
          Morality and the MX
          By Sitton, ClaudeClaude Sitton
          Vol. 6, No. 3, 1984, pp. 18, 20
          
          Self-appointed guardians of the nation's morals on the radical
right usually fall silent when the arms control issue comes up. I have
in mind the Reagan administration's supporters of moral majoritarian
stripe--the Jerry Falwells, the Jesse Helmses and the like.
          How can these radicals work themselves into a lather over food
stamps, sex on TV and abortion while ignoring a nuclear arms race that
could cut short humanity's earthly tenancy and turn the world into a
cinder? Their moral priorities seem a bit skewed.
          In May, the US House of Representatives approved construction of
fifteen MX missiles to be added to twenty-one already being
built. Never mind that our nuclear arsenal, as is true of that of the
Soviet Union, has tripled since 1969, when each nation had enough
firepower to destroy the other no matter which launched the first
strike.
          The events that could suck the two countries into a nuclear
conflict grow more common. Those of recent weeks suggest how real the
danger is.

          The Iranians and Iraqis began a new round of attacks on oil tankers
and appear determined to turn the Persian Gulf into a lake of
fire. The influential International Institute for Strategic Studies
announced in London that US relations with the Soviet Union had sunk
to their lowest point since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Hostilities
in Central America and US overt and covert involvement there grew
apace.
          No one has a sure way to halt this rush toward mutual
annihilation. President Reagan's approach hasn't worked. if anything,
it has pushed the world nearer the brink by the massive, and costly,
weapons buildup. But an alternative was suggested the other day to by
Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the archbishop of the Roman Catholic
Diocese of Chicago, in a commencement speech at Emory University in
Atlanta.
          Bernardin headed the informal committee of Catholic bishops last
year that issued the pastoral letter "The Challenge of Peace: God's
Promise and Our Response." Unlike the radicals of the political right,
he thinks moral purpose has a vital role to play in this area.
          To ignore the moral dimension of foreign policy, says the cardinal,
is to erode both the religious and constitutional heritage of
America. The first provides for moral assessment of public policy
through the insights given us by religious pluralism. The second
supports such moral values as respect for life and reverence for the
law.
          "In the past," says the cardinal, "war was used as a last resort to
protect key political values. In our time, the use of nuclear weapons
would threaten all our values--political, cultural and human. Such an
acknowledgement drives us to the conclusion that the prevention of
nuclear war must be given primacy in the political process."
          Bernardin represents no peace-at-any-price faith. Catholics, as he
points out, have had a long and painful experience with communism, in
Lithuania, Hungary and Poland, for example.
          "We cannot be naive," says the cardinal. "Some cold realism is
needed, as we stated in our pastoral letter. But the depth and
seriousness of US-Soviet divisions on a whole range of issues should
not make us lose perspective concerning a central moral and political
truth of our age:
          "If nuclear weapons are used, we all lose. There will be no
victors, only the vanquished; there will be no calculation of costs
and benefits because the costs will run beyond our ability to
calculate."
          Bernardin thinks that giving first priority to prevention of use of
nuclear weapons requires that arms control be insulated from other
US-Soviet differences, an end to the policy of "linkage" pursued by
the Reagan administration. Without that separation, he argues rightly
that there always will be enough division to block arms control.
          No doubt the cardinal shares the concern of the moral majoritarians
over sins of the flesh. But his concerns reach far beyond their narrow
perspective. Unlike them, Bernardin knows that Americans no longer
live in a world in which war can be used as a tool of foreign policy,
for that could lead to the most immoral of all acts, the destruction
of humankind.
          
            Claude Sitton is editor of the Raleigh News and
Observer
          
        