Editorials
Contents Volume CXI, Number 15 Correspondence 450 Editorials 451 The Torch Lady: Mary Ann Flannery 453 The Catholic vote: William M. Droel & Gregory F. Pierce 455 Arms & dollars: Kevin...
...Commonweal: 452 Illl EXERTING LABOR Labor Day has come, a fitting, hot, end-of-summer celebra- tion of the bonum arduum...
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...bank...
...In truth, the second sentence does not refer to problems of policy applications at all but rather to the seriousness with which Catholics must take the bishops' teaching on the immorality of directly taking innocent human life, whether in warfare or abortion...
...But in practice, the bishops have made it abundantly clear that there is wide "room for sincere disagreement" when it comes to translating the moral conviction about noncombatant immunity into specific policy recommendations, whether these deal with Pentagon targeting plans, a freeze on nuclear weaponry, or no first use...
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...But at a healthier beginning...
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...Such intima- tions are rife in the area of abortion...
...But with Patco's demise, labor issues were thrown back to a previous, near-Paleolithic era in which the very existence of unions was once again questioned...
...But what I experienced was totally unexpected...
...Congresswoman Ferraro has proved no more articulate on the subject...
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...Walter Mondaie assures us he has prayed long and hard over the question of abortion...
...While these are not isolated instances, they throw consider- able light on what can be expected in forthcoming labor negotiations...
...But both opposition to abortion and support for the state of Israel can be --and are -advanced, debated, accepted, or rejected on grounds common to all kinds of political-moral decisions...
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...A dramatic line seems to have been crossed, a decisive balance altered by the 1981 Patco strike...
...David Moberg recently reported (In These Times, August 8-21) that postal workers, auto workers, and coal miners all face tough negotiations this fall...
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...But with regard to the immorality of direct taking of innocent human life...
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...The risk would be lessened and the discussion left healthier if each of the major participants would make a few candid concessions...
...9 A bitter strike against Phelps-Dodge at four sites in Arizona since July 1983...
...This argument is open to challenge...
...They missed nothing at all...
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...It is really not too much to insist that these politicians address such matters...
...The briefest investigation into Catholic teaching would show that the church's case against abortion is utterly unlike, say, its belief in the Real Presence, known with the eyes of faith alone, or its insistence on a Sunday obligation, applicable only to the faithful...
...Since there may, or may not, be millions of lives at stake --depending on one's point of view --the issue obviously requires some analysis and explanation...
...Religious leadership may be prominent in the one cause as in the other, and some in that leadership may cite Scripture or tradition to back their case...
...Readers of de Tocqueville are certainly not surprised...
...But at bottom this argument reveals that its propo- nents have made no serious effort to understand the case against abortion...
...Despite appar- ently good domestic economic news, many workers and or- ganized labor in particular find themselves not on the upswing side of recovery but in the most defensive workers' posture in a generation...
...Nationally, the bishops have issued a sound statement declaring their nonpartisan- ship, noting the wide range of issues about which they have expressed concern, and stating their intention to continue evaluating public policy from a moral perspective, speaking both to Catholics in terms of the church's moral tradition and to other citizens of good will "in terms all people can grasp and support...
...This Labor Day it is not uncommon to observe strikes that have lasted more than a year, some of which have involved physical assaults on striking workers...
...The mid-eighties find workers' unions fighting not only for bene- fits and respect, but for survival...
...If the bishops, the "'I'm-personally-opposed-but" politicians, and the pro-choice advocates would grant these points, the discussion of religion and politics would still be only at its beginning...
...It is the sabbath of a season, an end and a beginning...
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...Prior to that, labor disputes centered around wages, hours, health, and oc- cupational safety issues...
...Cases in point: .9 The lockout by Litton Industries last September of its Athol, Massachusetts, plant workers who had been bargaining in good faith and without a contract for four months [ Com-monweal, June 15...
...Nonetheless, given the introductory "but" and the use of the parallel phrases ("With regard to many issues...
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...And the bishops know it...
...Contents Volume CXI, Number 15 Correspondence 450 Editorials 451 The Torch Lady: Mary Ann Flannery 453 The Catholic vote: William M. Droel & Gregory F. Pierce 455 Arms & dollars: Kevin J. Cassidy 456 'We begin bombing in five minutes': Robert H. Bell 456 Message at Campobeilo: Abigail McCarthy 458 Gleb Yalmnin, unqucnebed spirit: Janice Broun 460 The government buys a bank: David Bensman 462 Screen: Nicholas Macdonald 464 The religious fellow traveler: John Rodden 466 Books The Granite Garden: Rosemary Booth 470 An Interrupted Life: Frederick Franck 471 Religious booknotes: Mary Gerhart 472 The Heretics of Dune: John Calvin Batchelor 475 Fellini's Road: Patrick Jordan 476 Christian Spirituality...
