Bishops and the Bomb

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see that the bishops are caught because they've got three hats on. They're trying to deal with this issue as theologians, as pastors and as public figures. But the fact that they're trying, and to some extent succeeding, shows the health and strength of the church. And the open consultation with others, their willingness to listen and learn—that's so new."

Father Theodore Hesburgh, 65, president of the University of Notre Dame, is not worried about the debate within the church over the propriety of the bishops' actions. Says he: "You can't move through the water this fast without a lot of turbulence around the edges." The situation, he thinks, is stabilizing. And Hesburgh praises the pastoral characteristics of today's bishops: their concern with humanity as well as with doctrine. "They embrace what is good," says Hesburgh, "and a little imperfection too. They know that it's better to encourage little flowers than to sweep the ground clean. It's exciting to be a priest in the middle of an exciting development: the blossoming of the Gospel in new ways."

Says Bishop Gumbleton: "We're offering this as a guide to conscience, not the way it was done in the past: 'We know best. This is the answer.' We are trying to engage the whole church in the same process the committee went through." Gumbleton's colleague, Bishop Reilly, agrees: "We aren't claiming this is Almighty God handing down the truth from the mountain as with Moses. It's the bishops of the U.S., trying to apply the teachings of Jesus Christ to issues never faced before by the human family."

The Catholic Church, and indeed all churches, has preached peace across the centuries and has never achieved it. That is no reason why they should not continue to preach the message and to try to change mankind. That is their vocation. But peace has never been achieved, even for a while, by moral inspiration alone. It has always required the highly imperfect, compromise-ridden and impure actions of political leaders. The dilemma potentially posed by the bishops' strivings is that reaching for the best could undermine the good, and that striving for the ideal might undermine the practical. —By Richard N. Ostling. Reported by Jim Castelli/Washington, J. Madeleine Nash/Chicago and Bruce van Voorst/New York