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THE ANCHOR - Diocese of Fall River - Fri., July 2, 1982
Draft rejects U.S. nuclear policy
Continued from Page One statement one of .the strongest moral condemnations of nuclear deterrence yet issued by a major church body in the United States. As a first draft, the document is still subject to committee changes based on comments and criticisms by the bishops. Are· vised draft will then be subject to further debate and amend. ment when the country's bishops hold their annual general meet ing this November. It would reo quire approval by a two-thirds vote before becoming a national pastoral letter expressing the collective moral guidance of the U.S. hierarchy on war and peace issues today.
It lists six "immediate" princi ples applying to the morality of nuclear weapons in the present context: - "Under no circumstances may nuclear weapons or other instruments of mass slaughter be used for the' purpose of destroy ing population centers or other predominantly civilian targets." - "We do not perceive any situation in which the deliberate initiation of nuclear warfare, on
doned, even if it "is not intended to be carried out at all," for several reasons. Among these are the "degradation it produces" in relationships between the two sides and the danger of loss of control over events regardless of the original intent. - "Christians and others of goodwill may differ as to wheth er nuclear weapons may be em ployed under any circum stances." But even if a categori.
The key section of the draft calls reliance on nuclear weapons "fundamentally abhorrent." It says they would have "no place" at all in a world of peaceful reo conciliation towards which all people should strive.
Conference At a Conference on Nuclear Disarmament held last Satur day in Boston, Bishop Ber nardin elaborated on concepts included in the draft version of the bishops' forthcoming pastoral letter on the nuclear arms race. He said American Catholics should make theirs a "peace church," declaring that be coming such a church "means shaping the public posftion of the church as an institution and the personal consciences of the members of the com munity of the church into a coherent, consistent force for acknowledging and respecting the dignity and rights of all the members of the human family, reversing the arms race and redirecting resources to the human needs of our citizens and the poor of the globe." Archbishop Bernardin said he sees in the church's cap acity to create a constituency for peace a uniquely Catholic contribution to the peace· making process In America to day. He said that the public con cern over the nuclear peril has created what he called an "open moment in the history of the arms race, an oppor· tunity to use ideas, ideals and public sentiments to reverse the race, reduce its dangers and rescue the world from the threat of destruction." Dr. Helen Caldicott warned conference participants that mankind may be afflicted with a fatal illness - nuclear wea pons. The president of Physi cians for Social Responsibility said the illness was rapidly spreading as more and more nations threatened to join the nuclear club and as the super. powers added to their already superfluous arsenals.
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possess such weapons." The com of most attention, but that sec mittee confronts the paradox of tion is only part of a broader having laid out a weighty moral overview on the scriptural, mor reasoning against any use or al and pastoral aspects of war threat to use nuclear weapons, and peace questions. versus the evaporation of the de The draft document analyzes terrent value of the possession the Christian commitments to of nuclear weapons if use is re life and to peace, then discusses nounced and backed by guaran in detail the just war theory, tees. It warns against "rapid, which has been a cornerstone of abrupt" abandonment of nuclear the Catholic moral approach to weapons on grounds that the in war and peace issues since the stabilities that would be created fifth century. could themselves lead to catas While noting that the theory rophe. "But a temporary tolera sees the right of self-defense as tion of some aspects of nuclear "an extension of the command deterrence must not be confused ment of love," the authors com with approval of such deter ment, "It is too often forgotten rence." that the 'theory' of just war - Finally, "we have hereby elaborated through the centuries outlined what would be at most was an evolving effort to dis a marginally justifiable deter courage war" by placing strict rence policy," but "we find our limits and conditions on it. selves at odds with elements of The draft document also ad current deterrence policy" and dresses other issues of warfare are "skeptical" of the basic ar today. It notes, for example, that gument of deterrence. Faced "far too little analysis has been with a "deterrent that is in place made of the moral issues involv and which we cannot, according ed in revolutionary-counterrevo to Catholic moral principles, ap lutionary .or insurgency-caunter prove,'" the committee invokes insurgency conflicts." It also the principle in Catholic moral notes that the. right to self-de theology of "toleration of moral fense "does not include the mere evil." It notes that this is a tech defense of all material possess nical term for dealing with what ions, seizing the possessions of is "objectively a sinful situation others, or the imposition of rule . . . yet movement out of this on others." objectively evil situation must It calls for a shift of military be controlled lest we cause by expenditures to the easing of accident what we would neither misery in the world, noting that deliberately choose nor morally true peace must be based on jus condone." tice and humnn dignity. On the pastoral level it calls The document rejects immedi ate, unilateral disarmament as a on Catholics to form their con morai" requirement, saying, "We sciences on the moral dimension, do not think the facts are so of war and peace issues, to de clear, or the moral imperatives velop a reverence for life, to so compelling that we can ad. pray and to do penance for vance a judgment .that is more peace. stringent than toleration of the deterrent.'" But it' emphasizes that this "toleration" does not mean ap proval and is conditioned on sub stantive efforts· to modify' the current state of affairs and move out of the "objectively evil situa· tion." It calls for controlled, negotia·
ted and verifiable multilateral
disarmament process, at the same
time warning that past efforts
at "gradual" disarmament have
made that term "relatively
meaningless."
THR~FT STORES The document's section on nu
'00 COLLETT. STREiT clear weapons, which represent
NEW BEDFORD, MASS. an advance over previous church
1150 JEFVERSON BLVD. teachings in making specific.
WARWICK, R.I.
moral judgments on nuclear de· .
(Rt. 011 Soutll· Airport bit)
terrence, is likely to be the focus
WHITE SPA
however a restricted scale, can be condoned. Non-nuclear at tacks by another state must be deterred by other than nuclear means." - "Our· objections to the use of nuclear weapons against civi lians and to the initiation of nu clear warfare apply equally to the threat of such use." The threat of such use cannot be con
cal moral condemnation does not seem . required from Christian teaching, "it is difficult for us to see how what may be ligitimate in theory may indeed be justifi able in practice." - "If we were to reject any conceivable use of nuclear wea pons, we would face the very difficult question whether it is permissible even to continue to
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