Rome, Italy
AP
Pope Francis on Thursday marked the 75th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima by calling for peace and repeating that not only the use of atomic weapons but their mere possession is immoral.
Francis sent a message to organisers of the anniversary commemoration, recalling that he had prayed at the Hiroshima peace memorial during his 2019 visit to Japan and met with bombing survivors, known as hibakusha.
In this 24th November, 2019 file photo, Pope Francis delivers a speech in front of the Memorial Cenotaph at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western Japan. Pope Francis on Thursday, 6th August, 2020 marked the 75th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima by calling for peace and repeating that not only the use of atomic weapons but their mere possession is immoral. PICTURE: AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia/file photo.
“It has never been clearer that, for peace to flourish, all people need to lay down the weapons of war, and especially the most powerful and destructive of weapons: nuclear arms that can cripple and destroy whole cities, whole countries,” Francis said in the message.
He repeated what he had said on 24th November at the peace memorial: “The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral.”
The Holy See was among the first countries to sign and ratify the new UN nuclear prohibition treaty, and Francis himself went further than any pope before him in saying in 2017 that not only the use but the mere possession of atomic weapons is “to be condemned”.
Prior to that, church teaching had held that nuclear deterrence could be morally acceptable in the interim as long as it was used toward mutual, verifiable nuclear disarmament. Francis has modified that after seeing the deterrence doctrine has essentially resulted in a nuclear status quo, with arms control treaties collapsing.
“May the prophetic voices of the hibakusha survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to serve as a warning to us and for coming generations!” Francis said in the message.
The Atomic Bomb Dome is seen at dusk in Hiroshima, western Japan, on Sunday, 2nd August, 2020. The city of Hiroshima marked the 75th anniversary of the world’s first nuclear attack on 6th August. PICTURE: AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko.
Meanwhile, a range of Catholic organisations were among some 189 faith-based organisations – including the World Council of Churches – who signed an interfaith statement on the anniversary of the atomic bombings calling for governments to ensure nuclear weapons are never used again and to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
“As a wide coalition of faith-based communities from around the world, we have committed to speaking with one voice that rejects the existential threat to humanity that nuclear weapons pose,” reads part of the statement.
“We reaffirm that the presence of even one nuclear weapon violates the core principles of our different faith traditions and threatens the unimaginable destruction of everything we hold dear. Nuclear weapons are not only a future risk, their presence here and now undermines the ethical and moral foundations of the common good. We call for your commitment to a world that is more peaceful, safe, and just – a world only possible with the elimination of nuclear weapons.”
The statement also pays tribute to the hibakusha – who it says have “courageously borne witness, often in the face of intimidation and the recurring tragedy of loss and illness calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons” – and laments the “racism and colonialism that drove the nuclear-weapon States to test their weapons on the communities that they deemed expendable, lives far away from their own, lives that mattered less, lives that were taken in pursuit of destructive power for a few”.
“We acknowledge the immense suffering, oppression and exploitation faced by the Indigenous communities around the world whose bodies, lands, waters and air have served as the testing grounds for the ambitions of those who dominate with force.”
Along with the WCC, among the organisations to sign the statement were the All Africa Conference of Churches, the Christian Conference of Asia, the Christian Campaign of Nuclear Disarmament and the Orthodox Peace Fellowship as well as various country-based bodies.
– with DAVID ADAMS
