Upon This Rock:

...The shrewd Roman realizes that a doctrine so radical is a far greater threat to Caesar than any Zealot horde...

...It is easy to dismiss with broad assertions the problem of nuclear deterrence while leaving unexamined what are the real alternatives...

...The less successful Roman Enigma, though its form was that of an espionage thriller, was in fact a searing'' J' Accuse'' directed at Pius XII for his failure to speak out even when the Germans were rounding up Jews within sight of his balcony...

...Their contributions have been invaluable...

...Would it though...

...And - a strong echo of the closing movement of Vicar of Christ - Jesus' fate is sealed when he tells Pilate that he preaches love of enemies...

...Michael Gallagher In Flannery O'Connor's short story " A Good Man is Hard to Find," a psychopath called The Misfit wipes out an entire family.: Before he quite finishes the job, however, he gets into a theological discussion with the sole surviving member, the grandmother: Did Jesus raise the dead or didn't he...

...Where's the wisdom...

...If our own thinking on international politics and morality has been made more uncomfortable by the pacifist testimony, it has also, we think, been made better...

...The Poles' hatred of the oppressors is understandable...

...Answer: The beleaguered Poles command our sympathy whereas, when an American speaks, all one can see is the obscene glut of nukes, an indulgence at the expense of the poor everywhere, on which the speaker stands...

...SIMON PETER REMEMBERS UPON THIS ROCK THE LIFE OF ST...

...New York, N.Y...

...But its espousal of just-war theory cannot be squared with the radical nonviolence and trust in God of the first three hundred years of the Christian era...

...If the arms race is legitimate, it should not require Polish BECOME A 1988 ASSOCIATE Patron Member $200 or more Charter Member $100 Sustaining Member $50 Commonweal Associates, 15 Dirtcli St...

...Perhaps something like that would occur to the case for nonviolence stated by the NCR-or by several of our correspondents^-if the just-war teaching and the case for nuclear deterrence, too, were not simply rendered unthinkable-and invisible-from the start...

...The bishops' letter was a blessing in reasserting the dominion of moral principles regarding arms...

...The Misfit is too canny to come flat out and say Jesus did or Jesus didn't because he wasn't there...

...WILLIAM H. SLAVICK The editors reply: Before World War II, this journal's editors were sharply divided about whether the totalitarian power of Nazi Germany, which Commonweal deeply deplored, should be opposed by measures that risked war...

...It brings to life a first-century world that is compellingly real...

...Then he became drawn to Jesus and his message of universal love, though at first he's much put off by the sweaty and quarrelsome Galilean peasants the Master unaccountably chose to surround himself with, one of whom is Simon Peter, whose friend and confidant he would eventually become...

...The editorial "Maintaining Perspective" did no more than suggest that the bishops' conclusion might be true for the National Catholic Reporter as well...

...And, of course, pitted against any member of the Roman curia today, Peter, would be a colossal ignoramus when it came to christology...

...Poland has been bounced back and forth between Germany and Russia for at least half its thousand- year history...

...Like the Polish visitor, I am a scientist (Ph.D...

...His Mary Magdalene leads the eucharistic liturgy, arid no one thinks of demurring...

...The same Christian convictions that led Commonweal to reject absolute pacifism and unilateral disarmament have also led it to reject many of the military and political policies of our government- from the saturation bombing of European cities to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, from John Foster Dulles's "roll-back" to the war in Vietnam, from "more bang for a buck" to the MX...

...Finally, it seemed that even the process of nuclear disarmament had to be carried out in a careful and balanced way or the practical consequence could be to heighten the very possibility of mega-slaughter that revolted all sense of morality...

...For Murphy's Simon Peter is not a man who lives by what he knows...

...What fueled his burning faith - and Murphy contends that Peter needed faith just as much as do we - was not knowledge but love...

...American scientists in the Manhattan project thought they were working for "deterrence...

...Better a temporary triumph of Nazi ideas...

...To the Editors: The editors mention a visit from a Polish Solidarity member who believes nuclear deterrence is a Portland, Maine To the Editors: What is at all special about a visiting Pole putting his trust and hope for peace in American nuclear deterrence rather than in Gospel peace...

...38769, ATT: Rev...

...An editorial in March 1939, for example, declared that no act of Nazi aggression could justify a general war...

...Murphy bypasses the usual scenic stops...

...Despite having "been there," he knows much less about the Master than the Fathers of Nicea and Chalcedon would later claim to...

...in physics...

...legitimate just-war position...

...Commonweal's experience, in other words, supports what the bishops concluded in their pastoral-that the just-war and nonviolent traditions are complementary and corrective...

...The just-war theory has been bent, spindled, and mutilated to serve a U.S...

...appreciation to make it so...

...But hundreds of thousands of innocent people discovered otherwise...

...The Commonweal argument is facile and, in effect, self-serving...

...In trying to establish the moral limits to the use of force, and the rights and obligations of each conscience in this area, Commonweal has welcomed to its pages pacifists and unilateralists...

...The bishops' late accommodation of nuclear deterrence is inconsistent with just-war principles...

