On Aug. 9, 2025, I attended a Memorial Mass at Nagasaki’s Urakami Cathedral, which was destroyed by the atomic bomb of 1945 dropped only 500 meters away. At 11:02 a.m. – the same time the bomb nearly leveled the cathedral 80 years prior – both bells in the rebuilt...
Climate change and nuclear disarmament are two legacy issues for Pope Francis. Like the prophets of old, on each issue he has been characteristically outspoken in his blunt, provocative moral judgements.
Gerard Powers The Vatican has long supported nuclear arms reduction and is seeking to build on the disarmament momentum generated by the United Nations treaty banning nuclear weapons. The Holy See’s efforts, like those of other pro-ban states, might seem quixotic...
Gerard F. Powers Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Catholic bishops and other religious leaders have given much greater attention to the moral imperative of nuclear disarmament. But a gap exists in the ethical analysis needed to sustain this moral imperative....
Gerard F. Powers Later this month, the U.S. State Department’s Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group will submit its recommendations to Secretary Hillary Clinton after a year of work. With subgroups on development, religious freedom and democracy, and conflict...
Gerard F. Powers In 1983, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral letter on nuclear weapons, The Challenge of Peace, which is still considered a seminal analysis of the ethics of nuclear weapons. The bishops concluded that most...