Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
History
First Advisor
Steven Avella
Abstract
This dissertation examines 1983 pastoral on war and peace, The Challenge of Peace, from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). It analyzes in-depth the process of the ad hoc committee of the NCCB that wrote the pastoral alongside the simultaneous debates within the American Catholic community and the Reagan administration surrounding the pastoral. Special attention is given here to the interactions of the Reagan administration with the ad hoc committee, led by Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, and the role of American Catholic lay critics Michael Novak, Philip Lawler, and George Weigel. It also explicates the intrapersonal aspect of drafting process, focusing especially on the perspective of committee member Bishop (later cardinal archbishop of New York) John O’Connor. I argue that The Challenge of Peace was the first American episcopal document after the Second Vatican Council showcasing the American Catholic Church attempting to establish itself as a major player in mainstream political life. It provided specific parameters, though not specific policies, through which American Catholics may navigate issues of war and peace. The Challenge of Peace had a modest effect on American nuclear policy, but it expanded the field of what counted as religious advocacy in public policy matters. This project features materials from The Catholic University of America, the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Papers at the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Archives and Records Center of the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Thomas Gumbleton Papers at the University of Notre Dame, and numerous collections at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. It also draws from a personal interview conducted via telephone with Father J. Bryan Hehir, the editor of the finished pastoral. This dissertation contributes to the historiography surrounding the American Catholic Church and political policy in the 1980s and the religious aspects of political conservatism of the same period. It contextualizes the pastoral in a unique manner that prioritizes the role of the Second Vatican Council in forming the theological background of the discussions behind the pastoral. It takes seriously the critiques of conservative critics of The Challenge of Peace who have been previously underrepresented in narratives surrounding the pastoral.