In a talk in Hiroshima, Japan, as part of a Pilgrimage of Peace coinciding with the 80th anniversaries of the United States dropping atomic bombs on that city and on Nagasaki, Washington Cardinal Robert W. McElroy on Aug. 6 said this is a “new moment” for renewing Catholic teaching on war and peace.
While underscoring that the Church has consistently called for eradicating nuclear weapons from the Earth, he also emphasized “a dramatic shift in Catholic teaching” after Pope Francis spoke out against the concept of nuclear deterrence and “categorically condemned the possession of nuclear weapons.”
Cardinal McElroy, speaking at an academic symposium at Elizabeth University of Music in Hiroshima, said that city – where an estimated 140,000 people died after the atomic bomb was dropped there on Aug. 6, 1945 – is a place where “the fullest horrors of war have been unleashed upon humanity.”
He said the “strength of the human spirit has been manifested with unsurpassed depth in the heroism and hope of the Hibakusha” – the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, the largest organization of Japanese Hibakusha.
In addition to Cardinal McElroy, the Pilgrimage of Peace participants included Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle, and Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, whose archdiocese is home to the Los Alamos Laboratory, where key research was done in the development of the nuclear bombs.
The hosts of the pilgrimage were Bishop Alexis Mitsuru Shirahama of Hiroshima and Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura of Nagasaki. The Partnership for a World without Nuclear Weapons – a collaboration of the dioceses of Santa Fe, Seattle, Hiroshima and Nagasaki – coordinated the pilgrimage, which was organized under the theme of the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year, “Pilgrims of Hope.”
The Pilgrimage of Peace was sponsored by participating Catholic universities, including Georgetown University in Washington, Loyola University Chicago, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Marquette University in Wisconsin, Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University, and Sophia University in Tokyo.
A fact sheet on the gathering said its goal is to create “prayerful dialogues for reconciliation, solidarity and peace across the Pacific, across religions, and across generations, in the midst of global instability, pervasive divisiveness and intensifying nuclear threats.”
On Aug. 6 in Hiroshima – the day of the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing there – pilgrimage participants joined a Mass for the Victims of Atomic Bombing. Cardinal Cupich gave the homily at the Mass that morning, which was held at the World Peace Memorial Cathedral.
That afternoon, Cardinal McElroy was among the speakers at the Academic Symposium at the Elizabeth University of Music in Hiroshima. The gathering offered Catholic perspectives on peace and nuclear disarmament.
In his address, titled “Our New Moment: Renewing Catholic Teaching on War and Peace,” Cardinal McElroy noted “the overwhelming violence of the Second World War, culminating in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, demanded that the world confront the very reality of war at its core… At the very center of this profound reflection was the searing recognition that atomic weapons were not merely a new type of warfare, but a human creation that would have the capacity to end humanity itself.”
Washington’s archbishop said Pope John XXIII’s landmark 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris (Latin for “Peace on Earth”) was written in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis and reflected that pope’s “profound attention to the signs of the times.”
“He fearlessly proclaimed that the issue of nuclear weapons was at its heart a moral question, and that the world would have to forge a way toward nuclear disarmament if the future of humanity was to be assured,” the cardinal said.
Cardinal McElroy said Catholic teaching on war and peace is once again undergoing a new moment, “rooted in Catholic tradition and unswervingly attentive to the signs of the times in our own age, when nuclear proliferation is a growing danger that threatens to engulf us all.”
Key shifts in Catholic thinking are taking place, he said, noting how the continuation of deadly wars with devastating weapons among nations point to “the need to fundamentally renew and prioritize the claim of nonviolent action as the primary framework for Catholic teaching on war and peace.”
The cardinal emphasized that “the continuous misuse of the just war tradition… challenges the Church to refine this ethical framework.” He noted that “for so many recent uses of the tradition to evaluate a decision for military action, the just war framework has operated as a source of justification for those inclined to go to war rather than as a constraint for war.”
Cardinal McElroy said in limited circumstances, such as in Ukraine, “a recourse to war is morally legitimate within limits and in response to attack, (but) the just war tradition must be revisited and refined if it is to provide compelling moral guidance in the contemporary world.”
Another shift in Catholic thinking, he said, involves “the failure of nuclear deterrence,” which instead of being a step on the way to nuclear disarmament “has produced a situation where we are facing the breakdown of the arms control regime and the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons.”
Cardinal McElroy said “the Church must engage with the world in this new moment,” and Catholics in every land must grapple with these questions in order to be faithful as citizens and believers.
Noting that every pope since St. John XXIII has decried nuclear weapons and “the moral depravity of war,” the cardinal said Pope Francis drew upon his predecessors statements “to construct a framework for Catholic teaching on war and peace that placed non-violence rather than the just war ethic as the primary prism through which to evaluate decisions in situations of deep conflict.” Pope Leo, he added, has also emphasized non-violence in his teaching as he has begun his papacy.
