{"id":102055,"date":"2017-11-20T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=102055"},"modified":"2017-11-27T10:49:17","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T10:49:17","slug":"nuclear-disarmament-now-a-moral-imperative-as-pope-francis-rejects-deterrence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/11\/nuclear-disarmament-now-a-moral-imperative-as-pope-francis-rejects-deterrence\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear Disarmament Now a \u2018Moral Imperative\u2019 as Pope Francis Rejects Deterrence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Foto: L\u2019Osservatore Romano \/Sir)<\/p><\/div>\n

13 Nov 2017 – <\/em>In a landmark statement on nuclear arms on Nov. 10, Pope Francis has categorically condemned not only \u201cthe threat of their use\u201d but also \u201ctheir very possession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nuclear weapons, he told participants at a Vatican symposium on \u201cintegral disarmament,\u201d exist \u201cin the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict but the entire human race.\u201d<\/p>\n

His audience included representatives from the United States and Russia. He told them that \u201cinternational relations cannot be held captive to military force, mutual intimidation and the parading of stockpiles of arms.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that \u201cweapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, create nothing but a false sense of security. They cannot constitute the basis for peaceful coexistence between members of the human family, which must rather be inspired by an ethics of solidarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is the first pope ever to condemn the possession of nuclear weapons since they were initially developed at the end of World War II and then used twice by the United States at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, causing the deaths of 210,000 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cInternational relations cannot be held captive to military force, mutual intimidation and the parading of stockpiles of arms.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego told America<\/strong>, \u201cPope Francis was clear that because of the significant risks of even an anticipated or accidental war, and of the gargantuan and devastating effects of nuclear war, and of provoking other nations to perhaps use them, the possession itself of these weapons is now condemned, regardless of the intention.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called the pope\u2019s statement \u201cnew and, of course…very significant.\u201d \u201cIt is going beyond the questions raised before about the ethic of nuclear deterrence not being warranted in the present day,\u201d Bishop McElroy said. \u201cIt\u2019s really going beyond that to the possession itself being morally wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bishop said that \u201cthe moral imperative\u201d for Catholics and indeed the whole world is a move \u201cprogressively and dramatically toward getting rid of nuclear arms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ambassador Douglas Roche, who served as Canada\u2019s ambassador on disarmament to the United Nations (1984-89) and was elected chairman of the United Nations Disarmament Committee in 1988, told America<\/strong>: \u201cI consider Pope Francis\u2019 categorical condemnation of the possession of nuclear weapons to be of a historic nature, a breakthrough. It\u2019s the strongest statement that a pope has made in opposition to the very holding of nuclear weapons, as distinct from their very use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ambassador Roche noted that the United States is currently leading a fight against a recent U.N. treaty supporting the global abolition of nuclear weapons, a position which just took a \u201cbig hit\u201d because of the pope\u2019s condemnation.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow along comes Pope Francis who gives his moral authority to [nuclear abolition], too,\u201d he said. \u201cThis removes the last band the United States had in justifying nuclear weapons, which was John Paul II\u2019s statement in 1982 in which the church gave a limited acceptance for deterrence as long as it would not become permanent.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes the pope\u2019s statement \u201cwas a courageous step because he knows that he\u2019s got a lot of bishops that are going to be extremely uneasy about this,\u201d and \u201cthe governments [who possess nuclear arms] will not like it at all and especially the United States, where there is a very significant Catholic population.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Holy See has said this before, but putting the words in the mouth of the pope gives it a whole new standing,\u201d said Drew Christiansen, S.J., of Georgetown University, who delivered a talk at the symposium. \u201cThis is a very dramatic break from the popular mind; the church has dropped the other shoe and said it is wrong to possess nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Holy See, for its part, is fully aware that there is no movement among those who possess nuclear arms toward negotiating their elimination. On the contrary, they are making significant new investments in their modernization.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis\u2019 condemnation of nuclear weapons represents a significant departure from the stance taken by his predecessors. St. John Paul II had accepted the ethic of deterrence with the understanding that the nations who possessed nuclear arms intended to move forward from deterrence to disarmament as outlined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (Article VI) signed in 1968.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis\u2019 condemnation of nuclear weapons represents a significant departure from the stance taken by his predecessors.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bishop McElroy told the conference on Nov. 11 that Pope Benedict had recognized the great risk nuclear weapons posed to humanity and called for an effective demilitarization. But that has not happened.<\/p>\n

Bishop McElroy said, \u201cIn 2008, Pope Benedict, surveying the nuclear landscape in the world, lamented that an ethic of complacency and even a toleration of limited nuclear expansion had become inextricably intertwined with the ethic of deterrence.\u201d Pope Benedict, he said, observing that possession of nuclear weapons \u201cwas increasingly becoming a sign of great power status,\u201d saw them as \u201ca temptation for newly emerging powers to defend their interests and their peoples, and a spur to modernization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope Francis\u2019 condemnation of the possession of nuclear weapons came in his keynote address to the 350 participants at this Vatican symposium on \u201cperspectives for a world free from nuclear arms and for integral disarmament,\u201d organized by the Dicastery for the Promoting Integral Human Development.<\/p>\n

The pope began his address by underlining the importance of their discussion at this moment in history when \u201ca climate of instability and conflict\u201d is growing and the prospects of a world without nuclear arms seems \u201cincreasingly remote.\u201d He said that \u201cthe arms race continues unabated and the price of modernizing and developing weaponry, not only nuclear weapons, represents a considerable expense for nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, Francis said, \u201cthe real priorities facing our human family, such as the fight against poverty, the promotion of peace, the undertaking of educational, ecological and health care projects, and the development of human rights are relegated to second place.\u201d<\/p>\n

