[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 5]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 6492-6493]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




THE ENGAGEMENT OF THE U.S. BISHOPS IN MORAL QUESTIONS REGARDING NUCLEAR 
                                WEAPONS

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 12, 2015

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I recently hosted a briefing 
entitled Catholic Engagement on Nuclear Disarmament: What are the moral 
questions? and one of the speakers, His Excellency Archbishop 
Bernardito Auza, Permanent Representative of the Holy See to the United 
Nations, presented the following statement:

       The Holy See has always been morally against nuclear 
     weapons and has always called for their abolition. It has 
     worked and continues to work for a world without nuclear 
     weapons.
       In February 1943, two years and a half before the Trinity 
     test, Pope Pius XII had already voiced deep concern regarding 
     the violent use of atomic energy. In an address to a meeting 
     of Western military scientists in 1953, Pope Pius XII said 
     that the possession of ``ABC'' (Atomic-Biological-Chemical) 
     weapons made legitimate self-defense against an aggressor a 
     less likely prospect, because ``if the damage resulting from 
     war is not comparable with that of the `injustice tolerated,' 
     one may be obliged `to submit to the injustice.''' Devoting 
     his entire 1954 Easter Message to the question of nuclear 
     weapons, he spoke of the effects of a nuclear war by evoking 
     ``the vision of vast territories rendered uninhabitable and 
     useless to mankind . . . transmissible diseases . . . and 
     monstrous deformities.'' Given such totally uncontrollable 
     and indiscriminate consequences, the Pope demanded ``the 
     effective proscription and banishment of atomic warfare,'' 
     calling the arms race a ``costly relationship of mutual 
     terror.'' This was the first clear papal condemnation of the 
     nuclear arms race, sixteen years before the Treaty on the 
     Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
       Already well within the Cold War era and right after the 
     Cuban missile crisis, Pope Saint John XXIII, in his 1963 
     Encyclical Pacem in Terris, called for the abolition of 
     nuclear weapons and for the establishment of an adequate 
     disarmament program to achieve that end. He spoke very 
     clearly about the theory or doctrine of deterrence as the 
     principal cause of the arms race and of arms proliferation 
     and about the tremendous economic burdens the arms race 
     provoked. He argued quite extensively that ``justice, right 
     reason, and the recognition of man's dignity cry out 
     insistently for a cessation to the arms race. The stockpiles 
     of armaments that have been built up in various countries 
     must be reduced reciprocally and simultaneously by the 
     parties concerned. Nuclear weapons must be banned. A general 
     agreement must be reached on a suitable disarmament program, 
     with an effective system of mutual control. Unless this 
     process of disarmament be thoroughgoing and complete, and 
     reaches men's very souls, it is impossible to stop the arms 
     race, or to reduce armaments, or--and this is the main 
     thing--ultimately to abolish them entirely. Everyone must 
     sincerely co-operate in the effort to banish fear and the 
     anxious expectation of war from men's minds. But this 
     requires that the fundamental principles upon which peace is 
     based in today's world be replaced by an altogether different 
     one, namely, the realization that true and lasting peace 
     among nations cannot consist in the possession of an equal 
     supply of armaments but only in mutual trust. And we are 
     confident that this can be achieved, for it is a thing that 
     not only is dictated by common sense, but is in itself most 
     desirable and most fruitful of good.''
       In his address to the UN General Assembly on 4 October 
     1965, Pope Paul VI characterized nuclear weapons as 
     ``nightmares'' and ``dark designs.'' He also stressed that 
     the weapons themselves ``lead astray the mentality of 
     peoples.'' His plea of ``jamais plus la guerre,'' of ``war 
     never again,'' reverberated in the General Assembly Hall. But 
     his appeal to let weapons fall from our hands, ``especially 
     the terrible weapons that modern science has given us,'' in 
     clear reference to nuclear arms, still remains unheeded. Pope 
     Paul's call to end the nuclear arms race reached its 
     culmination in his 1977 World Day of Peace message, in which 
     he demonstrated that nuclear arms offered a false sense of 
     security. He reiterated this in his message to the U.N. 
     General Assembly on Disarmament in 1978, calling the peace of 
     nuclear deterrence ``a tragic illusion.'' He also reiterated 
     an assertion made earlier in his papacy, that the nuclear 
     arms race retarded