Cardinal McElroy said the Catholic Church has consistently “demanded that nuclear weapons be eradicated from the face of the earth,” but Catholic teaching on deterrence “and how it conditions the moral imperative to eliminate nuclear weapons, has shifted dramatically since the issuance of Pacem in Terris.”
“Pope Francis viewed nuclear deterrence not as a source of peace, but a destabilizing element in the international system that creates a false sense of security, encourages the proliferation of nuclear weapons, threatens the environment and robs from the poor,” the cardinal said. He added that, “As a consequence, at a conference in the Vatican following the passage of the international Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (adopted in 2017), Pope Francis categorically condemned the possession of nuclear weapons as morally illicit.”
Washington’s archbishop said discerning the implications of this dramatic shift in Catholic teaching constitutes a central task for theologians, bishops, policymakers and committed Catholics working in the area of ethics and nuclear weapons.
“The events of the past six months, which have witnessed an alarming confrontation between India and Pakistan and the bombing of the Iranian nuclear facilities in an attempt to prevent that nation from achieving the capacity to use nuclear weapons, makes clear that our willingness to tolerate the nuclear status quo should end,” Cardinal McElroy said.
Concluding his remarks, the cardinal said, “If our gathering here today is to mean anything, it must mean that in fidelity to all those whose lives were destroyed or savagely damaged on August 6 80 years ago, we refuse to live in such a world of nuclear proliferation and risk-taking. We will resist, we will organize, we will pray, we will not cease, until the world’s nuclear arsenals have been destroyed.”
The symposium included an opening prayer and then remarks by speakers including Hiroshima Bishop Alexis Mitsuru Shirahama. After Cardinal McElroy spoke, a keynote address “On War and Peace: The Role of a University in the 21st Century” was given by Holy Cross Father Robert Dowd, the president of the University of Notre Dame.
After a panel discussion on the ethics of nuclear policy, Archbishop Etienne gave a talk on “Weapons of Peace: A Call to Personal and Communal Peacemaking.” An interfaith event at the World Peace Memorial Cathedral in Hiroshima was held that evening.
On Aug. 5, the bishops and university leaders on the Pilgrimage of Peace met with Hiroshima Mayor Matsui Kazumi. That afternoon, pilgrimage participants attended a peace event hosted by the Diocese of Hiroshima, also at the Elizabeth University of Music. At the gathering, a celebration honored the Nihon Hidankyo organization of atomic bomb survivors for being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel laureates and atomic bomb survivors offered messages to the group.
Then Cardinal McElroy and Archbishop Wester participated in a dialogue there, and messages were also given by bishops from South Korea and Japan.
That day, the participating bishops from those countries, along with representatives of atomic bomb survivor organizations, issued a joint statement that said in part, “On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing and the end of World War II, we strongly condemn all wars and conflicts, the use and possession of nuclear weapons, and the threat to use nuclear weapons…”
In his remarks during the Diocese of Hiroshima’s dialogue, Cardinal McElroy noted he had attended an international symposium hosted by the Vatican in 2017 on the prospects for a world free of nuclear weapons, when Pope Francis said something “that represented a new moment in Catholic teaching regarding nuclear weapons: ‘the threat of their use, as well as their very possession, is to be firmly condemned.’”
Cardinal McElroy emphasized that “the implications of Francis’ declaration are profound for Catholic moral teaching. Catholic teaching now states that the possession of nuclear weapons is in and of itself morally wrong.”
Washington’s archbishop said “deterrence is not a step on the road to nuclear disarmament, but a morass,” and he also noted that “at the present moment, it cannot be ignored that the trajectory of policy on nuclear weapons in the world is more characterized by modernization, expansion and proliferation, rather than by nuclear arms reduction and eventual elimination.”
Concluding his remarks there, Cardinal McElroy said, “The decision by Pope Francis to teach in Catholic faith that the very possession of nuclear weapons is morally illegitimate was a hallmark moment in the Church’s efforts to confront the ethical questions raised by the advent of the nuclear age. It is rooted in the imperative to move from stasis toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. The 80th anniversary of the grave moral evil of using atomic weapons against the people of Japan is a searing witness to the urgency of that imperative, and to the immense human peril which the continued possession of nuclear weapons constitutes in our world.”
The dialogue was followed by a Peace Mass at the World Peace Memorial Cathedral, with a homily given by Tokyo Cardinal Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi.
On Aug. 7, pilgrimage participants were scheduled to tour the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum before traveling to Nagasaki, where the bishops and university leaders were to attend a symposium and dinner with members of the Nagasaki Interreligious Fellowship for Peace. On Aug. 9 – the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki – the pilgrimage participants were scheduled to attend a Peace Memorial Mass at the Urakami Cathedral there.
