hats, and “God’s own country,” to a ritualized hatred of then”new” America: home of intolerable poverty, racial exploitation,nwarmongering, and inequality. I think that thenswitch from one superficial view to another has as its basisnthe crusading spirit of all Americans, bishops or laymen,nChristians or Jews. The nuclear bomb and the economicnissues provide at present safe crusading causes, attentioncatchingnslogans—and pastoral letters full of cliches.nA few years ago I wrote a book in which I warned that asnthe American Church increasingly distances itself fromnRome, we might see bishops’ committees turning into ankind of shadow-cabinet to the government in Washington.nSuch a shadow-cabinet would have as many ministries asnthe government has, dealing with foreign policy and agriculture,nmilitary matters and labor—mostly by incompetentnpeople whose true mission lies in spirituality, moralnmatters, and diocesan administrahon. Today, what hadnseemed to be an impossibly grotesque suggestion becomesnreality, as the bishops issue letter upon letter about thingsnalien to the ministry that Christ entrusted to them.nThe other reason for the sudden irruphon of utopianismninto the bishops’ undisturbed universe may be located in thenkind of ecclesiastical coup d’etat that took place when thennew, progressive, and leftist seminarians began leaving theirnclassrooms and occupying, now as ordained priests, thensecretariats of episcopal commissions and conferences.nWhile formerly, on matters where they lacked competence,nthe bishops used to consult people of varied backgrounds,nthey now have at their elbow reputedly bright young collegengraduates, with doctorates in sociology, psychology, andnforeign policy. Documents issued bear the mark of brainntrusters, with the result that “new research” and “scientificnexpertise” tend to replace “old doctrine.”nThese and other reasons explain why the bishops, in anturnabout of one short decade, have lined up with thenfashionable ideological opinion—at a time when thenGerman and French episcopates, for example, took annaltogether different stand on the war and peace issue, hinview of the possible confusion, it is thus important for us tonrestore the Church’s correct teaching on this matter. ThenAmerican bishops and their advisors tend to overlook andnoften to simply ignore the Church’s teaching.nWe can make short shrift of the general argument of allnpacifists and quasi-pacifists that nuclear weapons representnsuch an absolute evil that, as a result of their availability,nwars must be outlawed and all previous views about theirnpossible justness scratched. If the Bomb is indeed sonabsolutely new in the annals of mankind, why would thencommunist regime, against which it is primarily aimed,nalso not be absolutely new and absolutely noxious? Nevernhas there been, under Assyrian emperors or Nero, undernChinese despots or Caligula, such inhuman regimes asnthose which now cover one third of the planet and are stillnexpanding; they represent a veritable “first” in their relentlessnefforts to change man by crushing his soul andndestroying previous communities and institutions. Thengame of the “absolutely new,” requiring a total rethinkingnof history, doctrine, wisdom and experience, may be playednby both sides; it leads only into a speculative impasse.nLet us abandon the impasse about what constitutesnontological change and try instead to restore Catholicndoctrine on the matter of peace and war, a matter whichnalso naturally includes all considerations about nuclearnwar. The latter requires no “new morality,” “new Christiannvision,” nor any rewriting of doctrine. Instead, let us asknwhy the Church’s teaching on “just war” is under attack, annattack for which the nuclear issue may have merely contributedna pretext.nIn modern thinking—which goes back to the 14thncentury and William of Ockham—the individual hasnacquired a disproportionate importance as the only verifiablenreality. Communities, institutions, family, moral andnjuridical persons, and finally the social network have paidnfor this distortion. By the 18th century, it was denied thatnman needed the State to prosper, and it was proposed thatnSociety is the product of a contract based on the hypotheticalncontractants’ “cupidity and fear of each other” (Hobbes)n— in other words, on aggression and counteraggression.nThe ideal was the isolated “noble savage” and Rousseau’snsimilarly isolated Emile. A number of extremely fashionablenideas today, from Freudianism to existentialism, perpetuatenthe notion that society is man’s enemy and that ourn”pulsions” are all expressions of a fundamental hostility.nUnder the circumstances, further confused by the neoliberalnconcept of the “minimal State,” we tend to locatenthe evil not in ourselves, but in the State as a concentrationnof power and evil interests. We have conveniently forgottennthe old doctrine that the State too is God’s creation, ansecondary cause without which man could not survive,nthough our memory can be restored when it suits ournpurpose: after their pastoral on nuclear war, the bishops—nwith supreme illogic—call upon the State to provide for thencitizens’ welfare. It is absurd to give the State all theneconomic power—then deprive it of its primary function,nthe community’s defense.nIf he is without any social and sentimental responsibilitynto family, group, community, or nation, the individual, bynnow a sheer abstraction, indeed has the right to adopt an”pacifist” attitude, as far as his own person is concerned. Henmay decide not to resist attackers, thiefs, murderers. Suppose,nhowever, that the same individual is father of anfamily, a watchman on medieval city walls expected to alertnfellow-citizens to approaching marauders, or the presidentnof a modern republic. His duties in these functions neutralizenand overcome his individual inclinations and commandnhim to respond to the aggressions in kind. It would benunspeakably immoral of him not to resist, not to protect thengroup he leads. It would not be a question of neutrality ornpacifism. In fact, the pacifist leader would be guilty ofntaking the attacker’s side against his own people.nThis, in essence, is the core of the Church’s position onnthe “just war,” now being occulted by ideological andnemotional verbiage. This position is so crystal clear andncorrect that appeals to the “absolutely new nature” ofnatomic weapons have no logical power against it. No matternwhat risks are taken by the self-protecting group—a nation,nas the case is—the natural right, even duty, of selfprotectionnprevails over all other considerations. The oppositenposition is that the nuclear weapon has changed thennature of war, whether offensive or defensive. The assertionnthat nuclear weaponry is not “hostile to any kind ofnaggression”—a cheap slogan—is also aimed at the disman-nnnJANUARY 1986 / 23n