What's up with the bishops' letter.

IS THE DRAFT of the Catholic bishops' proposed letter on social and economic policy of interest beyond the Catholic community? Preliminary indications are that the answer is yes, and this is so, of course, because the Catholic community in America is very large, the single largest in the country. It by no means follows that the bishops can shape the attitudes of Catholic voters on broad social and economic policies. Statistical investigations suggest that even on questions of explicit moral content, the bishops address wayward congregations--the difference between the percentages of Catholics and non-Catholics who practice birth control and submit to abortion is reputedly not great. But it is probably so that Catholics who violate their church's canons go through life with something of a moral hangover, until they reorder their lives through the sacrament of confession. But it is unlikely, even if the first draft of the bishops' letter were to be endorsed by the bishops meeting in plenary council next June, that Catholics who voted for political candidates expressly opposed to some of the bishops' recommendations would feel queasy about doing so.

So, then, why the fuss?

Because the bishops' draft letter is an object of critical fascination. Protestant, Jewish, and agnostic commentators on that letter seem to care less that the bishops' statement is unlikely to affect social policy than that the bishops should have arrived at the conclusions they arrived at. They feel--I judge from a half-dozen critiques--a sense of apprehension that a body of intelligent and well-disposed men should be so wrong on such important matters.

An effort to ventilate the question was made recently in New York City at an off-the-record meeting of intellectual leaders whose names, obviously, cannot be disclosed, nor those of the meeting's sponsors.

One man (Mr. A), a Jewish theologian, said, Look. I happen to be a right-wing Republican. I happen to believe profoundly that if the recommendation of the Catholic bishops were enacted there would be a rise in that which they principally desire to address, namely the persistence of poverty. But, I could be wrong. Conceivably I am. Would I, however, wish that the bishops, instead of promulgating social-economic recommendations which I believe to be profoundly wrong, wish that had recommended policies with which I agree? Answer: No. They might then be wrong. And bishops should not dilute their moral influence by getting into these secular, prudential matters.

A second Jewish intellectual (Mr. B) said, Look. I am interested in only the single question: Are the bishops wrong-headed in making their statist recommendations, or are they not? My conclusion is quite firm: They are wrong. I leave it to Catholics to worry about whether they should have got into this business at all in the first place. But as a non-Catholic, I care exclusively about the simple matter of their being obstinately wrong. If they had issued a draft pastoral letter that got at the pvoerty problem successfuly, I'd have cared less about their jurisdiction than about the fact that they were saying the correct things.

A third Jewish intellectual (Mr. C) said, Look. I have a great respect for the Christian religion and for the Catholic denomination, but it is a respect that issues out of my understanding of a moral relationship. What on earth are the Catholic bishops doing, talking about minimum wages and acceptable unemployment figures? Why aren't they, instead, instructing their flock on how to behave in the marketplace? Why aren't they tithing their flock, as the Mormons do? And using that money for charitable purposes? Why do they attempt to get into questions of institutional reform concerning which they show, by their 112-page letter, that they are years and years behind in their thinking?

A fourth Jewish intellectual (Mr. D) said, Look. What's so new about what the bishops have done? Throughout the ages the Church has taken positions on secular questions--on usury, for instance; even on correct longitudinal boundaries in the Western Hemisphere. What, after all, do you make of the Catholic position on the Just War, or on the Two Cities of God?

To this, a fifth participant retorted that the Church had over the ages frequently identified itself with positions that had been distilled by prophetic single men, thinking singly; Augustine and Thomas being two examples. But that, said, is very different from what the Catholic bishops are engaged in, namely attempting to promulgate social doctrine on a comprehensive scale.

What, specifically, was disturbing to so many about the first-draft episcopal letter? Coming up.