A number of recent books and articles have drawn attention to the emergence in Britain of a Catholic group of left-wing thinkers and writers who have a noticeable influence on Catholic life and thought today. In this article I propose to sketch the origins of this movement, and then to consider the kind of argument that is now going on—and which will go on more intensely in the future—concerning the significance of a Catholic Left.

I favor U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Nevertheless I bring to my subject the attitude of a native-born Washingtonian who remembers that the last time the Senators won the pennant was in 1933, and who is inclined to believe that if you're not wining, there's something wrong. There's something wrong with your theory, there's something wrong with your practice, something wrong someplaee if year after year you end up in tenth, ninth or eighth place. There's little comparable in terms of winning or losing wars of national liberation; obviously one of the things that is most upsetting is that they are not apparently amenable to “winning or losing.” Winning has to be redefined and that redefinition is part of my present task.

The general tone of the continuing dialogue between individuals and groups concerned with war, foreign policy in general, and morality is partly the result of the contradictions inherent in what I shall here term the “nuclear obsession.” While precise definitions are not critical in an essay of this sort, the nuclear obsession is defined here as the point of view, or state of mind, which holds that nuclear questions are of such overriding importance in the conduct of war and foreign policy that they dwarf all other questions. Those who attempt to think most precisely about what the world ultimately may have to do if it is to come to grips with the nuclear problem are not at all afraid of massive political change.

The French saying, Pas d'ennemi à gauche, can be paraphrased today: No dialogue with the right. For indeed, the “dialogue,” the most popular term of the sixties, is a companion-word of peaceful coexistence with communism and of apertura a sinistra, even of ecumenism whose noble objectives have been corrupted by the scramble of many, so-called ecumenists for the atheist's smile.

Primarily, then, “dialogue” is a political term, masking a strategy designed to appease and validate the ideological Left. Since this Left has its representatives within die Christian churches as well as in the political arena, it is hard to separate church matters from more generally political matters in discussing the dialogue. To a large extent, indeed, they overlap, as is shown by the identity of expressions that advocates of political or religious dialogue use in their parallel approach to the problem.

What are the ethical confines of a just policy for Wars of National Liberation? I would respond that no possible policy which this country might adopt is a priori wrong or unacceptable. Stated baldly in this fashion, this position may conjure up visions of a Leninist ethic, in which the identified end justifies any means. But I submit that such horrors are not intrinsic to the position, and that my position is eminently Christian.

For to say there are no a priori limits on what this nation can do is not to say we are free to do anything. I am not free to support any policy, but only those policies which meet the criteria of a Christinformed prudence.

Over a century ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson travelled to the Midwest to meet with a group of intellectual and political leaders, to discuss the organization of a rational world. After many days of debate on the subject of nationalism vs. internationalism, and the organization of a world community, it was decided that the future capital of the world should be in Constantinople. At this point, Emerson stalked from the- conference, with the comment: “Impossible. It's too far from Concordl”

Today, as the distance from Constantinople to Concord has dwindled, our concept of the future and of ourselves has faded. The influence, self-confidence, and poise of the American intellectual has declined.

The classical cold war period began with the founding of the Cominform in the fall of 1947 and ended with the death of Stalin in June, 1953. But, as the Soviet poet Yevtushenko has observed, “Stalin's Heirs” are still very much with us; not only Soviet but also U.S. policy is heavily burdened with the Stalinist heritage of the cold war period.

For the USSR the Geneva Summit Conference cleared the way for the 1956 20th Party Congress and the new General Line which recognized that in a world threatened with thermonuclear holocaust, coexistence is better thari no-existence, and that war —meaning general war—is no longer inevitable.

A statement on religion and peace should begin with some affirmations about the bases that our churches and synagogues have for speaking and acting in the sphere of international relations.

Underlying all else that we may say or do here is the Biblical faith that God is Lord of our nation and of all nations. As the prophet said, “all the nations are us nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness” (Is. 40:17). As Amos said earlier: “Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Canhtor and the Syrians from Kir?” (9:7). The faith that all nations are under the judgment and providence and mercy of God is central to Biblical religion. Since it is the nation that so easily becomes the ultimate object of loyalty for its citizens, this faith in God transcending the nation is always a warning against national idolatry. And in our time it is political idolatry, the worship of any social group or system, that is the greatest obstacle to the tolerance and humaneness which are essential conditions for decent relations among nations, essential conditions for peace.

