By Rita McInerney

“In the past, it was possible to destroy a village, a town, a region, even a country. Now it’s the whole planet that has come under threat. This fact should fully compel everyone to face a basic moral consideration; from now on, it is only a conscious choice and then deliberate policy that humanity can survive”.... Pope John Paul II, Hiroshima, February, 1981

The unleashing of the power of the atom by the United States in August, 1945 against Hiroshima and Nagasaki to hasten the capitulation of Japan began an era of fear that continues to afflict the world 40 years later. Today, in a world plagued by famine, poverty, homelessness and international terrorism, the pervasive fear of nuclear disaster haunts millions.

In May 1983, the American Catholic bishops addressed this threat in a pastoral on war and peace. The letter challenged Catholics “to join with others in shaping the conscious choices and deliberate policies required” to decisively influence the course of the nuclear age.

Has the bishops’ challenge been taken up by Catholics? Has the pastoral been studied, discussed, pondered, questioned? What is the response among Catholics?

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, in an address to the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, on Feb. 1, 1984, said the “Catholic Church throughout the world is identified with a vigorous effort to oppose one of the greatest dangers the human family faces. We believed that the principle way our moral teaching would be effective was precisely in terms of its impact on public opinion, helping to form a constituency of conscience with the Church and in American society committed to reversing the arms race.”

Statistics Shift

That this is happening is indicated in an article written by Father Andrew Greeley, sociologist, which appeared in the National Catholic Reporter on April 12, 1985. In it Father Greeley said the pastoral is responsible for the “astonishing” shift against defense spending among Catholics. He quoted the National Opinion Research Center’s “General Social Study” which found 32 percent of Americans -- Catholics and Protestants alike -- saying too much money was being spent on weapons. A year later, the percentage was still 32 percent for Protestants but 54 percent for Catholics. Father Greeley wrote that the pastoral seems to be the only factor that could account for such a shift.

What Catholics are doing to ease the threat of nuclear extinction varies from parish to parish, from house to house, from person to person. Study and discussion series in parishes throughout the archdiocese prompted many to reassess their thinking on arms race, look back into Scripture for the “peaceable kingdom” and question their own ability to change the world.

At about the same time a peace group in Palo Alto, California was eyeing Georgia as one of the states to evangelize. Beyond War, an offshoot of Creative Initiative formed in 1962 to promote projects to better man’s life on this planet, takes an educational approach to arousing people to the dangers of nuclear war.

The concept of Beyond War is that people must be made to change their way of thinking about the world, one planet with one interdependent, interrelated life support system. A nonprofit group, it was attracting people willing to interrupt the normal pattern of their lives to leave their homes and work in other areas of the United States to spread the Beyond the War philosophy.

Peace “Evangelists”

Bob and Karen Harwell got involved after seeing “The Last Epidemic,” a film which depicts what could happen if a nuclear attack was unleashed on San Francisco in mid-afternoon. “My personal response was amazement over possible extinction of life on this planet. We talked about it and saw it again,” he said in a telephone interview from California.

In May, 1982, Bob Harwell took a year’s leave of absence from his position as division controller with Hewlett Packard. He had been associated with the firm for 16 years. Trained as a CPA, he described himself as “naturally quite pragmatic and conservative. To make that kind of decision quickly is very uncharacteristic of me.”

Bob didn’t return to Hewlett Packard in May, 1983. This meant his job was terminated. “If you don’t come back at the end of a year, you have to quit. I still have a strong, informal relationship with the company,” he said.

The Harwells came to Georgia after a Beyond the War advance team traveled about the state in February, 1984 to assess whether interest was high enough to commit volunteers for a year’s work. When it was decided the interest was here, the Harwells and another couple, David and Louise Smith, were assigned to the Atlanta area.

“We moved to Georgia in the middle of August, 1984. We contacted a lot of people in Macon and Atlanta. Every time we talked to somebody we asked who else should we talk to? We talked to many people at different levels.”

“We had our first public event last October. Craig Barnes, a board member of Common Cause and former law partner of Gary Hart, talked. We had several such events; the first three weeks were at Emory and the fourth, on April 30, at Northside Baptist Church. We shifted the location because people from the north side of town were getting involved. The first event at Emory drew about 80 people. Each time we got larger and the last one had 350 people attending,” Harwell said.

Speaking Tours

Another meeting where Beyond the War Speaking Tours picked up momentum was the May 1 breakfast at the Ramada Inn Central of religious leaders, lawyers, doctors and educators. Harwell said about 50 people attended this session, including Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan of the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta and Bishop Bennett Sims, former head of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta.

