Pope condemns possession of nuclear weapons

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As I meditated on today’s readings, I was struck in particular by the words of St. Paul to the Ephesians. He was exhorting the followers of Christ to be united, to put aside their fury and anger, to be kind and forgiving of one another, to be, as he put it, “imitators of God” who live in love. This is a powerful message to seek peace.

It is a message very much needed in this world so full of the distrust, anger, and hatred that fuel conflicts and the race to acquire more arms of all kinds, including nuclear weapons, supposedly to defend ourselves. But to pursue that path will only lead to more suspicion and distrust, a dangerous downward spiral with a potential for so much more destruction. Instead, we must turn away from that path and seek peace as the Lord would have us do.

Last September I went on a Prayer Pilgrimage for Peace to the Holy Land and stood on a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. It was a place very near to where our Lord gave us the Beatitudes. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)…

…Saint John Paul II, in his “Appeal for Peace” at Hiroshima, repeatedly said that “to remember the past is to commit oneself to the future.” He called on leaders to “pledge [them]selves to peace through justice; let us take a solemn decision, now, that war will never be tolerated or sought as a means of resolving differences; let us promise our fellow human beings that we will work untiringly for disarmament and the banishing of all nuclear weapons:… let us replace violence and hate with confidence and caring.” (Pope John Paul II, “Appeal for Peace,” Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall, February 25, 1981)

Homily for Mass on Peace and a World without Nuclear Weapons
Bishop Oscar Cantú, Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki, August 9, 2015
 
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There are two components here: one is based on faith and right reason and the other involves practical and military concerns of those that may subscribe to neither. If you don’t understand that then you are going nowhere fast.

What are you going to do change things?
 
edwest211 said:
There are two components here: one is based on faith and right reason and the other involves practical and military concerns of those that may subscribe to neither. If you don’t understand that then you are going nowhere fast.

What are you going to do change things?
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Did the bit in the Sermon on the Mount make an exception for enemies that do not subscribe to faith and right reason? I think Our Lord was fairly familiar with enemies who were real enemies, enemies who would beat you and take what you have and leave you for dead on the side of the road, and not just annoying friends. He was familiar with the political realities of the Roman Empire, with the pros and cons of keeping the peace through intimidation and bigger-army politics.

What do I propose? What difference does that make? The Popes from John XXIII up through the present have urged humankind, through urging our governmental leaders, concerning the need to denounce the wastefulness of relegating the care of actual human beings in need to second place while tremendous amounts of effort and wealth are spent on development of more and more powerful weaponry. As Pope Francis put it: “If we also take into account the risk of an accidental detonation as a result of error of any kind, the threat of [the use of nuclear weapons], as well as their very possession, is to be firmly condemned. For they exist in the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict but the entire human race. International relations cannot be held captive to military force, mutual intimidation, and the parading of stockpiles of arms. Weapons 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.”

If you’re saying that being willing to let go of the world’s most breaktaking capacity to intimidate is irresponsible, I would only say that nowhere in the Gospel is eternal life linked to doing things that are “responsible” in the sense of being self-preserving. If self-preservation or national influence is a higher priority than charity, generosity, gentleness, peace, kindness, goodness and so on, then that’s not a Christian priority system. It has departed from the priority system that is evident in the plain meaning of the New Testament.

I know the other false objection: Kindness and gentleness and putting the care of others ahead of self-preservation for individuals, not nations. The morality of individuals doesn’t apply to nations. Nations have to be above that. The Popes teach that this is false morality.
 
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I agree with the Pope. Your lack of a proposal shows you do not consider practical concerns to be practical. Ever since the first and only use of atomic weapons in 1945, there has been nothing. No use. Improving the accuracy of all weapons has been paramount. That’s why television guided munitions will destroy the target and nothing more. That is only one example.

Do you think the risk of nuclear war has increased or decreased? And why?
 
edwest211 said:
I agree with the Pope. Your lack of a proposal shows you do not consider practical concerns to be practical. Ever since the first and only use of atomic weapons in 1945, there has been nothing. No use. Improving the accuracy of all weapons has been paramount. That’s why television guided munitions will destroy the target and nothing more. That is only one example.

Do you think the risk of nuclear war has increased or decreased? And why?
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No, my lack of a personal proposal means only that I don’t think I need to add to the proposals of the Pope. What, exactly, would be the point? The Pope did not say it would be OK to hold on to some nuclear weapons as long as they were just little ones and we tried to give them very very accurate technology. He said we needed to work towards getting rid of all of them. So, if you agree with the Pope, I assume the munitions you’re talking about in your proposal are not nuclear weapons at all.

I do think it is a bit disingenous to look at all the trillions of dollars we have spent on our nuclear program and all the hundreds of metric tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium we’ve produced and say “there has been nothing.” Detonating all the warheads we did in the name of testing was not “nothing.”

At any rate, by going-on-400 posts I’m thinking we either agree that the world needs to work towards convincing governments to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely or we don’t. Either we agree with the Pope, or we don’t. (He has not said we’re talking about an article of faith, here)
 
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So, you did get some history. Without getting technical, those tests were necessary. I’m not saying they were done in a moral way either.

I agree with the Pope. Your acting as spokesman here for certain moral principles is good but without a strategy for getting rid of nuclear weapons, you ignore the fact that this is becoming more and more possible. Today’s “brushfire wars” are fought only with conventional weapons. In fact, most of North Korea’s military equipment could be wiped out in 24 hours with conventional weapons. But you appear not to know that.
 
edwest211 said:
So, you did get some history. Without getting technical, those tests were necessary. I’m not saying they were done in a moral way either.
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Which is to say that arguments that support the idea that some testing and some arsenal might have been defensible comes far short of defending the amount that was done. Agreed.

