The Churches and Modern Political Violence Mr. Weigel’s essay was originally delivered to a conference on “Deception and Deterrence in ‘Wars of National Liberation,’ State—Sponsored Terrorism, and Other Forms of Secret Warfare,” sponsored by the American Bar Association. There is, in a sense, something odd about inviting a theologian (even one engaged in the public … Read more
In an interview this past April with Lucio Brunelli of the Italian Catholic magazine 30 Giorni, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger described dissent among American Catholic moral theologians as the expression of a more pernicious disorder: a “bourgeois Christianity in which Christianity is no longer a spur toward new responses and new hope in the face of … Read more
In his magisterial study, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (1960), John Courtney Murray told of his difficulties in entering the argument over morality and foreign policy in the early 1950s. “My introduction to the state of the problem,” Murray wrote, “took place… in a conversation with a distinguished journalist who … Read more
In response to Crevecoeur’s classic question, “What, then, is the American, this new man?” John Courtney Murray offered a classic answer: the American is the bearer of a proposition. At the beginning of We Hold These Truths—whose silver anniversary of publication we mark this year—Murray noted that, “It is classic American doctrine, immortally asserted by … Read more
A Reverie, by George Weigel Author’s Note: This astonishing interview with President Reagan, recently conducted by Sam Donaldson of ABC News, has come into my possession through means best left to the reader’s imagination. Donaldson, whom cartoonist Garry Trudeau has aptly lampooned as the “Human Megaphone,” is a notoriously crusty questioner; one would like to … Read more
Despite the fact that the United States Catholic Conference has taken dozens, even hundreds, of positions on public policy issues in the name of the American bishops over the past decade, on only two occasions has the media paid much attention: to the pastoral letter, “The Challenge of Peace,” and to the recent statement disavowing … Read more
The implications are as great as at any time since deterrence was developed in the 1950s. One of the curiosities of the current presidential campaign is that it has yet to catch fire (do pardon the expression) around the issue of nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy. The democrats profess faith in the freeze, and disbelief … Read more
New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, a scion of the Gilded Age, is not ordinarily remembered in American history as a moral philosopher. But his gloss on a more-famous critique if patriotism is worth recalling: “When Dr. Johnson said that ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,’ he overlooked the possibilities of Reform.” Conkling’s complaint, … Read more
Address to the Yakunin Hearing, a conference held by Christian Solidarity International on “The Significance of Martyrdom for the Life of the Church,” parallel to the Sixth General Assembly of the World Council of Churches. 23 July 1983, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada I. When Church historians of the late 21st century look back upon our … Read more
American Catholicism has been convulsed by the national Conference of Catholic Bishops’ pastoral letter on war and peace in a way not seen since the proclamation of the birth control encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968. It is not a mild violation of the Second Commandment, but simply a fact, to assert that God only knows … Read more
In conversation with Bishop James Armstrong, President, National Council of Churches I am honored to be here today, and I would like to begin by thanking the Christian Century Lecture Committee and especially its chairman, my old friend Dr. Bill Welch, for extending me the invitation to participate. I am also grateful to another friend, … Read more
Dear Archbishop Bernardin: I appreciate being sent a copy of the second draft of the pastoral letter on war and peace, which the bishops will be debating at their meeting next week. Having read through the new document carefully, I wanted to share some thoughts with you and the other members of the NCCB Ad … Read more
The debate around the Catholic Bishops’ forthcoming pastoral letter on war and peace has tended to focus either on questions of normative moral theology (e.g. if the bishops reject deterrence in the absolute but “tolerate” it in the present, is the door open to similar “toleration” of, say, abortion?), or on political judgments about particular strategic military options. The more fundamental ecclesiological … Read more