...It is easy to caricature just-war teachings and to burden them with all the sins of the past, while burdening pacifism with none...

...Above all, Murphy's characters agonize over who the Master was or - point crucial beyond measure - is...

...our work: preaching, evangelizing, parish, prison, community building...

...And their accommodation of just-war theory and nonviolence is accomplished only by failure to recognize the sharp moral contradiction between them and by ignoring the implications of Gospel nonviolence after acknowledging that tradition...

...It seemed later that refusing to maintain any military counter to the Soviet Union, e.g., no NATO in Europe, no resistance in Korea, was also not the moral response...

...And in one of his short pieces of fiction, Murphy imagined what would have happened if Peter instead of Pius XII had been pope during the Holocaust...

...Modern scientific technology has made "military strength" an illusion...

...Not as central to the novel as faith itself but still important are two other aspects of Murphy's re-creation of those first days - interpretations that have pointed significance for our own day...

...And if it is not sufficient that this alternative viewpoint was endorsed by the American bishops, then we thought it might be persuasive to note the case of our Polish visitor, a very well-informed, deeply Christian individual who has spent time in prison for participation in a nonviolent movement and who knows at first hand problems of the third world...

...Write: Delta Dominican Ministries, Box 307, Rosedale, Ms...

...Peter...

...But by 1941 the editors had definitively abandoned this hope of resisting totalitarian evil by nonviolent means alone- and their successors have never gone back oh that abandonment...

...It seemed then that the refusal to fight a war aimed at preventing Nazi domination of Europe and possibly the whole world was not the appropriate moral response...

...Murphy's narrator is Quintus, a wealthy young man of Greek and Roman parentage with an interest in philosophy and modest literary ambitions...

...Our financial resources: very limited...

...Gone also is that sex object nonpareil of biblical fiction, a genteelly voluptuous Mary Magdalene as reformed prostitute...

...THE EDITORS ged for struggling Mississippi mission...

...10038 Your Membership in the Associates is tax-deductible...

...Arthur Kirwin, OP.dale, Ms...

...Nor is Upon This Rock without its polemical nuances...

...Our editorial did not ask the NCR or other critics of deterrence or just-war teachings to change their positions...

...It only suggested that the tension created by at least some sympathetic attention to another viewpoint would be valuable...

...The argument that the peace pastoral is wise in approving just-war teaching and Gospel nonviolence and that the National Catholic Reporter is not in denying just-war theory and nuclear deterrence a hearing won't wash...

...But others working for self-determination in Eastern Europe have remarked that the unbending antagonism the Poles display toward the Soviets hinders such efforts...

...His critically acclaimed 1979 best seller Vicar of Christ was the story of the first American pope, a Marine hero and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who dies from an assassin's bullet because of his stern condemnation of nuclear weapons...

...SISTER MARION CRONK Spindled & mutilated Richmond, Ind...

...For Murphy doesn't hesitate to draw conclusions when he grapples with the controversy over Judaization that nearly tore apart the early church, or again, the scandal and dismay caused by the delayed return of the Master that hung over it like a dark cloud...

...It has a strong narrative drive...

...38769, ATT: Rev...

...Skeptic and.dilettante of sorts though he was, Quihtus first became a God Fearer - a gentile who reveres the God of Israel but remains uncircumcised...

...Those old favorites Judas and the centurion - one the darling of the revisionists, the other the champion of muscular Christians - don't rate even a walk-on...

...They have joined with just-war adherents in opposing the claims of sheer realpolitik...

...We must convince the bullies in the White House and the Kremlin that they cannot base their national security on domination of other nations...

...Dominicans labor here with local Catholic community to bring the Gospel to people with the scars of racial, social, religious division...

...And it gives us full-bodied, fully human characters: a Stephen whose abrasive-ness had much to do with his being the first to win a martyr's crown, a Paul whose nuanced humility could be as trying as his stridency, and, most important, a Simon Peter with whom we can empathize - a man of heroic strength and glaring weakness, who slowly came to realize that the Master had been well aware of both when he chose him as his Rock...

...Walter F. Murphy seems to say no in this life of St...

...Arthur Kirwin, OP...

...CATHY FLICK CORRESPONDENCE Squaring contradictions (Continued from page 162) weapons by our government and still call ourselves Christians...

...But he wished he had been there because then he'd know - and knowing would make all the difference in the world...

...foreign policy identical to Soviet policies...

...Murphy, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton, has in his three novels shown a single-minded fascination for the papacy...

...Passionate love was the making of Peter, and, in this powerful re-creation of first-century Christianity, it was also the unmaking of him on more than one occasion...

...They have challenged just-war adherents both to reexamine their principles and to apply them...

...Despite a tendency to rely too much on conversations, Murphy's Upon this Rock is immensely entertaining...

...Murphy's Magdalene is a wealthy landowner with an imperious will, a born leader whose courage and decision hold the followers of the Way together in the face of the panic that follows the crucifixion...

...We cannot protect human and civil rights by weapons that destroy everything they are meant to protect...