On July 29, 2009, Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien of Baltimore gave a keynote talk at the first Deterrence Symposium, hosted by U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.
He said, "Our world and its leaders must stay focused on the destination of a nuclear-weapons-free world and on the concrete steps that lead there - [and] that deterrence, in the words of the U.S. bishops, is not 'a long-term basis for peace' "the spread of nuclear weapons and technology to other nations, and the threat of nuclear terrorism, which cannot be deterred with nuclear weapons, point to the need to move beyond nuclear deterrence as rapidly as possible. Religious leaders, prominent officials, and other people of goodwill who support a nuclear-weapons-free world are not naà ¯ve about the task ahead. They know the path will be difficult and will require determined political leadership, strong public support, and the dedicated skills of many capable leaders and technical experts. But difficult is not impossible." [3]
The Archbishop outlined several concrete steps toward total nuclear disarmament supported by the Catholic Church, including the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and the revision of military doctrines of nuclear weapon states to "renounce the first use of nuclear weapons" and "declare they will not be used against non-nuclear threats."[Ibid]
"We live in an insecure, uncertain world; it is also a time of opportunity. It is a time to put aside many of the old ways and with creativity and imagination, develop new thinking, ideas, institutions, etc. Young people and women will help this process; they know that Nuclear weapons belong to the cold war thinking, and can never be used. To do so, would be immoral, illogical and destroy the Environment.
"They know our real problems, are: Poverty, Environment, unethical globalization, abuse of Human Rights and International Laws, gender inequality, ethnic/political conflict, State and paramilitary acts of terror. They know that spending trillions on weapons that can never be used, while each day over 30,000 children die of preventable disease, is immoral and unacceptable.
"We are all aware that we are living in an increasing Culture of violence, and if we are to survive we need to build a Culture of Non-violence. Choosing not to kill another human being is the greatest contribution each of us can make to peace. This is not a hard choice when through prayer, meditation, morality, or logic, we come to realize that our lives are sacred as is the life of all our brothers and sisters, and there are always alternatives to violence which work. Human beings are evolving and there is a new consciousness that we must choose non-violence and build strong relationships and community." [4]
On May 17, 2009, Mairead prevailed on seventeen Nobel laureates to sign a letter called the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration. Her friend, author and Jesuit priest John Dear wrote of that day:
"Released in Hiroshima, it calls upon world leaders, and all people, to eliminate nuclear weapons. And it warns that unless humanity fails in that endeavor, 'the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki' will be repeated. Such weapons, [Mairead] says, belong to the tragic past. They belong to a time when the world lacked the wisdom to realize that each culture needs the other to survive.
"Governments which still hold such weapons violate the prohibition of war in the UN charter. But more than that, she says, they're operating anachronistically. They're out of touch with the insights of the times. Nowadays our enemies aren't across the border. The enemies of humanity today are poverty, environmental destruction, militarism, and war.
"Our security nowadays lies in nonviolence and love. She insists that we all need to heed the wisdom of nonviolence and apply it institutionally, internationally, globally and concluded in The Vision of Peace, 'Everyone of us has a role to play in the creation of a new culture of nonviolence.'" [5]
2009 is the final year in the United Nations Decade of Creating a Culture of Nonviolence for All the Children of the World. America is on the record in the UN as abstaining from voting because to support such an initiative would make it "too hard for us to go to war."
Many Americans live under the delusion that the USA is a Christian nation. If that were true, we would lead the way in nuclear disarmament and abolish war.
John Dear also wrote:
"Contrary to what the Pentagon tells us, that our God is not a god of war, but the God of peace; not a god of injustice, but the God of justice; not a god of vengeance and retaliation, but the God of compassion and mercy; not a god of violence, but the God of non-violence; not a god of death, but the living God of life.
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