“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.