His condemnation came from a realization of \u201cthe catastrophic humanitarian and environmental effects of any employment of nuclear devices\u201d and \u201cthe risk of an accidental detonation as a result of error of any kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faced with this situation, Francis said, \u201cthe threat of their use, as well as their very possession, is to be firmly condemned.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-day symposium (Nov. 10 to 11), whose sponsors included the German and Japanese bishops\u2019 conferences, the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Georgetown University and the University of Notre Dame, brought together 11 Nobel Peace laureates and experts in the field of nuclear arms from civil society, states and international organizations as well as influential academics.<\/p>\n

Beatrice Fihn, the Swedish-born executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which was awarded this year\u2019s Nobel Peace Prize, told America<\/strong> that the pope \u201cis giving moral leadership\u201d on nuclear disarmament.<\/p>\n

She hailed the fact that under his leadership the Holy See \u201cratified the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons so quickly.\u201d This was a reference to the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear arms, which was approved at a U.N. conference on July 7. Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the secretary for Relations with States, signed the treaty on behalf of the Holy See and the Vatican City State on Sept. 20 in what Ms. Fihn described as \u201ca strong signal to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Fihn told America<\/strong>: \u201cI am not a religious person, and I am usually not very impressed with celebrities, but I was very taken with Pope Francis, and when he came into the room I was very moved by his presence. He was very warm when I greeted him, and I asked him to ask people to pray for the abolition of nuclear weapons on Dec. 10, international human rights day, when we receive the Nobel Peace Prize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Fihn was \u201cdelighted\u201d to have been invited to this conference, which, she said, \u201cis a sign that Pope Francis and the Vatican are taking this seriously, and that it\u2019s one of their priority issues now.\u201d She emphasized that the movement to abolish nuclear weapons \u201cis going to need the support of religious communities if we are going to be able to take this forward.\u201d She believes there is \u201can opportunity\u201d to do so now because of \u201cthe tensions between the United States and North Korea and the growing fear of a confrontation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today nine states possess nuclear arms: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. The United States and Russia together have 14,000 out of the 15,000 nuclear weapons known to exist in the world, 2,000 of which \u201care still on high alert,\u201d according to Mohamed El Baradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and one of the main speakers at the symposium.<\/p>\n

Mr. El Baradei described the argument that nuclear weapons have kept the peace as \u201cbogus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA peace that hangs on a doctrine of mutually assured destruction,\u201d he said, \u201cis underpinned by human fallibility and, in addition, is irrelevant to extremists. It is a peace that is unsustainable and highly perilous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nuclear weapons, he warned, \u201care the most urgent threat facing humanity today, and the risk of their use is higher than at any time in the recent past.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Mr. El Baradei, \u201cThe entire landscape is frightening and shameful. It shows no genuine commitment whatsoever to nuclear disarmament.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cA U.S. or Russian president has a mere seven to eight minutes to respond to a \u2018reported\u2019 nuclear attack, with the odds of miscalculation increasing exponentially as a result of cyber-manipulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexei Georgevich Arbatov, who has spent most of his life working on these issues and now heads the Center for International Security at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Russia, agreed with Mr. El Baradei. \u201cThe nuclear arms control regime of the last 50 years is disintegrating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Several other speakers, including Jody Williams, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for leading the successful campaign to get an international treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, emphasized the need for all-out global mobilization to get more and more states to sign and ratify the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. Everyone recognizes that it is a steep, uphill struggle, but there is confidence that it can be done.<\/p>\n

A number of participants called for Pope Francis to write an encyclical on this subject, as a companion to \u201cLaudato Si\u2019.\u201d But others, like Northern Ireland Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, told America<\/strong> they would like the issue to be part of an encyclical on \u201cnon-violence.\u201d Cardinal Peter Turkson, the head of the Vatican\u2019s integral human development office, said he has heard these calls but believes his dicastery must first work on a revision of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church on the question of nuclear arms.<\/p>\n

As this important and energizing symposium drew to a close, Wada Masako, a \u201cHibakusha\u201d\u2014the Japanese name for the survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki\u2014gave a deeply moving testimony. She recalled that she was 22 months old when Nagasaki, the city where she lived, was devastated. She went on to narrate in graphic detail what her mother had told her about \u201cthe hellish scenes\u201d she witnessed then. When she concluded her testimony with a passionate appeal for the abolition of nuclear weapons, she was given a standing ovation.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/p>\n

Related Stories:<\/em><\/p>\n

World leaders are meeting at the Vatican to discuss nuclear weapons. Here\u2019s why. –\u00a0<\/a><\/em>Kevin Clarke<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

No More Nukes?: A new movement argues it is time to finally ban the bomb. –\u00a0<\/a><\/em>Kevin Clarke<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Gerard O\u2019Connell is <\/em>America‘s Vatican correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Go to Original \u2013 americamagazine.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a landmark statement on nuclear arms on 10 Nov 2017, Pope Francis has categorically condemned not only \u201cthe threat of their use\u201d but also \u201ctheir very possession.\u201d Nuclear weapons, he told participants at a Vatican symposium on \u201cintegral disarmament,\u201d exist \u201cin the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict but the entire human race.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":102026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,57,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weapons-of-mass-destruction","category-militarism","category-religion-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}