Reagan’s Stance on Arms Race Assailed : Churchmen Warn of Nuclear Cataclysm

A statement issued by a broad representation of Southern California religious leaders opposes the production and testing of nuclear weapons and criticizes the Reagan Administration for bringing “the world closer to the possibility of nuclear cataclysm.”

The Rev. George Regas, co-founder of the sponsoring Interfaith Center to Reverse the Arms Race, said the statement, signed by 14 Southland churchmen, represented the “most impressive list of interfaith support we’ve ever had in Los Angeles.”

Presented at a press conference in Los Angeles this week, the statement calls on the Administration and Congress to “stop nuclear testing, abide by the unratified Salt II treaty (and) redirect resources from the nuclear arms race to desperately needed human services.”

Needs Listed

These services include housing, education, health care for the elderly, toxic cleanup and water resources management, said the Rev. James Lawson, local president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Regas, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, said the “growing nuclear threat” had impelled the church leaders to seek a “common agenda for peace with justice.”

“We must succeed with our call to our vast constituencies to join us in this struggle. We must succeed in our efforts to build a peace lobby in the religious community,” Regas said.

Msgr. Royale M. Vadakin, head of the Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs Commission of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, spoke in place of Archbishop Roger M. Mahony, who was attending a bishops’ conference in Minnesota.

Cites Bishops’ Letters

Vadakin noted a connection between the U.S. Catholic bishops’ 1983 pastoral letter opposing nuclear arms and another letter the bishops will issue in November on the U.S. economy. Arms production robs “finances and energies” that should be spent on rebuilding the social fabric of the nation and helping the poor, Vadakin said.

Methodist Bishop Jack Tuell of the California-Pacific Conference referred to a statement issued by the Methodist bishops in April that called U.S. nuclear deterrence policy “idolatrous” and said arms stockpiling can never be justified as a way to deter potential enemies.

“The enormous pouring of the nation’s resources into armaments” is causing a burden on “our children and our children’s children that is incalculable,” Tuell said.

Rabbi Leonard I. Beerman of Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles, co-founder of the Interfaith Center, said the arms race “gives testimony to the universal vulnerability under which humanity lives (and) the dangers of unrestrained technology . . . unchecked by moral values.”

Others signing the statement were Episcopal Bishop Robert C. Rusack; Presbyterian Synod executive Frederick J. Beebe; the Rev. Fred Register, conference minister of the United Church of Christ; Bishop Nelson Trout of the American Lutheran Church; Bishop Stanley E. Olson of the Lutheran Church in America; Lee Thorton, executive secretary of the American Friends Service Committee; Rabbi Lennard R. Thal of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and Episcopal Suffragan Bishop Oliver Garver.

Rabbi Allen I. Freehling also signed the statement--as an individual rather than in his capacity as president of the Southern California Board of Rabbis, according to a spokesman.