“Many thinking people in Europe agree that United States policy in Vietnam is bankrupt,” Enda McDonagh said. “It is on the way to making the ‘free world’ a myth,” François Houtart said. “The futility of the Vietnam war outweighs anything to be gained from it,” Michael Ramsey said, “and its continuation will cause world opinion to be hardened against America.”

All three speakers know the United States intimately and are personally and by traditional commitment its devoted friends.. Not one of them is French, and I am sure none is a Communist. Yet this is how they spoke in the second half of 1967. And between them they reflect a broad spectrum of the thought of Christian churchmen in Europe. The first two are Roman Catholic priests, professors of moral theology at Maynooth College. Ireland, and of sociology at the Unh'ersity of Louvain, Belgium, respectively. The third is Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury.

I suppose I should start this piece by clearly stating that I do not believe in the draft in any form. I happen to hold with Benedict XV that it is an abomination among free men. Yet, if we must have a draft, it must be as equitable as humanly possible. There must be no privileged groups in a truly democratic society; it is, therefore, unjust that seminarians and clergy be exempted from the draft.

Before going into the specifics of the argument, I take it as an accepted political as well as theological fact that the absolute pacificist must be exempted from active military duty as long as he is willing to make his contribution to his countrymen in another capacity. This principle was upheld by Vatican II (Pastoral Constitution, par. 79°) and, as such, rejoins a pacifist tradition of the Church almost entirely forgotten for some sixteen hundred years.