The Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on War and Peace: A Feminist Perspective

Abstract

The American peace movement has witnessed several significant developments in recent years. The active, vigorous participation of women in leadership positions as well as in grass roots activities, although not unprecedented, is impressive and noteworthy; Greenham Common, the Seneca Falls Peace Encampment, Peacelinks, Women's Pentagon Action; Helen Caldicott, Frances Farley, Randall Forsberg, and numerous other individuals and groups -all are evidence of the involvement of women in war and peace issues. And the adoption in 1983 of a pastoral letter on war and peace by the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States marks a new development in the American peace movement. Two years after publication, it is clear that the life of this pastoral statement has only begun. Catholics and others are using it as a basis for further statements and sometimes for public demonstrations against nuclear escalation. I propose in this essay to discuss the Catholic bishops' pastoral letter from a feminist perspective. A feminist perspective in this context means a consideration of the role of women in the consultative process that produced this letter and a content analysis of the letter itself to assess its impact, where appropriate, on questions of justice and equality of the sexes. Because women have been so prominent in the peace movement at both grass roots and leadership levels, one is naturally inclined to inquire about the participation of women in the formulation of the bishops' statement. Those familiar with the institutional church will not be surprised to learn that women's involvement was minimal. It would appear that, from a feminist perspective, the customary perception of the Roman Catholic church as a patriarchal,