(11 of 12)
"Some people say we shouldn't talk politics and that we should address ourselves to truly religious issues," Bernardin answers. "Well, it's not as simple as all that. It's our responsibility to address the moral dimension of the social issues we face. These issues, of course, do have a political dimension as well as a moral dimension. I don't deny that, but that doesn't mean we're not permitted to talk about them. But our perspective must always be from the moral or ethical dimension. I reject out of hand that we have taken a leftward swing. What we are trying to do is focus on the teaching of the Gospel as we understand it, and to apply that teaching to the various social issues of the day. Our central theme is our respect for God's gift of life, our insistence that the human person has inherent value and dignity."
What impact will the bishops' words on weapons have? "It's too early to say what activism will mean in the broader American context," says Harvard Political Scientist Stanley Hoffmann. "Certainly in terms of numbers alone the Catholics represent a potent political force. In part it depends on what they do with the pastoral letter. If it's stuck in a file cabinet some place, the long-term effect will be minimal."
The bishops, of course, have no intention of filing away their forthcoming pastoral letter. But the day is long past when the bishops, or even the Pope, can tell the American Catholic community what to think, let alone how to act. On the issue of abortion, linked so closely by the bishops to that of nuclear arms, surveys by the National Opinion Research Center show that 77% of Catholics think that the law should permit abortion for a danger to the mother's life, and 44% for social reasons, such as a family's poverty. American Catholics widely disregard the Pope and bishops on birth control. Says Loyola University of Chicago Psychologist and ex-Priest Eugene Kennedy: "You can't deliver a Catholic vote on anything any more—Catholics are not one isolated bloc with homogeneous interests."
But if the bishops cannot persuade skeptical Catholics to join their stand against nuclear arms, both the White House and nuclear-freeze advocates believe that they can become a potent force in shaping and influencing what is likely to become an increasingly important political issue in the months ahead. Says Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of Mobile, 51, with some trepidation: "We are going to divide America over this issue. But the people of America have shown resilience. They can work through it and heal us."
Lipscomb and many other bishops talk of the need to begin a dialogue on the issue of the morality of nuclear arms. The importance of the pastoral is that it is not an authoritarian fiat, but basically an invitation to lay Catholics, as well as to priests and nuns, to join the bishops in the kind of anguished soul searching that produced the document. It is that openness, that tentative quality of the pastoral, that appeals to Sister Mary Evelyn Jegen of Chicago, national coordinator of Pax Christi. Says she: "I