[[Page 6493]]

     the development of peoples, citing the ``crying disproportion 
     between the resources in money and intelligence devoted to 
     the service of death and the resources devoted to the service 
     of life.''
       In 1982, Pope Saint John Paul II addressed a message to the 
     United Nations General Assembly on its second conference 
     devoted to Disarmament. The Pope said that in the ``current 
     conditions of the Cold War, `deterrence,' considered not as 
     an end in itself but as a step toward a progressive 
     disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable. 
     Nonetheless, in order to ensure peace, it is indispensable 
     not to be satisfied with this minimum, which is always 
     susceptible to the real danger of explosion.'' The Holy 
     Father, therefore, did not countenance deterrence as a 
     permanent measure.
       As time progressed and the central promise of the NPT 
     remained unfulfilled, the Holy See stepped up its efforts to 
     argue for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In his 2006 World 
     Day of Peace Message, Pope Benedict XVI criticized the 
     argument of nuclear arms for security as ``completely 
     fallacious'' and affirmed that ``peace requires that all 
     strive for progressive and concerted nuclear disarmament.''
       Since the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the NPT, 
     there has been an increased attention to the humanitarian 
     dimension of and the risks associated with nuclear weapons. 
     This heightened interest was manifested by cross-regional 
     humanitarian statements in the UN and other regional and 
     international fora and, in particular, by the organization of 
     three Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear 
     Weapons in Oslo (March 2013), Nayarit (February 2014), and 
     Vienna (December 2014). These Conferences have seen increased 
     participation of States, of non-governmental organizations 
     and of the greater civil society.
       During the Vienna Conference, the Holy See presented three 
     documents: first, the official Statement delivered by the 
     Delegation of the Holy See; second, the message that Pope 
     Francis sent to His Excellency Mr. Sebastian Kurz, President 
     of the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of 
     Nuclear Weapons in December 2014; and, third, a paper 
     entitled ``Nuclear Disarmament: Time for Abolition.''
       On April 9, 2015, the Permanent Observer Mission of the 
     Holy See to the United Nations in New York organized a 
     conference entitled ``Nuclear Weapons and the Moral 
     Compass.'' The Speakers were neither nuclear scientists nor 
     political authorities, but rather religious leaders: an 
     Anglican Bishop, a Rabbi, an Evangelical Minister, an Imam, 
     and a Catholic Bishop in the person of Bishop Oscar Cantu, 
     Bishop of Las Cruces and Chairman of the USCCB Committee on 
     International Justice and Peace.
       The objective of the Conference was to insist on and 
     strengthen the moral argument against not only the use but 
     also the possession of nuclear weapons. Arguing against the 
     policy of deterrence, the Conference served to echo and 
     further disseminate the Paper that the Holy See presented in 
     Vienna and Pope Francis's strong stand for the abolition of 
     nuclear weapons The timing of the Conference was in 
     anticipation of the then imminent Ninth Review Conference on 
     the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which 
     opened yesterday at the UN in New York and will continue 
     until May 22.
       The NPT is one of the best known and most adhered to 
     Treaties, with Palestine being the 191st Party to it. The 
     Holy See has been a Party to the NPT since the very 
     beginning, not because it has nuclear weapons or has to be 
     constrained from developing nuclear weapons capabilities, but 
     to encourage nuclear possessing States to abolish their 
     nuclear weapons, to dissuade non-nuclear possessing States 
     from acquiring or developing nuclear capabilities, and to 
     encourage international cooperation on the peaceful uses of 
     nuclear energy.
       The documents that the Holy See presented in Vienna 
     advanced anew the moral argument against both the possession 
     and the use of nuclear weapons, and aimed to sustain and 
     advance the discussion along this line.
       The Holy See considers it a moral and humanitarian 
     imperative to advance the efforts towards the final objective 
     of the total elimination of nuclear weapons. It argues that 
     disarmament treaties are not just legal obligations; they are 
     also moral commitments based on trust between States, rooted 
     in the trust that citizens place in their governments. If 
     commitments to nuclear disarmament are not made in good faith 
     and consequently result in breaches of trust, the 
     proliferation of such weapons would be the logical corollary.
       Despite some progress and much effort on the part of many, 
