THE BOMB AND US

Mr. Walter Stein's reply to my letter (May 3) simply confirms my suspicion that those Catholics who condemn nuclear war as immoral in itself arc quite unable to offer sound arguments for their views, l did not ask Mr. Stein to produce authorities for his statement. asked, and still ask for. rational arguments and his reply does no more than bolster his own ipse dixit with the iese dierits of other people.
I am no more prepared to accept as final the opinions ot pope John XXIII in an encyclical (which is not an infallible statement) than Mr. Stein would. I presume. accept the opinions of Gregory XVI in Mirari Vet or all the strictures of Pius IX in his Syllabus of Errors. In so vitel a matter as this. in the absence of an infallible statement by Pope or Council, every individual must convince himself. Incidentally, it is not at all clear that the condemnatory phrases from Mgr. McReavy's C.T.S. pamphlet, cited by Mr. Stein. apply to the view I put forward in my letter, would like to remind Mr. Stein that I did state my complete acceptance of the restraining factors of the principle of double effect.
Considerations ot !space enable me only to give a brief (therefore unsatisfactory) answer to Mr. Stein's question "By Whom?" I would say that the annihilation of physical life could conic about by the action of both contestants if certain factors were present. Everybody could benefit spiritually from this result in so far as they would escape the appalling spiritual consequences of life under Communist rule so vividly described by Father Van Straaten in your issue of April 26.
I would like to remind Mr. Stein that we are both arguing about a hypothetical case and it is my endeavour to show that the principle of double effect could, in certain circumstances justify even the annihilation of all physical life so long as, from the innocent defenders point or view. it came about as a known but undesired secondary effect of his action. If this can be estahlished then the possession of nuclear weapons (whatever their destructive capacity) cannot be condemned hut we must still be on our guard against an immoral use of nuclear weapons.
P. B. Norris, Southsea, Hants, Personal attacks, such as those directed against another correspondent and myself by Mr, Arthur F. Slater, are always unanswerable: but it should he said that antagonism of this nature is less
than real, since the "Bomb" (from which the issue indirectly rises) paradoxically unites us all. It is a symptom of the cancer in all of us, in the conceited and the confused like me and even in Mr. Slater.
Elizabeth Cottle,
(Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarament).
Saltdean, Sussex.
"After two thnusanef years of Mass, We've got as far as poison gas"—thus wrote a poet in the First World War.
After reading the Hugh KayWalter Stein nuclear debate it seems to me that
"A learned study of Canon Law Prepares the way for nuclear war." Edward O'Hara, Huddersfield.