This week we have an occasion to recall a moment when, it is not an exaggeration to say, the world was changed. 

 

On Aug. 6 we will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the first use of atomic weapons in the history of the world. That was the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. On Aug. 9, we pass the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki.

 

The history leading up to those moments is very complex. The world was exhausted from the Second World War that had brought untold death and destruction all over the planet. There was a threat and a promise of even more horrors in order to bring about the end of the war with the capitulation of the Japanese military.

 

With the use of atomic weapons, however, the world crossed a threshold from which there was no turning back. The knowledge underlying the unleashing of the war time use of the power of the atom cannot be “unlearned.” 

 

Nor, as the world has seen, can the knowledge of atomic weaponry be kept restricted. Currently, there are nine countries that are known to possess nuclear weapons. Others are said to be trying to master the means to create them.

 

Since 1945 the possession of nuclear weapons and the threat to use them has been a primary foundation of a strategy of deterrence that has contributed to peace following World War II. But that peace is fragile, constructed as it is on a framework of essentially threatening to annihilate the population and environment of other countries.

 

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took the lives of over 150,000 people, many of them non-combatants in those cities. It is unknown how many died from the long-term effects of radiation. 

 

Since that time, the power of atomic weaponry has increased and delivery systems of those weapons have become more complex and duplicated to counter defensive systems. As Pope Paul VI commented in 1978, “But even though the ‘balance of terror’ has been able to avoid the worst and may do so for some time more, to think that the arms race can thus go on indefinitely, without causing a catastrophe, would be a tragic illusion.”

 

It is appropriate and even essential for us to recall all of these elements because the possible use of nuclear weapons is a moral issue. At stake is the potential to destroy human life and the earthly creation of which God has given us stewardship. This could result from a calculated decision to deploy these weapons against others, or by a momentary rash decision or even by an error, either human or technological.

 

In view of this catastrophic possibility, Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have called upon the world’s conscience to disarm from and abolish nuclear weapons. This moral vision was articulated also by President Ronald Reagan who famously stated, “The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?”

 

The memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should move us to intensify our prayer for the end to nuclear weaponry. It should move us also to support the prudent search for means to assure peaceful and mutual security in a world broken and complicated by sin and human weakness.

 

Once again, we return to a fundamental truth of faith. We are all children of the Father, brothers and sisters in the human race. We implore God to give us the grace to find the path that leads to true peace and one which removes from us and from our children the threat of even greater destruction than was unleashed 75 years ago.