and bad...

...We, too, are appalled by this society's massive resort to abortion, but if one wants to posit nuclear war as a punishment for sin, it is easier to argue, as some pacifists do, that it will be punishment for the sin of deploying these devastating weapons in the first place...

...We represent neither the right nor the left, declared one of their publications recently: "We intend to occupy the sane center...

...It has honored the centrist Bishop Obando of Nicaragua, who is struggling against a left-wing government, but it has not indicated similar interest in the struggles of centrist bishops in Chile and the Philippines against right-wing governments...

...We can only guess at some of the elements of a meeting like this that cannot easily be included in a brief report-the personal courage, the painful experiences, the deep commitments that many third-world theologians would be bringing to Geneva...

...In connection with religion they can be even more confusing...

...Finn and a few other liberals have lent their names (and intellectual reputations) to the Editorial Board of that publication...

...Finn urged that we "bring our full intellectual resources to bear" on the nuclear weapons issue and recommended that tradition of moral teaching in the church which he believes would actually provide practical guidance to those responsible for American security...

...but at a deeper level the groups represent a more general desire to halt the increasing frequency with which Catholic social and political activists have been challenging existing American policies and attitudes, both in regard to the economic system and to foreign policy...

...But it won't be much of an opening if one simply adds "patriarchy" to "capitalist imperialism" and then has two all-purpose villains instead of one...

...The insistence of the feminist theologians on the oppression of women, which certainly did not begin with capitalism, at least seems to have forced an opening to a more complex kind of social analysis...

...What they are is "anti-left...