During 1981 a visible and vocal constituency arose in the

American Catholic hierarchy in opposition to the direction

and dynamic of the nuclear arms race. The response was evi-

dent in the score of individual bishops who addressed the arms

race in sermons, articles or pastoral letters in their own dio-

ceses. It crystallized in the annual meeting of the U.S. Bish-

ops Conference in November. Archbishop John R. Roach,

President of the Conference, described the nuclear race as

"the most dangerous moral issue in the public order today."

The chairman of the recently established Committee on War

and Peace, Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin, provided the

meeting with a substantive report of progress being made

toward a 1982 pastoral letter on the topic.1 The Bernardin re-

port in turn stimulated a ninety minute discussion among the

bishops on the need to address the moral questions of the arms

race as a key element in their pastoral teaching ministry.

The vigorous Catholic engagement with the threat of the

arms race is not limited to the bishops and it is not confined to

the United States. Within our country other groups within the