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The rising clangor of prelate protests and pronouncements has caused consternation inside and outside the church. Some are critical of tactics. Columnist William F. Buckley sympathizes with his church's bishops on abortion but thinks they made a serious mistake in embracing one particular bill. There are disputes over the seemliness of clerical protest vigils and sit-ins. "Disgusting," says Attorney Ed ward Riordan, a parishioner in Worcester, Mass. "They will change no minds by picketing or being arrested." When Arch bishop Hunthausen termed Seattle's new nuclear-submarine base an "American Auschwitz," Navy Secretary John Lehman, moral" a to Catholic, "misuse sacred replied that it religious was office "im to promulgate extremist political views." And Lay Theologian Michael Novak argues that in an area as complex as nuclear negotiations, bishops should not "invoke sacred authority" for one view when specialists have good reason to dispute it.
Bishops respond to such charges by saying that they have no choice. Vatican II's documents, says Archbishop Roach, "require that the church not only teach the moral truths about the person. It must also join the public debate where policies are shaped, programs developed and decisions taken which directly touch the rights of the person." Monsignor George Higgins, a veteran social-action specialist, contends that speaking against the Bomb in particular is simply "what the Pope wants them to do."
Is such activism indeed desired by the Pope? One clue may be in the fact that after conferring with Archbishop Roach, Pope John Paul protested outside military intervention in El Salvador. But John Paul pointedly castigated terrorism by both the right and the left. (The U.S. bishops have not emphasized their criticisms of the left.) One Vatican prelate contends that the Pope is mildly irritated with the U.S. bishops' stance on Central America but not enough to do anything about it. On the questions of nuclear arms, human rights, abortion and poverty, the Pope's stated positions and personal actions suggest that he almost certainly agrees in principle with what the newly activist Americans are doing. As Bishop Matthiesen says about nuclear arms, "This is the politics of survival. It would be surprising for the church not to say something."
— By Richard N. Ostling.
— Reported by Jim Castelli/ Washington, with other bureaus