Correspondence
COY, PATRICK G. & BELTH, ZOE L. & BERGMAN, ROGER & CRONK, SISTER MARION & FLICK, CATHY & Slavick, William H.
CORRESPONDENCE
'Maintaining perspective on peace'
AN EXCHANGE OF VIEWS
Lopsided leaching
St. Louis, Mo.
To the Editors: In your editorial ["Maintaining Perspective," January 29] you saw fit to take...
...Illustrations: Cover and pp...
...p. 182, Mike Smith, Rothco...
...This may be an arguable point, but it is hardly what the bishops' careful wording intended...
...We are still far from a healthy balance...
...ROGER BERGMAN Einstein's postulate Wheaton, 111...
...The editors argue that by neglecting to provide space for just-war theorists in this particular issue, focusing instead on the nonviolent tradition, NCR has failed its readership and misused its influence in the U.S...
...171, 172, Pamela T. Keating...
...Even if you can find in the words of Christ and the Gospels any suggestion of such a theory, surely in this atomic/ nuclear age there can be no "just" war...
...Copyright © 1988 Commonweal Foundation...
...Please count me among those of your readers who do not go along with your just-war "leaning...
...For the just-war-leaning journal, Commonweal, which has been a party to this lopsided teaching, to begrudge NCR its special issue extolling nonviolence seems terribly shortsighted, serving perhaps Commonweal's needs, but not those of the larger church...
...p. 182, Mike Smith, Rothco...
...National Catholic Reporter has the sane philosophy...
...administrative board on AIDS [see editorial "Getting the Point," January 15] argues that there is a moral basis for the use of condoms...
...The famous phrase, "strictly conditioned moral acceptance," hardly gives nuclear deterrence the solidity of approval suggested by your phrase, "a moral basis...
...J70, 175, 178, Paul Valerry...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...p. 168, photo by David Gahr...
...To the Editors: Regarding your.editorial, "Maintaining Perspective," in my opinion, those persons who are speaking of just-war theories in these days of nuclear weapons, are a perfect example of Einstein's statement: "Everything has changed except our manner of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe...
...PATRICK G. COY Tilling the other way Hempstead, N.Y...
...167, 183, K. Mitro, Rothco...
...By questioning these assumptions, NCR acted responsibly during the hoopla surrounding the signing of the INF Agreement, filling a crucial void in the Catholic journalistic community they share with Commonweal and America...
...Indeed, nuclear deterrence has never been given the blessing of the Catholic church, as examination of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World and the recent statement of John Paul II on the INF Treaty would verify...
...The bishops realized that to deny this Very cautious acceptance of deterrence would be effectively to counsel unilateral disarmament, a path they thought imprudent...
...Over the centuries, where has it gotten us...
...To the Editors: In your editorial ["Maintaining Perspective," January 29] you saw fit to take the National Catholic Reporter to task for its special issue focused on peacemaking, and published to coincide with the Reagan-Gorbachev summit...
...p. 176, Al Ross, Rothco...
...To the Editors: To quote your words in the January 29 editorial, "Maintaining Perspective": "just as a just-war teaching represents a long-standing leaning of this journal...
...The late Bishop Carroll Dozier said,' 'We should file the just-war theory in the file drawer with the flat-earth theory.'' In my mind, it is impossible to accept the possession of nuclear (Continued on page 190) Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest and Book Review Index...
...The trouble with the Christian realism of just-war teaching is that it very easily ceases to have anything to do with Christ...
...CORRESPONDENCE 'Maintaining perspective on peace' AN EXCHANGE OF VIEWS Lopsided leaching St...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 0010-3330...
...Catholic community...
...Such acceptance of it as has been given has always been in the context of a condemnation of the arms race, which the policy spawns, as unconscionable theft from the poor, and only as a temporary step on the path to nuclear disarmament...
...ZOE L. BELTH Only a temporary step Omaha, Nebr...
...But perhaps the point is that it was a t special issue, published during the summit, at a time when everyone and their journalistic sisters were spilling whole bottles of ink on the arms race without ever questioning its underlying assumption: that peace can be achieved through the balance of nuclear terror...
...Does Commonweal mean to find in just-war teaching a "moral basis" for nuclear deterrence - which depends, after all, on the clear intent to commit mass murder-more solid than what the pope and bishops have found...
...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Wooster, Ohio 44691...
...To the Editors: I do not believe it quite fair or accurate to say, as you do in your editorial, "Maintaining Perspective" [January 29], that "the bishops in their pastoral letter on nuclear weapons . . . believed, however reluctantly, that there was a moral basis for nuclear deterrence...
...To do so seems to me roughly equivalent to saying that the recent statement of the U.S.C.C...
...We Catholics have endured centuries of lopsided teaching on the war and violence question, with just war being generally presented as the only viable Christian stance...
Vol. 115 • March 1988 • No. 6
