On the Right

New York, Nov. 26—Garry Wills begins a long paean to the Berrigan brothers in the current Playboy by citing two sentences from Fidel Castro spoken in 1967. “The United States shouldn’t worry about the Soviets in Latin America because they are not revolutionaries anymore. But they should worry about the Catholic revolutionaries, who are.” The words are apt, appearing in print a few weeks before the Catholic bishops, who earlier in the month opposed an amendment to the Constitution which would have permitted nondenominational prayer in the schools, denounced the continuation of the Vietnam war. It is only left for the bishops to proclaim that American soldiers have no business fighting for a country that permits prayer in its public schools.

Whatever the bishops are up to, let us not permit ourselves to think of them categorically, to think of them as if they are all alike, all united behind the effronteries of what Auberon Waugh, surveying the post-conciliar wreckage, calls the “silly season” of the Catholic Church. But the bishops did issue a statement in their name, and they must answer for it. It is kindest to say of it that it did attempt to reason. “At this point in history,” said the bishops, “it seems clear to us that whatever good we hope to achieve through continued involvement in this war is now outweighed by the destruction of human life and of moral values which it inflicts.” One bishop, from Detroit, drew from this resolution the breathtaking inference that anyone who agrees with the “Catholic position” “may not participate in this war.” This startled Archbishop Philip Hannan of New Orleans who snapped that he did not “agree with that conclusion.”

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

New York, Nov. 26—Garry Wills begins a long paean to the Berrigan brothers in the current Playboy by citing two sentences from Fidel Castro spoken in 1967. “The United States shouldn’t worry about the Soviets in Latin America because they are not revolutionaries anymore. But they should worry about the Catholic revolutionaries, who are.” The words are apt, appearing in print a few weeks before the Catholic bishops, who earlier in the month opposed an amendment to the Constitution which would have permitted nondenominational prayer in the schools, denounced the continuation of the Vietnam war. It is only left for the bishops to proclaim that American soldiers have no business fighting for a country that permits prayer in its public schools.

Whatever the bishops are up to, let us not permit ourselves to think of them categorically, to think of them as if they are all alike, all united behind the effronteries of what Auberon Waugh, surveying the post-conciliar wreckage, calls the “silly season” of the Catholic Church. But the bishops did issue a statement in their name, and they must answer for it. It is kindest to say of it that it did attempt to reason. “At this point in history,” said the bishops, “it seems clear to us that whatever good we hope to achieve through continued involvement in this war is now outweighed by the destruction of human life and of moral values which it inflicts.” One bishop, from Detroit, drew from this resolution the breathtaking inference that anyone who agrees with the “Catholic position” “may not participate in this war.” This startled Archbishop Philip Hannan of New Orleans who snapped that he did not “agree with that conclusion.”