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UN conference brings together antinuclear leaders of world’s major religions

Anti-Nuclear Weapons Team of Religious Leaders Unite at UN; Catholic Leader Calls Them ‘Useless’ in Fight Against Poverty BY STOYAN ZAIMOV, CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER May 1, 2014 NEW YORK – Members of several of the world’s main religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, warned that the grave prospect of a nuclear weapons catastrophe looms dangerously over the world, and urged leaders to move toward disarmament at a United Nations conference on Wednesday.

Archbishop Francis A. Chullikatt, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, said that although religious leaders are not experts on nuclear weapons, they still have the responsibility to speak out and take the floor on this particular issue.

“We know that we are not experts on disarmament, we do not have technical solutions, but we do have a voice to act,” Chullikatt said, adding that the group of religious leaders have taken on the subject partly so that future generations do not accuse them of not doing anything.

The archbishop noted that the Roman Catholic Church warns that nuclear war is a crime both against God and against man himself. “It is past time for this plan (nuclear disarmament) to be given the serious attention that it deserves. The centerpiece is the negotiation of a nuclear weapons convention or a framework leading directly to a global ban on nuclear weapons,” Chullikatt said.

“Nuclear weapons are useless in addressing current challenges such as poverty, health, climate change, terrorism or national crime. The only way to guarantee that these weapons will not be used again, is through a common, irreversible, and verifiable elimination under international (law). He stated that the use of nuclear weapons will be a great moral crime against humanity, and insisted that now is the time to “renew the moral call for the total elimination of nuclear weapons,” because in the event of a nuclear war, there will be “no victors, only victims.”

The Rev. Tyler Wigg Stevenson, representing the World Evangelical Alliance, noted that evangelicals are “late in coming to the trenches where our brothers and sisters of the Roman Catholic Church and World Council of Churches, including members of other world religions, have labored long and faithfully.”

He shared his hopes, however, that the evangelical “lack of moderation” will “make up for our tardiness.”……….

“In Buddhist ethics, protecting innocent life is a high value. Nuclear weapons offend this value. According to Buddhist understanding, everyone and everything in the world are interconnected and interdependent,” said Ven. Dr. Chung Ohun Lee of Won Buddhism International, to the U.N., adding that people have a responsibility to take care of the world and oppose nuclear weapons out of respect for all human beings.

“Nuclear weapons are immoral. Let us work together to rid the world of all of them,” Dr. Chung Ohun Lee remarked.

Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi of Fiqh Council of North America said that according to the Islamic position, nuclear weapons “pose a grave danger to all of humanity” and called on the international community to work together to remove this danger.

“Islam teaches that God is the creator and master of everything in this world. All human beings are one family. Human beings must honor each other and live in peace,” Dr. Siddiqi continued.

“Nuclear weapons do not come anywhere in the concept of just war. Nuclear weapons are by nature weapons of mass destruction. They make no distinction between combatants or noncombatants.”

Rabbi Peter Knobel of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, who was the final speaker, drew an example from the story of Noah and the Great Flood in the Bible, when God promises to never destroy creation again, and gives people hope symbolized by a rainbow.

“It is not enough to merely stop proliferation, we are compelled to eliminate nuclear weapons, it is our duty to cherish and protect creation, to learn to love and care for one another, it is time to beat our nuclear swords into plowshares, and not stop beating until they are musical instruments.” 

May 2, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, Religion and ethics