NUCLEAR DETERRENCE: IS THE WAR-AND-PEACE PASTORAL INCONSISTENT?

Discusses a pastoral letter of the American bishops on war and peace which has been criticized as inconsistent in its treatment of nuclear deterrence. Restrictive principles that condemns all feasible strategies of forcible national defense; Bishops' denunciation of most uses of nuclear weapons and their endorsement of nuclear deterrence; Refusal to grant the moral permissibility of our present nuclear strategy.