...He sees a pattern emerging in which industries demand lower wages for newly hired workers, the "two-tier" wage system...
...The organized resources of a religious community may be mobilized on behalf of one or the other objective...
...The Postal Service wishes to cut wages of all new workers by twenty- three percent...
...It may even be a bit risky...
...the impression is left that the second sentence qualifies the "room for sincere disagreement" over applying moral convictions in concrete policy-making circumstances...
...No public intimations have been let stand that some military commanders or administration officials are "bad Catholics...
...They came with proposals taking away everything we've had in the contract for forty years --holi-days, pension, medical benefits, wages, work rules, every- thing...
...Peter Steinfels Assistant Editors: David Toolan, Karen Smith, Patrick Jordan Production Editor: Anne Robertson Staff: Karen F. Silva, Harriette Balsky Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...Having been gobbled up by Ogden Industries, a $1.7 billion conglomerate, two years ago, Danly, which formerly had excellent relations with its workers, has taken an aggressive attitude toward labor relations...
...I I ~HE DEBATEON religion and politics appears to be irrepressible...
...An open airing of all these topics may very well be healthy, but like a lot of healthy things, not easy...
...We only insist that it is no more a religious "doctrine" being imposed on others than is support for the survival of the state of Israel...
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...9 In New York City, the longest strike in history by hospi- tal workers at twenty-seven area hospitals ended August 27...
...The argument is all the more offensive because it is selectively employed: Catholics and their bishops are ac- cused of imposing their "doctrine" on abortion, but not their "doctrine" on the needs of the poor, or their "doctrine" on the arms race, or their "doctrine" on human rights in Central America...
...The Ferraro nomination THE TORCH LADY THE WOMEN WHO WENT BEFORE C URIOUSLY ENOUGH, I was alone the night Geraldine Ferraro gave her acceptance speech as the nominee of the Democratic party for the office of vice-president of the United States...
...The church's moral teaching on abortion, as it happens, is for the most part like its teaching on racism, warfare, and capital punishment, based on ordinary forms of moral reasoning common to believers and nonbelievers...
...The pope included the following as constitutive elements of the "just wage": health benefits, retirement benefits, rest periods, the right of association, and environments that are not harmful to either workers' safety or their moral integrity (93, 94...
...On one point, however, the bishops are still fudging...
...What are the special reasons for adding the "but...
...Perhaps the dividing lines are sufficiently different...
...Can a Catholic, in good conscience --indeed, on solid, traditional Catholic grounds --agree with the church's view of abortion but disagree with the bishops on what, if anything, should be done about it legally...
...The encouraging results can be found in the group's report, "The Workbench of Life" (Origins, February 16): "We found that our shared values and common problems were generally more extensive and important than those on which we differed...
...One need only have observed the two parties' conventions this summer to be convinced of the continuing force of religion in American politics: San Francisco, where a Baptist minister, a former Yale Divinity School student, and the son of a Methodist minister contended for the Democratic presidential nomination...
...Why does their personal opposition on other issues (hunger, child abuse) regu- larly produce proposals for state action but not on abortion...
...He warned thai union demands must not be"turned into a kind of group or class 'egoism,' " but strongly reiterated Catholic teaching that labor unions are an essential factor of the social order, "a genuine means of human solidarity" (97, 96...
...iiJ" RELIGION & POLITICS: CLEARING THE AIR...
...From Abolitionism to the civil-fights movement and the anti-war struggle of the Vietnam years, religion has provided an enlivening spark for many of the nation's great social movements -- and for several of its major follies...
...Dallas, where the invocations and blessings pronounced by various church notables carded more political significance than the keynote address...
...They have not, unfortunately, said it right out...
...The governor's remark was provoked by this summer's controversy over abortion, which in turn has precipitated the latest discussion of church and state, religion and politics...
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...Perhaps then, as New York's Governor Cuomo suggested, it is better to have a full and open discussion of the proper relations of religion, morality, and politics than to proceed by unquestioned dicta, innuendo, or direct-mall propaganda...
...Says local union president Joe Romano, "I've never had to deal with anything like this...
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...If the "two-tier" strategy succeeds, it will be seen as a precedent for both the federal government and the private sector...
...They should meet the argument on its own grounds and stop trying to bludgeon opposition to abortion with the First Amendment...
...9 Since May 1984 a strike at Danly Tool in Cicero, Illinois, by a thousand workers...
...Those who hold that abortion is immoral believe that the biological dividing lines of birth or viability should no more determine whether a developing member of the species be denied or accorded essential fights than should the biological dividing lines of sex or race or disability or old age...
