Books in Brief: The Pursuit of a Just Social Order

The Pursuit of a Just Social Order: Policy Statements of the U.S. Catholic Bishops, 1966-1980, by J. Brian Benestad (Ethics and Public Policy Center, 220 pp., $12, cloth; $7, paper). A word to all those stunned by the American bishops’ pastoral letter on nuclear weapons: It didn’t start with the pastoral letter on nuclear weapons. Mr. Benestad, a professor of political theory and social ethics at the University of Scranton, shows that the American bishops have long addressed political and social issues. What has changed is the side they address them from as well as the priority they give to them. Up until the midSixties, when the bishops spoke through the National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC), they generally adopted positions not critical of American foreign policy. They were most comfortable, Benestad says, contributing to the social order by spreading the word of Jesus Christ and by education in Catholic social teaching. But in the mid-Sixties the NCWC was replaced by two parallel organizations-the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB)—and the bishops have never been the same. Based in Washington and endowed with liberal staffs, the two organizations seemed to adopt as their motto: Heaven can wait. Statements soon came spewing forth on a staggering array of subjects, ranging from housing and energy policy to National Health Insurance and farm labor. Equally interesting were the subjects the bishops chose not to address. They have never issued, Benestad notes, policy statements on the decline of serious religious belief, the breakdown of community, or moral permissiveness and pornography. (And these subjects will have to keep waiting. Having delivered themselves of their thoughts on nuclear weapons, the bishops and their staff will next shed light on the subject of capitalism.) How do the bishops justify their concentration on the things of this world? According to J. Bryan Hehir, SJ, perhaps the most influential of the bishops’ advisors, working for social justice is as important as preaching the Gospel and administering the sacraments. Though Father Hehir and the none-too-silent majority of bishops may believe this, their new emphasis has never been endorsed by the Vatican. This thoroughly enlightening book is studded with statements dating from the early Church fathers right up to the recent popes’ stressing the primary mission of the Church: to minister to man’s spiritual dimension. In the words of John Paul 11: “The first service that the Church must render to the cause of justice and peace is to call upon men to open up to Jesus Christ.” What is needed is a lay letter addressed to the American bishops asking them to pay as much attention to Pope John Paul II as to Father Hehir.

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Kevin Lynch

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The Pursuit of a Just Social Order: Policy Statements of the U.S. Catholic Bishops, 1966-1980, by J. Brian Benestad (Ethics and Public Policy Center, 220 pp., $12, cloth; $7, paper). A word to all those stunned by the American bishops’ pastoral letter on nuclear weapons: It didn’t start with the pastoral letter on nuclear weapons. Mr. Benestad, a professor of political theory and social ethics at the University of Scranton, shows that the American bishops have long addressed political and social issues. What has changed is the side they address them from as well as the priority they give to them. Up until the midSixties, when the bishops spoke through the National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC), they generally adopted positions not critical of American foreign policy. They were most comfortable, Benestad says, contributing to the social order by spreading the word of Jesus Christ and by education in Catholic social teaching. But in the mid-Sixties the NCWC was replaced by two parallel organizations-the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB)—and the bishops have never been the same. Based in Washington and endowed with liberal staffs, the two organizations seemed to adopt as their motto: Heaven can wait. Statements soon came spewing forth on a staggering array of subjects, ranging from housing and energy policy to National Health Insurance and farm labor. Equally interesting were the subjects the bishops chose not to address. They have never issued, Benestad notes, policy statements on the decline of serious religious belief, the breakdown of community, or moral permissiveness and pornography. (And these subjects will have to keep waiting. Having delivered themselves of their thoughts on nuclear weapons, the bishops and their staff will next shed light on the subject of capitalism.) How do the bishops justify their concentration on the things of this world? According to J. Bryan Hehir, SJ, perhaps the most influential of the bishops’ advisors, working for social justice is as important as preaching the Gospel and administering the sacraments. Though Father Hehir and the none-too-silent majority of bishops may believe this, their new emphasis has never been endorsed by the Vatican. This thoroughly enlightening book is studded with statements dating from the early Church fathers right up to the recent popes’ stressing the primary mission of the Church: to minister to man’s spiritual dimension. In the words of John Paul 11: “The first service that the Church must render to the cause of justice and peace is to call upon men to open up to Jesus Christ.” What is needed is a lay letter addressed to the American bishops asking them to pay as much attention to Pope John Paul II as to Father Hehir.