The Pope: not using or possessing nuclear arms will be added to the Catechism

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I do not possess any nuclear weapons. I don’t even have any plutonium stored in the freezer. But if possessing them is a sin, who will have to confess in the confessional? The head of state? The secretary of defense? Catholics who staff and maintain the Minuteman III sites?
 
I can’t believe that we have to look this up, but in the USA it is covered by 18 US Code 832 c
“Whoever without lawful authority posesses or attempts or conspires to develop or poossess a radiological weapon or threatens to useor uses a radiological weapon…shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life” Not to mention the laws against a controlled substance like enriched uranium. Germany and the UK also have laws against private ownership. And I don’t care to waste anymore time on this absurd premise to look up others.
 
Maybe Catholic lawmakers. Can’t wait for the threads about deneying people communion based on nuclear weapons. It is only fair given the recent denial of communion to others.
 
I recall the case of a Minuteman ICBM launch control officer. The crew consists of two persons who are on alert for a period of time in an underground launch control capsule, which can only be opened fron the inside. The Air Force made a change to allow women on these teams. One male officer refused to accept assignment with a woman because being alone in the capsule with a woman could be an occasion of sin. His bishop agreed with him. But the bishop said nothing about his assignment as an officer who could launch nuclear weapons with a keyturn.
 
Pnwcatholic said:
in the USA it is covered by 18 US Code 832 c
“Whoever without lawful authority posesses or attempts or conspires to develop or poossess a radiological weapon or threatens to useor uses a radiological weapon…shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life”
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I learn something new every day.

So as a just law, we would be called to obedience.
However, this does not speak to the morality of ownership.
 
I don’t like such tinkering of the Catechism.
According to traditional moral theology, targeting civilian populations with weapons of mass destruction would be immoral. However, some Catholic moral theologians said smaller nuclear weapons could be used to target only military sites. So this would be a definite changer of moral teaching, like the one he made saying capital punishment is inadmissible, though the Catechism had already said it could be used in serious cases.
Frankly, I thought that the change made saying capital punishment never should be used could be just the start to changes that will be made to the Catechism. Perhaps the next one will be to change what the Catechism says against homosexual acts.
 
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Pnwcatholic said:
“Whoever without lawful authority posesses or attempts or conspires to develop or poossess a radiological weapon or threatens to useor uses a radiological weapon…shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life”
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Nuclear weapons do not contain substances suitable for radiological dispersal:
only nine reactor produced isotopes stand out as being suitable for radiological terror: americium-241, californium-252, caesium-137, cobalt-60, iridium-192, plutonium-238, polonium-210, radium-226 and strontium-90,[9] and even from these it is possible that radium-226 and polonium-210 do not pose a significant threat
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‘Conventional’ nuclear weapons contain such things as U-238 (in large H-bombs), lithium-6 deuteride, Pu-239, U-235, lithium-6 tritide, and tritium gas. And, even if an H-bomb was laced with cobalt-59 so as to make lots of cobalt-60 when it was set off, cobalt-59 is nothing in itself. Anyone who has handled a common alnico magnet has handled cobalt-59.

The intersection of those two sets of isotopes is the empty set; { }.
 
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o_mlly said:
It think it fair to say that the authority of the Catechism’s teachings is in its footnotes. For researchers, the Catechism is usually not considered a prime, but rather a secondary source. Let us hope that Pope Francis provides a prime source for future revisions to our Catechism which the USCCB repeatedly refers to as “a summary” of Church doctrine.
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I have no problem with Pope Francis more forcefully condemning capital punishment and nuclear weapons, nor encouraging better stewardship of the environment. He’s the pope and he can do that sort of thing. But I do admit I would prefer to see some encyclical or apostolic exhortation on the subject that really unpacks everything rather that just revising a paragraph here and a paragraph there in the CCC.

The USCCB is just about to release it’s new updated CCC—now in blue!—and it’s already going to be obsolete. 😝 They aren’t even selling the green one on their site anymore.

