Pastoral Draft Says "No' to All N-Conflict
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I n s i d e x \O N U w Pennsylvania s nrgest weekly I circulation 138th Year, CXLIII No. 34 Established in 1844: America’s Oldest Catholic Newspaper in Confirm Friday, October 29, 1982 — ■ —- ........ P a s to ra l draft says "no’ to all N -c o n f lic t By JERRY FILTEAU WASHINGTON (NC) — "We Downtown Madrid light poles are decorated with Vatican flags as are sure of one moral imperative: a the city prepares for the arrival of Pope John Paul II on Oct 31 See rejection of nuclear war," declares story on page 10. the second draft of a planned national pastoral letter on war and PITTSBURGH peace by the Catholic bishops of the DIOCESE Scouting honors United States. Fifteen area persons took top honors at the annual "Our arguments in this pastoral Scout recognition dinner recently, winning the St must be detailed and nuanced: but George Emblem and the St. Anne Award. Also our 'no' nuclear war must, in the several troops won the Pope Paul VI National Unit end, be definitive and decisive,” it Recognition Awards. For names and details, s says. Page 6. The new draft repeats the moral condemnation of some aspects of current U.S. nuclear deterrence O n enrollm ent drop policy that was contained in the first draft of the letter. Fr. Hugh J. Lang, superintendent of schools for the diocese, writes of the implications of the decline in But it goes beyond the first draft in population and its effect on Catholic schools. In 1970, giving a more detailed analysis of he reports, 51 million children attended school in the what kinds of policies or policy goals United States. By 1981 the total, was just 44 million. it can support or must oppose. What this continuing decline means to the Catholic IT ALSO GOES further in school picture is covered in his column on Page 15. explicitly challenging the current international political order and offering an alternative geopolitical A t the canonization framework for achieving and maintaining peace and justice. At Fr. Zygmunt Szarnicki, pastor of St. Ignatius in one point it calls the 300-year-old Glendale, was among the more than 150,000 persons political principle of absolute in Vatican City for the recent canonization of St. national sovereignty obsolete. Maximilian Kolbe. He recalls this experience, plus a Rejecting any simplistic solutions stop at Assisi for the 800th anniversary celebration to world peace or disarmament, the for St. Francis, and other remembrances of the trip new draft calls for “ a major effort of in a story on Page 12. intelligence and courage” to Fr. Szarnicki overcome the “ supreme crisis” of nuclear war threatening the existence of the earth. A lso inside The draft, released at the' Editorial ..............................................................................................4.5 headquarters of National Confer Around the diocese.............................................................................7-8 ence of Catholic Bishops in Washington Oct. 22, is to be Obituaries.............................................................................................. .. discussed at length by the country’s bishops at their annual meeting in Home Again............................................................................................. mid-November. An extraordinary This stained-glass representation of Mary as Mother prepared for the church. St. Mary is marking it' 20th of All Saints was created by Nick Parrendo of Hunt Television, movies............................................................................... lg national meeting seems likely to be anniversary and parishioners chose this means of Studios for St. Mary Church in Daisy town. It is one of a marking the occasion. Fr. John Klein is pastor there. (Continued on page 2) series of 13 windows, all following Marian themes. All-Saints Day is Nov. 1 . A nalysis of pastoral t i r a i t ~ C a ll for new w orld order presents challenge to A m erican people By JERRY FILTEAU nearly a quarter of that general Oct. 26. It will be discussed at length Even earlier the document hints avoidance of war, nuclear or THE DRAFT discusses its moral- public. by the U.S. bishops at their annual that the just war theory, with which coventional, is not a sufficient political program for shaping a WASHINGTON (NC) - There are meeting in mid-November, and Catholic teaching has traditionally peaceful world into three headings: But the second draft's call for conception of international relations two major thrusts in the second their comments will serve as the circumscribed the moral limits of World order in Catholic teaching, moral and political commitment to a today. Nor does it exhaust the draft of the U.S. bishops’ pastoral basis for a third draft, which they war, is not adequate to confront content of Catholic teaching," says