Lordsburg, New Mexico
Cording, Robert
Lordsburg, New Mexico Having come this far from the mountain, we see more easily the mountain as a man, lying on his back face to the sun and stars, his thoughts and dreams the clouds passing...
...The substance of the memo was not so bad, expressing many opinions but not as a magisterial statement...
...He said that he would himself distribute the Schotte memo to all the bishops, the Bernardin and Roach report to us on the Rome meeting, and a committee commentary on the Schotte memo, showing that we were in fundamental agreement with its principles...
...So what is the contemporary relevance of this narrative...
...A tractor-trailer drags the day's hot breath through town, a cross of roads named Motel Drive North, Motel Drive West...
...A few migrant clouds scud above Rt...
...That would destroy all our efforts to write a document that would both include specifics and achieve a consensus--end of project...
...As she talks, she checks the seals around the doors and windows where a fringe of sand has blown in...
...And it was Bernardin's brilliant stroke that saved it...
...Bernardin said orally that the Vatican feared that conscientious objection, and hence nonviolence, would be treated as an option for the state (not just for individuals), but that he knew the committee did not intend that and could make it clear...
...On returning, Bernardin and Roach wrote a memo for the committee saying what points in the document needed clarification or modification, but we all thought the modifications did not threaten the integrity of the document, or the process...
...Here are a few highlights...
...Or so Apache legend has it, Cochise's body never found, reabsorbed by the landscape...
...Then, in March, came a rather imperious memorandum from Monsignor Jean Schotte, secretary of the Vatican Justice and Peace Commission, detailing a long list of reservations allegedly discussed at the Rome meeting...
...But it drew on The Church in the Modern World's statement that, "Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man itself...
...In light of the probable escalation of any use of nuclear weapons to undiscriminating and utterly disproportionate consequences, the U.S...
...They also leaned heavily on a very careful statement by John Paul II in 1982: "In current conditions, 'deterrence' [actually, in the French original, "une dissuasion," not any and all deterrence] based on balance, certainly not as an end in itself but as a step on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable...
...But it came close to a total wipeout of the process and of the document...
...The committee members were dismayed, and furious...
...Below, this overgrown truck stop's tableau of low cement buildings, sun-leached and troweled with sand, where we stop to eat...
...He did so, and the storm blew away...
...It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation...
...Blessed Joseph Bernardin (I use the qualifier deliberately...
...Cook waitress, owner---she tells us a lot of things have happened here...
...Note all the qualifiers, which I emphasize with italics...
...First, does the substance of the document itself have any relevance for contemporary international relations, after the cold war...
...Lordsburg, New Mexico Having come this far from the mountain, we see more easily the mountain as a man, lying on his back face to the sun and stars, his thoughts and dreams the clouds passing over in light and shade...
...In this expanse of mountain and desert, soldiers hunted him for eleven years, believing his death meant a world they could possess...
...Robert Cording without it...
...We all sensed also an undertone of displeasure at the degree to which the American bishops were taking on a teaching function that Vatican officials would have preferred to keep in Rome...
...bishops declared, "We do not perceive any situation in which the deliberate initiation of nuclear warfare, on however restricted a scale, can be morally justified...
...They were presented with a variety of questions and reservations, but none that the Americans felt were fundamental...
...We have to preserve the document...
...As we eat, she loses herself to a soap opera rerun flickering overhead, a radio on behind the counter giving Bush's latest thoughts on a war being fought in the sand...
...I believe he was, and is, blessed) said, "In terms of myself, I'd be happy to say 'Go to Hell.' But we can't...
...The Americans met with the major Vatican officials and the pope...
...The letter did not call for unilateral disarmament, nor did it explicitly prohibit any use of nuclear weapons for deterrence...
...Nonnuclear attacks by another state must be resisted by other than nuclear means...
...In a subsequent pastoral letter in 1993, The Harvest of JusCommonweal | 6 November 20, 1998...
...But, said Bernardin, "its tone is more negative than I experienced in Rome," and if it should become public "sentences could be taken out of context and used mischievously...
...And Schotte indicated that in due time the Vatican would send the memo to every American bishop--meaning, of course, that it would become public...
...I believe it raises two questions...
Vol. 125 • November 1998 • No. 20