Speaker for this breakfast session was Dr. Robert Bowman, formerly in charge of Star Wars research for the Air Force, who now heads the Institute for Space and Security Studies in Boston. “Beyond War had asked him to do a national tour. He spoke across the country. Interest was high, people are curious as to what Star Wars really means. He has the credibility and he’s saying ‘No’ we absolutely cannot go this way. We have to look for a new way of thinking,” Harwell said.

How about the money to underwrite such speaking tours, Harwell was asked? “We had a standard $5 donation in all the cities to pay him. We try and have everything on a ‘pay as you go’ basis. We do ask people who are interested to contribute time and money and to contact others.”

Has it been hard for him to give up his career to promote the Beyond War message? “I wouldn’t say it’s been a great sacrifice. We have a house in Palo Alto we can rent for several times what we pay in rent here,” Harwell replied, adding that he has stocks and investments for reserve income.

“Our inheritance for our children will not be monetary. It will be of a different sort,” Karen Harwell said. They have three sons, Brian, 18. who stayed in school in California last year, while Derek, 15, and Andrew, 12, attended schools near their home in Heritage Square, Decatur.

The Harwells and the Smiths are in California for a series of seminars being conducted by Beyond War people from all over the U.S. They will return here in late summer.

Interest Grows

In introducing Beyond War to people through presentations in churches and in homes, the Harwells find there is growing concern and more people becoming involved in the search for peace. “We encourage people to do anything they want to do. We’re working on an educational basis, getting at the root cause of why we go to war to begin with. Through this, people come to understand that war is obsolete. They come to understand we are one. If we really understand that we will act differently.” Mrs. Harwell gave as a current example of how people can change their thinking the “Live Aid” concerts which brought the plight of the hungry in Ethiopia into their living rooms.

Bruce Goddard attended a presentation by the Beyond War advance team in the fall of 1983 at his parish, Transfiguration in Marietta, and has been involved since then. He has given presentations to adult religious groups at St. Thomas the Apostle in Smyrna and St. Jude’s in Sandy Springs and finds that people who are concerned about their religion are the same ones concerned about the nuclear threat. He sees the need for him, as a “concerned Christian worker” to “get out there, to be there, to inform people.” He’s working hard and is beginning to see results.

Frank and Nora Renner of St. Jude’s are devoting a lot of their time to Beyond War, leading discussion groups in private homes. They have attended two weekend sessions near Hendersonville, N.C.; Renner described these retreat like meetings as a way to get an in-depth understanding of Beyond War and the process of bringing about social change.

He was overwhelmed by the incredible waste of humanity when he first saw the film, “The Last Epidemic.” An engineer, he has to “wrestle through a lot of illusions, especially the one that I didn’t make a difference. We have to ask ourselves what is the common ground? For all of us it’s survival. If we start talking to one another we might begin to understand we can coexist. I am very hopeful. I think people are becoming aware of the problem. We’re not talking about war, we’re talking about the survival of the human race.” The Renners led a Beyond War group session last week at the home of Pat and Mary Elizabeth McMahon in Sandy Springs. For two hours, a group of thoughtful people sat in the comfort of the McMahon living room and talked about the world and the nuclear threat.

Ron Hutchinson mentioned the three illusions which misguide most people: We can war and survive; “They” won’t let it happen, and “I don’t make a difference.”

McMahon spoke of a fear most people have; “Idiots and terrorist have it. James Bond’s fantasy is a reality today.” He mentioned portability. “You could have a bomb in a satchel.”

Global Identity

Someone mentioned computers and then someone brought a dread into the open: “Russia’s computers are older, less reliable than ours. All it takes is one error.”

Hutchinson doesn’t see it as a matter of national defense. “It’s economics. Every one of those missiles means jobs. Let’s take the technology and help develop the Central African countries, let’s use it for space advancement. There are so many good human benefits without giving up the jobs.”

The men and women in the small group watched a tape of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” the compelling argument for choosing humanity over the madness of nuclear extinction. Then discussion resumed, aided by charts illustrating how people identify on the personal, collective and global level.

“We tend to stop at the collective level,” Nora Renner said, “leaving us with a lack of understanding about humanity. We want to help ourselves identify with the rest of the planet. It’s kind of a scary idea; it’s going to be hard for us to share, to help others. We have the responsibility to bring peace to the world, to extend humanity’s life on earth. We have a duty to carry on for future generations.”

Her remarks prompted Penny Hutchinson to mention the “Live Aid” concerts as a good example of identifying with humanity. Ron, her husband, mentioned “the need to motivate the clergy to be willing to deal with controversy, to say anything really challenging. When did we talk about what we’re not doing in the field of human rights and drugs? The bishops did a great thing (pastoral). Is that where it ends?

