Although WFB starts by listing several ways in which the Church is said to be in

crisis--declining vocations, declining Mass attendance, declining use of sacramental confession--today's discussion winds up concentrating on the American bishops' recent Pastoral Letter on nuclear arms. To Mr. Buckley, the bishops were here leaving the moral arena that is their proper realm and meddling in "prudential" questions outside their competence. To Father Hesburgh, disarmament is precisely a moral question, because "if we don't get this problem solved, all the other problems in a sense become moot... If the nuclear weapon is unleashed, everything else is all over." But Father Hesburgh does not indulge in secular-style fear mongering: "The world got to a point where it was rather fatalistic about whether it will happen or won't happen. There is

nothing worse, I think, than a fatalistic world. We need hope to go on living."