The American Bishops Protest

As debate over U.S. policy in El Salvador has intensified, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops has emerged as a highly vocal opponent of the Reagan Administration's position. The American bishops are against all forms of military aid to El Salvador and favor a negotiated settlement between that country's ruling junta and its left-wing guerrillas.

Other clergy have also spoken out against the Administration. Last week a group of more than 350 church leaders, most of them Protestant but including Catholics and Jews, called for an end to U.S. military aid to El Salvador. But the crucial role of the Roman Catholic Church in Central America makes the position of Catholic leaders in the U.S. particularly relevant. Some church sources say that the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Deane Hinton, has cited the bishops' position as the most serious obstacle to the Administration's efforts to increase military aid to the Salvadoran government.

The 372 American bishops have understandably been influenced by the tragedies that have befallen a number of clergy and church workers in El Salvador, including the slaying of liberal Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero in March 1980 and the murders of four American women missionaries later that year. Right-wingers are suspected of killing the archbishop and five former national guardsmen have been charged with killing the missionaries. The bishops have contended for two years that the U.S. must not become too closely identified with the Salvadoran government. Archbishop James A. Hickey of Washington last year told the House Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs: "Our position is to oppose military aid and intervention from all outside powers." The bishops favored diplomatic pressure to "stop the flow of arms from Cuba through Nicaragua to El Salvador," he said, "but we earnestly and vigorously oppose the sending of U.S. military assistance to El Salvador." In November, the Conference of Bishops reaffirmed that position, with only a dozen members at the meeting dissenting. As Archbishop Hickey has argued, the Catholic leaders fear a Communist takeover in El Salvador but nonetheless are against sending in U.S. arms. The bishops' rationale: the weapons will strengthen repressive elements in the security forces and, says Bishop Raymond A. Lucker of New Ulm, Minn., drive more and more people "into the hills and into the hands of the guerrillas." Says Auxiliary Bishop John E. McCarthy of Galveston-Hous-ton: "Those 22-year-old rebels are not risking their lives for the good of the Soviet Union or Cuba. They are risking their lives because they have seen their fathers murdered, their sisters raped and their homes burned." His fear, says McCarthy, is that "the intensity and blindness of American policy will produce the opposite effect of what lovers of freedom want--a situation leading to a Communist take-over." For these reasons, says Archbishop John R. Roach of St. Paul and Minneapolis, president of the Bishops' Conference, the group has taken its stand and asked Washington to refrain from "massively increasing the destructive capability of the armed forces." The bishops have not addressed themselves to what the U.S. should do if such restraint should lead to a guerrilla victory, as the Administration fears would happen.

Although Pope John Paul II has not commented on their political statements concerning El Salvador, the American bishops believe that he does not oppose their policies. Says Lucker: "Clearly he cannot be saying that we shouldn't be taking stands on moral issues that have political implications. Look at his own statements on Poland." A Vatican official describes the Pope's views on El Salvador to be threefold: to prevent bloodshed, encourage social reform and avoid the emergence of "another Cuba." Neither the bishops nor the Reagan Administration would disagree with those goals; the question is how to attain them.

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