...Religious upbringing or identity may predispose one to appreciate a particular set of values at stake in one or the other of these issues...
...All the more reason to honor this Labor Day as a sabbath for reflection...
...A nation so steeped in religion is highly unlikely to bracket some of its deepest convictions as it makes its way to the polls...
...What is more, his substantive questions about the nature of work, the purpose of economics, and the relationship of workers to their work and the common good bear scrutiny...
...Postal workers' unions have vowed to fight...
...Some bishops may imagine that there are political advantages to be gained in letting this ambiguity persist...
...This copper struggle is reminiscent of the film "Salt of the Earth," including the use of state law agencies and non-union workers to break the strike...
...As long as those with at least some moral qualms about abortion don't voice their misgivings, anti-abortion Democ- rats will conclude that there is no way to make their case in the party through debate and persuasion...
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...Opposition to all or some abortions may be fight or wrong it is not our intention to debate that case here and now...
...The Catholic archdiocese had warned the hospitals of "union busting" tactics...
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...We don't doubt it, but not feeling capable of judging the quality of his, or anyone else's, prayer, we would settle for some evidence that he has thought long and hard over the issue...
...A period of "quiet diplomacy" between the workers' union and Litton in recent months is likely to be coming to an end...
...It is time, finally, for the pro-choice advocates and editorial writers to abandon, once and for all, the argument that abortion is a religious "doctrine" of a single or several churches being imposed on those of other persuasions in violation of the First Amendment...
...Why are they personally opposed...
...In theory, the residual ambiguity here pertains as much to the issue of warfare as to abortion...
...Of course, he --or she --can...
...Won by workers a century ago, it offers rest, but demands reflection...
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...The need is especially great in the Democratic party, where the bulk of the "I'm-personally-opposed-but" school resides...
...They are wrong...
...Pro-choice advocates should state their reasons for believing so...
...Earlier this year, Bishop Michael Begley of Charlotte, N.C., led a dialogue of fourteen representatives of business management, labor, and the church in a series of discussions about the future economic prospects of western North Carolina...
...Only a clobbering at the polls will shake the Democrats from their strict pro-choice orthodoxy...
...This silence tends to confirm the impression that the Demo- crats have bought, lock, stock, and barrel, into a position on abortion that is unthinking, and that they have done so almost entirely in response to the pressure of pro-choice women's groups...
...Establishment of a religion has nothing to do with it...
...Thus, the abdication of the "I'm-personally-opposed-but" politicians from their responsibility to offer further explanation leads to another instance when politics becomes not deliberation but only, as Alasdair Maclntyre put it, "civil war conducted by other means...
...Their recent statement comes close: "With regard to many issues, of course, there is room for sincere disagreement by Catholics and others who share our moral convictions, over how moral principles should be applied to the current facts in the 7 September 1984:451 public policy debate...
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...With the deep recession of 1982-83, the swelling wave of accom- panying unemployment, and a new, derisive tone fostered by government which seemed to sow further disregard for the means of collective bargaining, the hard-won gains of many American workers accomplished by virtue of organized labor in the last half-century, were suddenly up for grabs...
...There is no reason for them to be anything less than straight-forward and forceful about their own recommendations concerning abor- tion, as they have been about nuclear arms...
...But it is time to clear the air and to say explicitly that there is as much "room for sincere disagreement" about policy implementation among Catholics in the one area as in the other...
...Japanese Society Peter Steinfels 476 Staff Editor...
...It is also time for the "I'm-personally-opposed-to-abortion-but" political leaders to do some explaining...
...In New York, Archbishop John J. O'Connor has wisely backed away from appearing to draw up voting instructions for Catholics...
...Pope John Paul II wrote in Laborem exercens three years ago this month: "in every case a just wage is the concrete means of verifying the justice of the whole socio-economic system.., of checking that it is functioning justly" (89...
...It is time for the Catholic bishops, or at least one or two prominent ones, to make themselves perfectly clear about the reasonableness of divergent views among Catholics on abortion policy...
...Their position may make good sense, or it may simply be a sloppy evasion...
...Litton has already transferred a number of jobs from the Athol plant to other, non-unionized centers...
...From the very settling of this land, that highly acute observer noted, "politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved...
...This model needs to be applied by dioceses across the country, especially in this era when support for workers and their unions has taken a decisive step backwards in the public mind, and when the need for candid discussion among the church's varied family is most urgently called for in light of developing and implementing an effective pastoral on economic life in general...
...That sentence is followed by another which begins, "But...
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...I had just made it home from a meeting and was determined to hear the words of the first woman nomi- nated for such an office...
...This year in particular it is time for thought...
Vol. 111 • September 1984 • No. 15
