American Catholics Score Bishops
Sixty-five Percent Say Shepherds Not Fulfilling Their Teaching Duties!
Among the 1,012 tallied respondents, the greatest opposition was to the policy of Seattle's Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen. He advocates the withholding of 50% of one's taxes to protest U. S. nuclear policies. Since the Navy's new Trident submarine is scheduled to be based near Seattle, the archbishop calls it "the Auschwitz of Puget Sound."
Another member of the hierarchy protesting nuclear weapons is Bishop Leroy Matthiesen of Amarillo, Texas. He has been trying to persuade Catholic workers in the local nuclear weapons assembly plant to quit their jobs.
Ever since the Vietnam war protesters marched around the Detroit chancery in 1965, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton has been an advocate of pacifism. In 1972, he established the U. S. chapter of Pax Christi, a Catholic anti-war group begun in Europe at the end of World War II. Not surprisingly, Bishops Hunthausen and Matthiesen are members.
Another anti-nuclear activist among the U.S. hierarchy is Washington's Archbishop James A. Hickey. He recently called for a freeze on nuclear weapons in a pastoral letter to 400,000 Catholics in the area.
According to a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal (June 9, 1982), "The Catholic Church is approaching what could become a major division over the morality of nuclear weapons."
Some of those responsible for designing and carrying out President Reagan's arms-control policy are Catholics. Edward L. Rowny, an active and prominent member in the Church will lead the delegation that takes up arms-control negotiations with the Russians. Mr. Rowny, despite several visits to Archbishop Hickey, feels he has gotten nowhere. His boss, Secretary of State Alexander Haig, also a Catholic, is said to be concerned.
Lay Catholics, opposed to their bishops' anti-nuclear activism, are forming groups to combat pacifism. Philip Lawler, director of studies at the Heritage Foundation, is starting a group to promote traditional Church teachings on war and peace.
New York's Terence Cardinal Cooke has made sure his 1,100 chaplains serving the armed forces know what the Church has always taught on this subject. Last December, he sent them a letter explaining the "just war" doctrine. The Church has taught, since about A.D. 400 that Catholics have "both the right and the duty to protect its people against unjust aggression." According to Cardinal Cooke, under this doctrine Catholics can command or serve nuclear weapons systems in good conscience as long as the nation is striving for nuclear arms limitation.
One young man, hoping to become a nuclear submariner, was unaware of this teaching when he joined the Navy. He was doing pretty well, in the Nuclear Propulsion School at Orlando, Florida, when he heard Bishop Thomas J. Grady say that nuclear weapons are "immoral." The trainee, along with another, went AWOL for 16 days. The brig was waiting for them when they returned. Now this potential submariner is seeking release from the Navy as a conscientious objector.
Cardinal Cooke's assistant, Bishop John J. O'Connor, has written a book defending the just war doctrine. In his visits to military bases throughout the country, he has found that Catholics have stopped attending Church after hearing sermons on this issue. Bishop O'Connor says, "When you try to give a rational presentation and all you get back is the Gospels' manifestation of love, I think that's inadequate."
Bishop Walter Sullivan of Richmond, Virginia, dismisses both Cardinal Cooke and Bishop O'Connor with, "And, of course, you don't bite the hand that feeds you."
Author Michael Novak isn't too happy with the gap he sees widening between the laity and some of their bishops. He is organizing 50 prominent Catholic laymen into a group called the American Catholic Committee. Mr. Novak censures the modern seminaries for discarding Catholic tradition and abandoning the teachings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. These have been replaced by "evangelical humanism" and he feels that, "The liberal Catholic has become mush-headed."
James J. McFadden, a former commissioner of labor in New York City, is also working for the American Catholic Committee. He believes, "the Church is going to be torn apart by taking a position on these issues."
Ed Marciniak, a liberal Catholic in Chicago, thinks the bishops have gone too far and he is forming the National Center for the Laity.
Paul Weyrich, an Eastern Rite Catholic, is working out of the Washington offices of the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress to form the Catholic Center. Its purpose will be to send "truth squads" to those cities where bishops are promoting a nuclear weapons freeze.
Supposedly, the National Catholic Council of Bishops will not take a formal position on this issue until November. But, as the Wall Street Journal's John J. Fialka states in his article, "Church doctrine on the nuclear issue now depends upon whose pulpit you sit under." Traditional Catholics may well respond "So what else is new?" That's how it has been on nearly every issue that has come up since Vatican II!
However, we might sympathize with the students at Georgetown University, which is run by the Jesuits in the Washington area. Students of the Rev. Francis X. Winters in the Foreign Service School are taught that in the event of a threatened nuclear attack, "security may dictate surrender."
Not far away, in another classroom, the Rev. James V. Schall teaches his students of government another philosophy. "Life is very important and good, but there are other goods also which are worth dying for in order to preserve." He believes that pacifism "is quite simply a serious threat to peace."
Last March, John Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia addressed a rally against nuclear arms, declaring that "nuclear war surpasses the limits of legitimate self-defense, and the use of such weapons is immoral."
And that same month, on the feast of St. Joseph, Pope John Paul II told workers that priests should leave politics to the laity!
"This does not mean that the Church should move away from the problems of politics," the Pope added. "The Church is profoundly involved in the problem of social justice, but she is convinced that justice does not resolve all human problems....We in the Church try to see also what transcends social problems."
As this article is being written, approximately 100 American bishops are meeting (June 13-24) at the Benedictine's St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. This unprecedented event is closed to the press and public. According to a UPI report, the bishops are gathering to take "a long look at their roles in the Church and society."
There are lengthy documents for the prelates to study, including a 384-page collection of 26 essays. Most of these have been written by "scholars at the Catholic University of America, entitled 'Selected Trends and Assumptions in American Society and the Church.' "
The bishops would do well if they also studied the CVB poll!
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CVB POLL ON THE U.S. CATHOLIC BISHOPS February 1982 1) Do you think the Catholic bishops of the United States (about 380) are properly fulfilling their duty as teachers of the faith? 2) Do you think our bishops should issue official statements on political and economic questions—such as the Panama Canal, Central America (especially on El Salvador), inflation and interest rates? 3) Do you agree with the bishops' recent statement on El Salvador in which they oppose all U. S. military aid to that country? 4) About 10% of our bishops have come out for unilateral nuclear disarmament of the United States. Do you agree with their position? 5) Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen of Seattle recently advocated not paying 50% of one's taxes as a way of protesting to our President and Congress that we are opposed to nuclear weapons. Do you agree with him? 6) Do you agree with the bishops' official endorsement of the Hatch Amendment as the most practical way now to stop abortion in America? YES-30% 7) Do you think that Bishop Thomas C. Kelly, O.P., General Secretary of the NCCB/USCC was correct in writing a letter to all U. S. Senators urging them to vote against the Reagan budget in Spring 1981, and for the Democratic alternative budget? 8) Do you agree with the observation that many of our bishops are intimidated by radical feminist nuns? 9) Do you think it is proper for Archbishop John Roach, President of the USCC/NCCB, to publicly protest the Navy's decision to name a new nuclear submarine, "Corpus Christi"? |
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