Two US archbishops joined with three prelates from Japan in a formal pledge to work for the eradication of nuclear weapons on the seventy-eighth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
“In the spirit and teaching of Pope Francis, we recognise that even the possession of nuclear weapons is immoral,” they said in a statement issued on 9 August, during the ten-day pilgrimage to Japan by the Archbishop of Seattle Paul Etienne and the Archbishop of Santa Fe John Wester.
Wester’s archdiocese includes Los Alamos, New Mexico where the atomic bombs dropped on Japan were made. Seattle is home to a naval base for nuclear-armed submarines.
The statement, also signed by Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura of Nagasaki, Bishop Alexis Mitsuru Shirahama of Hiroshima, and the retired Archbishop Joseph Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki, called for “concrete progress” towards the elimination of nuclear weapons.
“It was hard to fathom that with just one bomb, this entire city along with some 140,000 people died as a result, far more than the tens of thousands gathered this morning to remember them,” Etienne wrote on his blog after an interfaith ceremony in Hiroshima.
He recalled those who survived the initial bombing but suffered physical and psychological wounds throughout their lives. “All of this was on my heart as we prayed together in this site of so much devastation, suffering and death,” he added.
Etienne recalled that when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ, a future superior-general of the Jesuits, turned the Jesuit novitiate in Nagatsuka, about three miles from the blast site, into a makeshift hospital. He and four priests went into Hiroshima that day to retrieve the wounded.
“The stories of devastation, suffering and death are as heart-wrenching as the story of Father Arrupe and his Jesuit companions is inspiring,” Etienne wrote.
In Washington, DC, the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House held prayer vigils in front of the Pentagon and the White House on 6 and 9 August.
In South Korea, Laudato Si’ campaigners have joined street protests in Seoul against Japanese plans to release treated nuclear-contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. Almost 70 percent of Koreans oppose the release of water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.
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