On the solemn occasion of the 78th anniversary of the devastating atomic bombing of Hiroshima, two US archbishops and a peace delegation took a stand for nuclear disarmament. Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle and Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, along with a Pilgrimage of Peace delegation from their respective archdioceses, participated in Read more
The closer we look at decisions to deploy a second atomic weapon against Japan on August 9, 76 years ago, the more morally audacious the tactic appears. Step outside the American explanatory cloud—we bombed military installations to force unconditional imperial surrender—defining public understanding to see: the US Government explicitly targeted civilian populations, a violation of Read more
Wars have always caused needless suffering, destruction and death. But 75 years ago, the hell of war reached a new all-time immoral low when on August 6, 1945 a United States Boeing B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima instantly killing over 70,000 – mostly civilian – children, women and Read more
Pope Francis, Monday, travelled to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and standing before survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing, Francis said a world without nuclear weapons is possible. Francis said it is “perverse” to think the threat of nuclear weapons makes the world safer. Calling their use a crime against the dignity of humanity and against any Read more
Every Monday morning for the past 30 years, members of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker community in Washington, D.C. have been making their way across the Potomac River to pray and nonviolently witness for peace in front of the most symbolic war planning, war-making headquarters on earth: the Pentagon. On August 6 – the 73rd Read more
Father George Zabelka, the Catholic chaplain to the 509th Composite Group — the atomic bomb group — blessed the aircrews and their two missions before they set out to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Seventy years ago, on August 6, 1945, the single most destructive weapon ever unleashed upon human beings and the environment – the atomic bomb – Read more
“Making every effort to maintain the spirit of unity in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3b). Blessed are the Peacemakers Violence is something we live with on a daily basis. It can be felt as an unkind word, experienced as a physical injury or extreme hunger, or seen in spectacular actions of armed killers on the Read more