the role and responsibilities of the letter on war and peace: A new international order is, in are to vote on at a national meeting questions of war and peace the document in introducing its superpowers in a disordered world, resounding "no" to any use of essence, the more radical and far«'; next spring or fall. positively in the modern .context. and the implications of global reaching part of the document. Thall important new section on “ Shaping nuclear weapons and to all but the Modern church teaching has used a Peaceful World.” interdependence for national policy. most strictly circumscribed forms section, although it is likely tol that theory, it says, "to articulate a'! of nuclear deterrence, and a call for receive far less public attention,! . TheCCjfadicality of the second draft’s Jail for a new world order is right of self-defense for states in a Catholic teaching on a world the formation of a new international presents a more fundamental! decentralized international order." “ Both the political needs and the order, it says, is based on the order to achieve and maintain challenge to the American peoples hinted nearly in the document. < moral challenge of our time," it Speakipjg of the implications of the fundamental "theological truth" of peace. and their traditional self-image. ’ The critical question that the adds, “ require a positive conception "the unity of the human family." nuclear) arms race and nuclear of peace... This positive conception "The "no" to nuclear war and stratt^&s today, it says: document confronts, when it moves It gives the document a prophetic* beyond its condemnations of nuclear of peace sees it as the/fruit of order: The draft, citing especially the many aspects of U.S. nuclear cast that was lacking in the first order in turn is shaped by the values teachings of Pope John XXIII and “ The presumption of the nation warfare and its critiques of nuclear deterrence policy in the pastoral draft, which alluded to the idea but of justice, truth, freedom and love... Pope Paul VI, declares that draft will almost certainly get the state system, that sovereignty deterrence, is whether or not the did not develop it. decentralized order of sovereign The popes of the nuclear age, from sovereign states still have a real lion's share of public attention: It implied \ an ability to protect a Pius XII through John Paul II, have moral value, but one that is only strikes at the heart of a raging THE NEW DRAFT letter, written nation’s' territory and population, is nation-states is any longer adequate for establishing peace. affirmed pursuit of international relative, not absolute, "because the debate today within the general U.S. by a committee of five bishops precisely the presumption denied by order as the way to banish the boundaries of the sovereign state do public community and within the headed by Archbishop Joseph L. the nuclear capacities of both "Preventing nuclear war is an scourge of war from human (Continued on page 2 ) Catholic community that forms Bernardin of Chicago, was released superpowers." absolute moral imperative: but the affairs." P o pe’s reign H e is better liked outside U.S. By FATHER KENNETH J. DOYLE said he had "come from a far better liked by the rest of the world country.” than he is by a good number of U.S. VATICAN CITY (NC) - Oct. 16, Catholics. 1978, the senior deacon of the Col lege If the papacy were conducted as of Cardinals stepped onto the theU.S. presidency is and Pope John “ When American Catholics sit balcony of St. Peter's Basilica and Paul II were now facing re-election, around and discuss religious issues, proclaimed to the expectant throng how would the scorecard read after they speak often of celibacy, birth below: "I announce to you a great four years in office? control, divorce, women priests. But joy: We have a pope.” to the rest of the world, there are two The answer would depend very other religious issues far more much on who the scorekeeper was. The man chosen was 58-year-old important: hunger and the threat of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Cracow, IT IS AN opinion shared by many nuclear war,” says one U.S. priest in Poland, a relative unknown, who who follow the pope closely that he is Rome, a close watcher of Vatican affairs. Adds a U.S. layman: “ If you’re O f f i c i a l starving or undernourished — and half of the world is — you don’t much Appointments, changes care whether there will ever be women priests.” His Excellency, Bishop The Reverend Thomas B. Leonard, announces the following Ferris, from pastor, Saint Agatha To much of the world, such appointments and changes, Parish, Ellwood City, to pastor, observers feel, the pope is seen first effective Wednesday, November Saint Francis of Assisi Parish, of all as an advocate of the poor and 3, 1982: Finleyville. the hungry and as a champion of peace and nuclear disarmament.