There is nothing novel about change. The reality is that the only certainty is change. Some recent changes have created an atmosphere in which a worldwide war is the more likely to develop or, conversely, out of which the prospect for a better world order is being generated.

It is sometimes difficult to realize that a number of wars have actually taken place since World War II. Recently a magazine compiled a list of forty. Even then it excluded some border differences which might have been listed as wars. Not all of these were large-scale wars, but the number of serious conflicts remains impressive. These wars took place when it is generally accepted that an uneasy peace exists. Most of these, in a different era, could have precipitated a worldwide conflict. Why not since 1945?

Our story-book concept of Africa as the “dark continent” is no longer valid. Nor is that other storybook notion, “man against wild beasts.” The sad fact is that Africa today is, and will probably be even more in the future, the scene of savage conflicts between black men and black men, Arabs and other Arabs, Moslems and Animists, Christianity and Islam. For a while the race issue in South Africa obscured the fact of antagonisms and hostilities elsewhere; since the horrible acts of torture and cannibalism occurred in the Congo, the world can no longer ignore the eruption of multi-layered hatred, motivated by race, religion, and ideology, in practically every corner of Africa.

“Do organized religions have the right to consider problems of war and peace?” The answer, of course, is yes. This may seem to some a mere cliché, but given the extremely wide spectrum of contemporary opinion about what religion should or should not do, it is useful to emphasize this point.

To those of us who get letters from readers or telephone calls from parishioners, it may not seem immediately evident that this point is generally acknowledged. It is nevertheless true. No matter how angry the reaction may be to any given statement, the basic attack, ultimately, is almost always on the content of the statement rather than upon the right of the religious group to make a statement of some kind about war and peace.

Given the name and nature of the professional society for which those papers on which I offer comment were written, and given the nature of the designated political problem, one would expect these methodological applications to develop at least the following points; (1) a theological determination of Christian responsibility for political involvement in general and for the use of national power in international politics in particular; (2) criteria for testing the justifiability of political and military intervention in “wars of national liberation” and (3) criteria for deciding the moral problems of means peculiar to counter-insurgency warfare. Our analysis of the papers will be ordered in terms of these three points. Inasmuch as the first point is the fundamental one for a Christian political ethic, it will be used to delineate the typology.

Anyone hardened to the foot-stomping, carnival atmosphere of American nominating conventions can only be amazed at the sobriety of European party congresses. At the 36th Congress of the Italian Socialist Party (P.S.I.), held in Rome between November 10 and 14, 1965, there were in evidence no funny hats, no jiggling cheerleaders, no carefully rehearsed floor demonstrations. Indeed, the-book displays in ,thc lobby, the style of the speeches themselves—closely reasoned arguments concerning the policy options open to the Party—the decorous absence of hecklers or interjections from the floor, all combined to lend the five-day meeting the air of a professional association conference.

A rational grasp of the opposition to U.S. policy requires an understanding of that policy's method and presuppositions. It is a prudential policy posture, in which the end is identified and possible means are judged in terms of their contribution to the end. Such a decision presupposes several extremely important points. First, it presupposes that ethical principles, whether religiously or philosophically derived, do not in themselves solve problems, but go into the solution along with the circumstances. It perceives, for example, that in a concrete case such as Vietnam, typically several values, ends, or principles will be in conflict: we value life as a good-in-itsclf, but we value also freedom and order.

It is sometimes suggested that nuclear weapons technology has made the world safe for “wars of national liberation.” I don't happen to accept this proposition, but I do acknowledge that “wars of national liberation” are a prominent part of both the declaratory and action policies of the Communist world. The free world does not have the option of declining to respond to such wars. This is sufficient reason for attempts to assay the ethical issues they raise.

Wars of liberation have been called “political wars.” I assume two different things are intended by this: on the one hand, that they have a larger political component than other wars in that they do emphasize or circumvent some of the more typical military missions such as seizing and holding territory; on the other hand, as compared with nuclear war, they seem more nearly to be. compatible with Clausewitx's dictum that war is a continuation of policy. There are difficulties with both notions, but I do acknowledge that wars of liberation are intimately related to the political purposes of their sponsors and that they do generally employ means aimed directly at political power and try to postpone or avoid military engagements as the determinants of their outcome.