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Two disputes galvanized the new Catholic Conference. In 1971 the bishops urged an end to U.S. involvement in Viet Nam. Though that was "terrible moral tardiness" to Radical Jesuit Dan Berrigan, taking on the White House was a wrenching change for the hierarchy. Then in 1973 the bishops were rocked by the sweeping U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in most cases. The bishops soon abandoned above-the-fray moral preachments and plunged into down-in-the-trenches political action. They have now thrown their full weight behind a specific proposal that is due for a vote soon, Senator Orrin Hatch's constitutional amendment to give Congress and the states power to pass restrictive abortion laws.
The bishops then moved on to reformulate their pro-life viewpoints on a number of issues, most notably the nuclear-arms buildup. Though the hierarchy is not pacifist, it declared in 1976 that the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances is evil, and that a deterrent strategy that even threatens to use them is also evil. Led by their activist president, Minnesota Archbishop John Roach, the bishops will meet in November to issue a new declaration that could endorse a bilateral freeze, unless moderates like Terence Cardinal Cooke prevail.
Whatever fears the bishops once had about meddling in foreign affairs, they did not hesitate when controversy arose about Central America, with its close missionary ties to the U.S. church. In El Salvador, says Editor Thomas Fox of the National Catholic Reporter, "Catholics know what's going on better than anybody else." The 1980 murders of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and four U.S. missionaries stirred wide revulsion in church ranks. Though their brother bishops in El Salvador take a different view, the U.S. prelates decided to oppose U.S. military aid, in part because of information about right-wing atrocities from American missionaries.
Such positions do have impact. There is widespread agreement in Washington that the White House has tempered its El Salvador position, and perhaps its nuclear stance, at least partly because of the Catholic opposition. But the prelates also find themselves fighting some of their best-known laity, especially Secretary of State Alexander Haig and, on abortion, House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill, House Judiciary Chairman Peter Rodino and Senator Edward Kennedy.