| dc.description | The thesis examines The Challenge of Peace, the Pastoral Letter approved in May 1983 by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in the United States, in the light of the philosophical traditions within the Church, the international political-strategic context, and American culture and society. There has been a tendency to assume that this Pastoral raises two sets of issues--one related to the appropriate relationship between ethics and strategy, and the other related to the appropriate relationship between religious conviction and political allegiance in a society characterized by religious pluralism and liberal democratic political institutions. This thesis seeks to argue that these two sets of issues are, in fact, fundamentally linked. The consequence is that, whether one looks at the Pastoral as a product carrying a certain prescriptive content or as a process in which both Catholics and members of the political community in general are challenged to dialogue and to act, one essentially finds the same values embodied. In its necessary reliance on empirical analysis that cannot be definitive, the Pastoral must be considered as at least somewhat tentative when it comes to questions of the concrete application of principles. The Pastoral can most usefully be seen as an attempt to initiate a dialogue in which persons and governments are challenged to explore ways in which principles founded on love, peace and justice can be applied to the dynamic milieu of international politics. | en_US |
