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There's No Deterring the Catholic Bishops

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

J. Bryan Hehir
J. Bryan Hehir
Affiliation:
J. BRYAN HEHIR is the Joseph Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics at Georgetown University, and is the Counselor for Social Policy of the U.S. Catholic Conference.
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Abstract

This article uses two episcopal texts published by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops during the 1980s as a case study of the role of ethics in the foreign policy process. No longer a topic for theologians, philosophers, and lawyers alone, as in past decades, the morality of foreign affairs is now a matter of public discourse and political strategy. The size and social diversity of the Catholic church, the convergence of its stands on anti-communism and anti-nuclear weaponry, and the cosmic nature of the nuclear threat allowed the bishops to make transnational references reaching into all corners of the globe. The church-state exchange introduced the ethics of consequences and promoted moral debate about strategic foreign policy and deterrence.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 3 , March 1989 , pp. 277 - 296
Copyright
© Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1989

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References

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