Parish Efforts

Father Richard Kieran, pastor of St. Joseph’s parish in Athens, doesn’t believe it ends with the pastoral. He’s not quite sure we have gotten too far as far as people changing their attitudes. We need an attitudinal change to make people accept the Gospel call to be peacemakers.” He sees too many people being satisfied with the fact that “we are not making war.”

Another problem he sees is that “many people find it difficult to understand the connection between peace and justice” and gave Ethiopia as an example. He looks for opportunities to feed the hunger of people looking for growth in the areas of peace and justice. Last spring, he says, the parish adult education group studied the “Church in the Modern World” from the Documents of Vatican II.

Shortly after Father Kieran came to the church in Athens, he inaugurated a major educational effort, according to Kathy Kruskamp, coordinator of adult religious education. He taught a four-part series on the peace pastoral which drew about 90 people to the early sessions and about 60 as the series concluded. “He is good at challenging us to see how peacemaking and peace issues are a total way of life, not an isolated issue,” Mrs. Kruskamp says.

In the winter of 1984, the discussion group used tapes made when Henri Nouwen discussed “The Spirituality of Peacemaking” at a lecture at the university’s Center for Continuing Education in November, 1982. Another opportunity for dialogue on peacemaking arose when the parish group was addressed by Cong. Doug Barnard last year.

“We have a lot of people who are interested in peace,” Mrs. Kruskamp said, adding there is a desire at St. Joseph’s for involvement with Pax Christi, the Catholic peace organization.

The local Pax Christi chapter, according to Richard Parry of St. Thomas More parish in Decatur, meets the third Sunday of every month at 8 p.m. in the library at Holy Cross parish in Tucker. Parry says the members are putting together a presentation using the bishops’ pastoral and slides on non-violence from the national Pax Christi office. This presentation will be available later by contacting the archdiocese Office of Religious Education.

Interfaith Group

Before he was transferred from Holy Family parish in Marietta to Athens in June, 1983, Father Kieran held two series on the pastoral. “He was very good,” Lillian Corrigan of the Marietta parish, said. The sessions attracted about 30 people initially and ended up with a handful. “There was a lot of pro and con discussion.”

Mrs. Corrigan has found an outlet for her peace interest in the Cobb Interfaith Peace Study. “We study the issues. Some are involved with Beyond War, some with the Pledge of Resistance against U.S. involvement in Central America.” The Cobb group has ties to Clergy and Laity Concerned and the Christian Council of Metropolitan Atlanta. “We have a great group but we’re small,” Mrs. Corrigan admitted.

The group was organized about three years ago by church people of several denominations in Marietta. The next meeting will be held on Aug. 22 at St. Catherine’s Episcopal Church. The rector there, David Wayland, “has been very supportive of our group,” Mrs. Corrigan said.

The study group will take part in the Hiroshima commemoration in Atlanta on Aug. 6.

Peace Prayer

There is another level of involvement in the crusade for peace. Father Al Jowdy, associate pastor of All Saints in Dunwoody, led a three-part series on the pastoral last winter. About 20 or 25 people turned out each week with those attending hearing the argument for deterrence from a parishioner who had observed some of the bishops’ deliberations on the pastoral in Washington, D.C.

When the series ended Father Jowdy talked privately with several people for whom the series prompted doubts and questions. Now, he said, he’s aware of some people who have chosen the path of prayer and penance in the cause of peace; reading the Scripture, saying the Rosary, abstaining from meat and practicing other forms of spiritual action suggested in the pastoral.

Throughout the archdiocese there has also been a tremendous upsurge in the number of parishes sponsoring First Saturday devotions, praying the Rosary for peace. In June 1983, 25 parishes were sponsoring them.

Paul Boehlert, in charge of the audio-visual materials at the Office of Religious Education, has material available at a nominal rental charge for parish groups. Among resources are the bishops’ pastoral and commentaries printed in Origins; a video cassette of a discussion of the letter by Father J. Bryan Hehir at a conference in Savannah, and a tape of a symposium led by Sister Judith Dwyer, S.S.J. A Beyond War tape is also available.

The bishops’ pastoral letter, in addressing Catholics as citizens, declared “Nuclear weapons pose especially acute questions of conscience for American Catholics. As citizens we wish to affirm our loyalty to our country and its ideals, yet we must also hold to the universal principles proclaimed by the Church. While some other countries also possess nuclear weapons, we may not forget that the United States was the first to build and use them. Like the Soviet Union, this country now possesses so many weapons as to imperil the continuation of civilization. Americans share responsibility for the current situation, and cannot evade responsibility for trying to resolve it.”