     nuclear disarmament is currently in crisis. The institutions 
     that are supposed to move this process forward have been 
     blocked for years. The central promise of the NPT has 
     remained a dream. In fact, while the pre-NPT nuclear power 
     countries not only have not disarmed but are also modernizing 
     their nuclear arsenals, some pre-NPT non-nuclear countries 
     have acquired or are in the process of acquiring nuclear arms 
     capabilities. What is even more terrifying is the possibility 
     that non-state actors, like terrorist and extremist 
     organizations, could acquire nuclear weapons.
       The possession of nuclear weapons and the reliance on 
     nuclear deterrence have had a very negative impact on 
     relations between and among States. National security often 
     comes up in discussions on nuclear weapons. All States have 
     the right to national security, but this principle must not 
     be applied in a partial and discriminatory manner, for 
     example, when one State affirms that it needs nuclear weapons 
     for its national security, while at the same time affirming 
     that another State cannot have them. It is urgent to revisit 
     in a transparent and honest manner the definition made by 
     States, especially the nuclear weapons states, of their 
     national security.
       Nuclear weapons cannot create for us a stable and secure 
     world. Peace and international stability cannot be founded on 
     mutually-assured destruction or on the threat of total 
     destruction. The Holy See believes that peace cannot be 
     reduced solely to maintaining a balance of power between 
     enemies. On the contrary, as Pope Francis affirms in his 
     letter to the President of the Vienna Conference, ``Peace 
     must be built on justice, socio-economic development, 
     freedom, respect for human rights, the participation of all 
     in public affairs and the building of trust between 
     peoples.''
       In its argument against the possession and use of nuclear 
     weapons, the Holy See also focuses attention on (1) the costs 
     of the nuclear stalemate to the global common good; (2) the 
     ``illusions of security'' inherent in the possession of 
     nuclear arms; (3) the inequality at the root of the non-
     proliferation regime according to the NPT; and (4) the 
     enormous toll that current nuclear policies take on the poor 
     and on the world's priorities.
       The United Nations will soon adopt the Post-2015 
     Sustainable Development Agenda. The Sustainable Development 
     Goals contained therein are daunting and require enormous 
     means to implement. It would be naive and myopic if we seek 
     to assure world peace and security through nuclear weapons 
     rather than through the eradication of extreme poverty, 
     making healthcare and education accessible to all, and 
     promoting peaceful institutions and societies through 
     dialogue and solidarity.
       For our own good and that of future generations, we have no 
     reasonable and moral option other than the abolition of 
     nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are a global problem and 
     they impact all countries and all peoples, including future 
     generations. Moreover, ever-growing interdependence and 
     globalization demand that whatever response we may have 
     against the threat of nuclear weapons must be collective and 
     concerted, based on reciprocal trust.
       Arguing for nuclear abolition from the moral perspective, 
     the Holy See appeals to human consciences. As Paul VI 
     affirmed in his 1965 Address to the United Nations General 
     Assembly, ``Today, as never before, in an era marked by such 
     human progress, there is need for an appeal to the moral 
     conscience of man. For the danger comes, not from progress, 
     nor from science. The real danger comes from man himself, who 
     has at his disposal ever more powerful instruments, which can 
     be used for destruction as for the loftiest conquests.''
       No one could ever say that a world without nuclear weapons 
     is easily achievable. It is not; it is extremely arduous; it 
     is even a utopia for some. But there is no alternative than 
     to work unceasingly towards its achievement. As President 
     John F. Kennedy said in his Commencement Address at the 
     American University on 10 June 1963, ``The pursuit of peace 
     is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war--and frequently the 
     words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears. But we have no more 
     urgent task.''
       Let me conclude by reaffirming the conviction that Pope 
     Francis expressed in his December 2014 message to the 
     President of the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact 
     of Nuclear Weapons: ``I am convinced that the desire for 
     peace and fraternity planted deep in the human heart will 
     bear fruit in concrete ways to ensure that nuclear weapons 
     are banned once and for all, to the benefit of our common 
     home.''

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