I guess I’m just mildly annoyed that I’m going to have stacks of, like, 3 different versions of the Catechism that are all virtually identical except for a few paragraphs. 😝 I mean, I stock up for RCIA, Adult Bible studies, and for our kid’s faith formation classes, so I already have lots of the old ones.

Of course, once the blue one comes out, maybe I’ll be able to pick up the green one from third party vendors for clearance prices. 🙂
 
Joe_5859 said:
I mean, I stock up for RCIA, Adult Bible studies, and for our kid’s faith formation classes, so I already have lots of the old ones.
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Yes, I agree. Perhaps the Catechism should be published as a loose leaf document rather than a bound one to facilitate frequent changes and leave more trees standing.
 
I think all we need is a leaflet that can be printed out from any computer with a list of the affected paragraph numbers, and their replacement language. Then tuck that into the one you currently have.

When I had the first copy of the CCC (not the green one), I circled all the paragraph numbers that were wrong in it so I would know to look them up if I needed.

Of course, once 50% are circled, this won’t work. 🤯
 
Pug said:
I think all we need is a leaflet that can be printed out from any computer with a list of the affected paragraph numbers, and their replacement language. Then tuck that into the one you currently have.
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That’s a good idea. I may put something like that together. At the moment, only one change has been made, and he has only talked about making a couple other changes. So I’ll probably wait until the other changes come to fruition before doing that.
 
Why do we need a ton of printed material anyway. I can look up any version of any chatechism on my phone right now.
 
Gun rights activisist make the argument that a person has the right to defend themselves with a gun. They even say that a person has the right to defend others with a gun, or even mere property with a gun. That is debatable. But, conceding that for a moment, this is why owing a nuclear weapon is immoral. You are taking that right and exerting it over millions of people with the potential to kill millions of innocents. A gun rights person will say that even if acciudental discharges happen, they rarely hurt anyone. But not so with a nuclear weapon. No one has the right to threaten any number of people with a a nuclear bomb. No one. No one government or person. The USA should be the moral leader and disarm. It is the only way.
I don’t secure my children at night by reminding them that I hold a knife to thier mother’s throat in case she gets out of line. This is the same mentality of those who think nuclear weapons are an acceptable deterent. They deter nothing. We have had them for almost 80 years and there have been incredible wars.
 
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But that does not explain how owning a deeply hidden, inactive nuke which nobody knows the code for is intrinsically wrong.

The church has always known that theft, rape, and murder are always wrong, but nobody has yet explained how owning a deeply buried, hidden deactivated nuke that nobody knows about brings about a state of nuclear mortal sin.

A thief has stolen from somebody, a rapist has sinned against an innocent woman (or child or man), a murderer has taken a life that he had no right to take, and Christ would disapprove of all of those, but how does a useless piece of military hardware hidden deep underground produce intrinsic damage to one’s soul? How does this outrage Christ more than handing it over to, let’s face the truth of it now, a probably corrupt organizations of power-hungry men?

Does God change? How is it that the Son of God gave us an incomplete deposit of faith? How can new sins be declared by mere mortals? That is the problem.
 
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Pnwcatholic said:
this is why owing a nuclear weapon is immoral. You are taking that right and exerting it over millions of people with the potential to kill millions of innocents. A gun rights person will say that even if acciudental discharges happen, they rarely hurt anyone. But not so with a nuclear weapon.
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Again, assuming an action.
Immorality cannot be based upon what could possibly be. It must stand upon what actually is.
 
Pat_Albertson said:
But that does not explain how owning a deeply hidden, inactive nuke which nobody knows the code for is intrinsically wrong.
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For that matter, an active one as well.

Intrinsically wrong means that there is no circumstance possible where it could not be wrong.
It always is and always will be.

But until the nuke is used in an immoral way, the is nothing immoral.
 
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Well if one has to argue the logic of the immorality of owning a nuclear weapon then we cannot agree on any premise. This conversation is so ridiculous that I am going to exit it.
 
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