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That emphasis on social justice, particularly the abolition of war, was carried forward by Pope Paul VI in his memorable 1965 address to the United Nations, where he pleaded: "No more war! War never again!" John Paul II is equally fervent. In a dramatic and symbolic speech at the Hiroshima memorial, he demanded that humanity make a "moral about-face" from war.
There was also a change in the leadership of the church in America. The old-fashioned autocratic Cardinals whose pride was in building new parishes and schools gradually gave way to men with a more pastoral, people-oriented outlook. Pope Paul is given much credit for orchestrating the change. He once remarked to his Secretary of State, Jean Cardinal Villot, "Don't American Catholics understand what vast power they have, and what a responsibility?" Increasingly that power devolved on bishops who rejected a monarchical style of ruling, were open to ecumenical contacts with Protestants and more readily accepted the advice of new priests' senates and lay parish councils.
The new breed of bishops also has a strong sense of collegiality and a willingness to follow leadership regardless of rank. Bernardin and Roach, despite their relative youth, probably have more influence among their fellow prelates these days than do the Cardinals as a group Other emerging leaders in the hierarchy include Archbishops James Mickey of Washington, 62; John May of St. Louis, 60; and Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee, 55. All these men were advocates of a nuclear freeze even before the Bernardin committee issued the text of the pastoral letter. Krol, the leading figure among the older hierarchs, is staunchly in agreement.
American Catholicism has also undergone some profound internal changes. In the age of immigration, Catholics essentially were strangers in a predominantly Protestant land. Reacting to nativist charges that their spiritual loyalty to Rome was somehow more important than political loyalty to their new homeland, Catholic immigrants and their children sometimes attempted to be superpatriots.
Des Moines Bishop Maurice Dingman, 68, explains the change: "We have gone from being a fortress church to a lighthouse church. When we were an immigrant church, we put a wall around the people, and we did a good job of protecting them. We maintained their faith. But we could no longer stay in our shelter. We let down the drawbridge and crossed the moat, and we're out in the mainstream of America."
Some bishops point out, with a bit of exasperation, that they have in fact taken provocative positions on major political issues in the past, although without catching the public eye as they have on nuclear arms. The Bishops' Program anticipated New Deal labor and welfare laws 14 years before the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the hierarchy spoke out strongly against racial injustice in 1958, early in the civil rights struggle.
Through this period the hierarchy continued to back U.S. foreign policy. The Viet Nam War at first paralyzed and then catalyzed the bishops. They called upon the