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Nuclear disarmament a ‘critical pro-life issue,’ warns Archbishop Wester

National Catholic Reporter, STEVEN SCHWANKERT, New York — December 4, 2023

The threat from nuclear weapons is as great now as ever, and their destructive power is more immediate than climate change, said Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, at a Nov. 29 Mass in Manhattan that remembered Catholic activist Dorothy Day, a candidate for sainthood recognized by the church as a “servant of God.”

Wester was visiting New York for the United Nations’ second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, held from Nov. 27 to Dec. 1 at U.N. headquarters in Manhattan. The visit also came four years to the week of Pope Francis’s visit to Japan, when the pontiff declared that the possession, construction and use of nuclear weapons are all immoral.

The Mass at Church of Our Saviour on Park Ave. also coincided with the 42nd anniversary of Day’s death…………………………………………………………………………..

“Catholics should establish disarmament as a critical pro-life issue,” Wester said, referring to his own Archdiocese of Santa Fe as “the birthplace of nuclear weapons.”

………………………………”The trouble with this issue is that it’s in the background. We’ve been lulled into a false sense of complacency really since the 1980s. Climate destruction is indeed very important, but this is equally important — in some ways more important — because while climate change is gradual, this would be instantaneous. This would be the destruction of human civilization within about 24 hours,” he said.

…………………………………………….The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons — the first legally binding international agreement to prohibit and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons — took effect Jan. 22, 2021. Only 93 countries out of the U.N.’s 193 member states have signed it, and the nine states known to have military nuclear programs have not. They are Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea……………………………………………………………. more https://www.ncronline.org/news/nuclear-disarmament-critical-pro-life-issue-warns-archbishop-wester

December 6, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics