Perhaps the first thing to say about the American Bishops’ Pastoral Letter, The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response, whose twenty-fifth anniversary we are celebrating today, is that it based on more than one hundred years of Catholic social teaching. We look back to Pope Leo XIII’s 1883 encyclical, Rerum Novarum, for the foundations, but every pope since then as well as the Second Vatican Council have stressed the moral obligation we all have at every level of society and in every nation to protect the dignity and rights of all human beings.

What also needs to be said about this pastoral letter is that it was the work of the American bishops in consultation with experts and the laity, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. It was a letter that came from the national Conference of Catholic bishops, and not from Rome. It was a letter written at a different time in a world that is changing every day. It was a letter that in the words of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadine “follows the logic of tradition and takes it to a level appropriate for the local church.”

In a sense, twenty-five years later, we have to look at The Challenge of Peace in the light of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, the formation of the United Nations, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the end of the Cold War, in short in the light of the world then and the world we are living in now. The Challenge of Peace, Bernadine wrote, “applied appropriate elements of the tradition of ‘a just war’ to questions of the use of nuclear weapons and the policy of deterrence.” If we were concerned then about the buildup of nuclear weapons and arsenals, how much more now in this age of terrorism.

Viewed in the light of a century of Catholic social teaching The Challenge of Peace is rooted in “a world of limited resources and a growing division between ‘the haves’ and the ‘have nots,’ economic justice is an essential element in developing authentic peace.” It follows that if “economic justice is essential in building lasting peace,” then “human rights are the very foundation of an authentic peace.”  Blessed Pope John XXIII spelled out these principles in his encyclical, Pacem in Terris, at the same time the United Nations Charter on Human Rights was being written. This is what he wrote:

“…every person has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are necessary and suitable for the proper development of life. These means are primarily food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and finally the necessary social services. …the right to security in case of sickness, inability to work, widowhood, old age, unemployment or in any other case in which he (or she) is deprived of the means of subsistence through no fault of his (or her) own.” (no. 11)

Benedict XVI recently stressed these same truths again in his speech at the United Nations.

I want to mention two other things about the letter some of us may recall. The third draft of the letter received a lot of notoriety when it substituted the word “curb” for “halt” in its “recommendation on the testing, production, and deployment of new nuclear weapons systems.” The letter also concluded “that both pacifist and just war approaches are essential for reflection on war and peace in our time.” The bishops wrote, “We believe the two perspectives support and compliment each other, each preserving the other from distortion.” While appearing to weaken one position, the bishops strengthened the role of conscience in the other.

There is a great deal more that could be said about The Challenge of Peace. Things changed so rapidly in the 80s and 90s, and now since 9/11, that Bernadine stressed how we needed to use the transition to the new millennium creatively – both politically and morally - in pursuit of the values which the social tradition has taught us: peace, justice, truth, love and freedom. They are the lasting goals to which all people must commit themselves today to achieve peace now and in the future, particularly in the face of terrorism. We need to pray for peace, of course, but we must also work for peace as well.

The Challenge of Peace is not simply a pastoral letter, but a challenge to all Americans, Catholic and non-Catholic, to act together to ensure a stabile and viable peace for everyone now and in the future. That is a moral and God given obligation for us all.

Catholic social teaching needs to be put into practice, starting with us. In a sociological study done recently entitled, American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church, the authors found that “the younger the Catholic, the less importance he or she gave to the Church’s involvement in activities directed toward social justice.” I hate to say it but I am afraid its true. I saw it recently here at a luncheon sponsored by Pax Christi Long Island, practically everyone there was retirement age and older. That’s not funny and it does not auger well for the future of world peace.

Yet the same study conducted in 2005 showed that 84% of the Catholics surveyed tied for first place on “helping the poor” and “believing in Jesus’ resurrection.” Of the twelve categories there were, these were the two Catholics saw as the most important. Somehow we seem to be more comfortable reaching out to the less fortunate on a one-to one basis than we are in social justice issues. Maybe the one is easier, but the other really offers opportunities for lasting change. At a MICAH conference this week over 200 people spelled out steps to be taken that could help end hunger for 250,000 people on Long Island. It is not simply bring food to the food pantry!

We ought to be reminded of The Challenge of Peace every time we come to Church. Right across the street there is a path that goes up the hill to the Centerport United Methodist Church, a path that children used to take to go to school. Now at the foot of the path there is a large stone dedicating it to the memory of Harry Burr and his grandson, Cpl. Christopher Scherer, a young man from our community, one of more than four thousand who lost their lives in Iraq. To me and to many of us Chris is “a hero” in Bush’s War, a war with little or no purpose, and seemingly without end.  It clearly demonstrates how absolutely important it is to put The Challenge of Peace into practice. 

It seems to me that if at one time in the history of the Church we needed a Creed to spell out what we believed, today we need another Creed to tell us how to live together peacefully in a world that is getting smaller and smaller. Catholic social teaching offers us such an explanation and The Challenge of Peace is a good place to start. We can learn from our mistakes; we did from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We can learn too after 9/11 and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not the way to go, and no one really wants to go in this direction. No one I know anyhow! Its time we had such a Creed; this one on social justice.

Will you help me write it? No, rather, will you help me live it! 

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