You just said that nuclear weapons have only been used in one war ever and yet add that getting rid of nuclear weapons is becoming “more and more possible.” I think we all realize that it is not realistic to believe that the military powers are all going to wake up tomorrow and order their nuclear arsenals destoyed. We don’t have that kind of trust between the humans on this planet.

Whatever your reasons are to keep implying I’m too ignorant to deal with, it is getting very tiresome. You agree with the Pope, I agree with the Pope, great…Enjoy the rest of your discussion.
 
Not realistic? I don’t know. Better weapons are coming. US military planners decided in the 1950s that nuclear weapons could leave no one standing. There would be no land to occupy and no people to occupy it with. A careful reading of the military literature over the last 30 years shows how both sides have learned. It won’t happen overnight but new technologies are and will continue to enter the field where the launch of ICBMs, IRBMs and other methods of delivering nuclear weapons will no longer be possible. The same technology can be applied to conventional military vehicles and aircraft. When the enemy is left with nothing to fight with, the US will withdraw from the fight.
 
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It’s one thing to embrace martyrdom; it’s quite another to tell other people to die because you won’t defend them. The governing authorities have an obligation to protect their people and cannot simply surrender to tyrants rather than resist. Nor do you consider the serious spiritual harm that comes from neglecting temporal security: Compulsory State education, under the control of tyrants, is the surest means of corrupting the youth, even to the point of betraying their parents. Furthermore, the unwillingness to protect those in our charge undermines the ability to win souls to Christ. “Christianity is the religion of cowards,” we will have given them cause to say. Courageous indeed is the one who prefers to die, rather than kill, but the one who lets other people die rather than use force to protect them is a coward.
 
They’re called neutron bombs: low-yield thermonuclear weapons which cause a massive direct radiation dose, especially to the crews of tanks with depleted uranium armor, while leaving very little fallout. Downside is that the radiation dose needed to incapacitate an enemy soldier quickly is ten times the lethal dose, meaning that many enemy soldiers may be fatally irradiated but still able to fight for up to three days, making them liable to banzai charge your position. You could evacuate and wait for the radiation sickness to kill them, but that’s difficult to do logistically.
 
Uh, where did you get that? No Neutron Bomb is required. Conflicts in the near term will be nipped in the bud using conventional weapons that are coming online.
 
He asked about nukes that only target combatants, so I explained that such things do exist.
 
A Neutron Bomb has a blast radius that will kill anyone in that blast radius. The whole point is to kill people while doing less damage to buildings.
 
And the reason it was developed was as an anti-tank weapon to counter a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. The idea was that the bomb would be used on Soviet tank formations where you wouldn’t have civilians present; the tanks can withstand a nuclear blast pretty close, but depleted uranium armor is worse than useless at stopping fusion neutrons.
 
Depleted uranium armor? Where did you read that? If it existed, the crew would have to be shielded and it would add weight. Depleted uranium is pyrophoric, meaning if it gets hit, it will burst into flame. A bad idea all around.
 
Nuclear weapons and fuel production produces a large amount of depleted uranium as a byproduct. Because all the daughter products have been removed in the enrichment process, radiation levels are very low. As for being heavy, that’s entirely the point: it’s twice as dense as lead, so it’ll withstand blasts easier. It’s not that pyrophoric compared to other metals used in armor. As for my source, I’ve seen it myself.
 
edwest211 said:
Do you think the risk of nuclear war has increased or decreased?
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I would say it has increased.
With more countries possessing nuclear weapons, the chances of a nuclear war have increased dramatically. The USA, Russia, France, the UK, China, India, Pakistan and Israel all possess nuclear weapons. And there is a possibility that Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Iran may have them in the future. I don’t see where anyone tried to prevent Pakistan from having a nuclear weapon. If Pakistan can have one, it is possible that in the future other countries may also. The US had certified that Pakistan did not have a nuclear weapon, but this was found to be in error when Pakistan conducted its nuclear tests. And Dr. Khan of Pakistan has confessed to heading a black market ring in selling nuclear weapons technology. In particular, this technology is supposed to have been sold on the black market to North Korea and Iran. I don’t see where anyone blocked the sale of this technology. What is to prevent North Korea from secretly selling this technology to others?

 
I am not aware of the agreement. But it has been over 30 years since I retired.

Added: Wiki has some details, post my active duty time.
 
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MiserereMeiDei said:
Oh goodness. Is this why the Brits decided to murder Irish babies? I thought it was just a hobby of theirs.
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I’m not sure whether you followed the thread of conversation. I was responding to somebody who seemed to think that the US president could use the threat of deploying a nuclear bomb to coerce a country into legalising abortion. I can assure you that, as far as anybody knows, the reason for any move towards legalising abortion in Northern Ireland has nothing to do with nuclear warfare.

I don’t know whether you are deliberately pretending not to understand it, but not everyone in Northern Ireland is an Irish citizen. Babies born in Northern Ireland are entitled to be both Irish and British citizens, but it’s misleading to say ‘Irish babies’. Those babies could be Irish, British, or both. Or something else, e.g. Polish.

Some responsibility also lies with Northern Irish politicians who have now failed to form a government for almost three years. Should they prove capable of forming a government by 21 October, some of the provisions of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc.) Act 2019 will not come into force and Northern Ireland will be free to maintain its existing laws on abortion and same-sex marriage.
 
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