U.S. bishops vote to push social teaching

National Catholic Reporter, July 3, 1998 by Patricia Lefevere

They feel "uncomfortable" teaching a topic about which they find themselves inadequately prepared, Roach said. Some are selective in sharing only that part of church social teaching with which they agree, he said.

But no one "can treat this issue as if it were an option," he added. With preparation, he said, any teacher should be able to spell out the seven broad principles of Catholic social teaching as outlined by the bishops:

* the life and dignity of the human person;

* the call to family, community and participation;

* the rights and responsibilities of persons;

* the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable;

* the dignity of work and rights of workers;

* the love of neighbor;

* the care for God's creation.

Roach said that schools like the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., had programs in place for Catholic school instructors. Materials from the bishops' conference will be made available both in publications and on the Internet, he said.

Pax Christi speaks out

When Pax Christi hosted a reception for the bishops on the subject of nuclear deterrence and its place in Catholic teaching, only 10 bishops came, including the Pax Christi USA president, Bishop Walter Sullivan of Richmond, Va., and former president Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, auxiliary of Detroit.

A number of nuns attended, as did some officials of the bishops' conference. Also attending were two protesters from upstate New York who stood outside the hotel for two days to call attention to religious and laity imprisoned for protesting the School of the Americas, which trains Latin American soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga.

All had come to hear Douglas Roche, Canada's former ambassador to the United Nations Disarmament Conference, who is adviser on security issues to the Vatican's mission to the United Nations.

Roche lauded the 80 Pax Christi bishops who had signed the peace movement's statement condemning nuclear deterrence (NCR, June 19). He said the strictly conditional moral acceptance of nuclear deterrence, which the bishops allowed in their 1983 peace pastoral as an interim step to progressive disarmament, has lost its legitimacy.

He urged the prelates to withdraw that acceptance, given the recent presidential decision directive on nuclear policy, made public last December. He said that under the directive, Washington will continue to rely on nuclear arms as the cornerstone of national defense.

Roche said that the government has announced its Stockpile Stewardship Program by which it will continue to develop, test and rely upon nuclear deterrence well into the next century.

"The bishops have had their 1983 letter thwarted," Roche told NCR. "They need to review their position in the light of the nuclear states' deliberate retention of such weapons in a post Cold War era .... The bishops are compromised if they stay silent in the face of this new situation.'

Pax Christi's Sullivan said that the bishops would be heard. "To have had 80 bishops read and sign this in a few weeks is the greatest sign-on we've ever had," he said.