As most of this readership knows, Archbishop Wester of Santa Fe and I made a pilgrimage of peace to Hiroshima and Nagasaki last August. During that visit we had substantial conversations with the Bishop of Hiroshima and the Archbishop and Archbishop Emeritus of Nagasaki about forming a partnership to advocate together for a world without nuclear weapons.
At the conclusion of our Pilgrimage last year on this anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, August 9, we signed the document forming our Partnership. Through the course of this last year we met numerous times to further define the bylaws and our purpose.
This year, on the same anniversary, we officially open the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons to other organizations for membership. Today we launched our website which I am happy to share here. I am glad Archbishop Wester is in Japan again this week to mark these somber anniversaries. Both of us intend to return again next August for the 80th anniversary commemoration ceremonies.
The purpose of our Partnership and each of the member organizations is as follows:
The Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons (PWNW) shall voluntarily carry out activities, specifically, in order to promote the ratification and expansion of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (hereinafter TPNW), and to promote activities to protect all life and the environment from all forms of devastating and pernicious harm (hereinafter “nuclear harm”) caused by the development, testing, production, transport, possession, use, and threat of use of nuclear weapons, we aim to build a voluntary international network among various organizations of the Catholic Church and to encourage information sharing, exchange, and cooperation among member organizations.
Partnership For a World Without Nuclear Weapons
For additional information, we have included a very nice webpage on our archdiocesan website which you can access here. I wish to draw you attention from the Archdiocesan website to a lovely digital booklet our communications team published from my writings during the course of last August’s Pilgrimage of Peace. It is very well done, and was a great surprise and gift for me! At some point I will figure out how to add this to my blog along with my pastoral letters page.
On this anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, I implore the intercession of our Lady under her beloved title of the people of Nagasaki. Hibaku Maria, Pray for us!
I will close with a quote from my writings at the end of last year’s Pilgrimage of Peace:
3There is no greater argument for the end of nuclear weapons than to hear from those who survived the horrors of their use. To see the devastation left in the wake of an atomic bomb, small in comparison to the size of today’s bombs, is to realize why these weapons of mass destruction must never be developed, tested, deployed, used, or even possessed in our world today or in the future.