American bishop speaks of 'sorrow and repentance' at Hiroshima A-bomb anniversary
August 07, 2015
Visiting Hiroshima on the 70th anniversary of the city’s devastation by an atomic bomb, Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces, New Mexico, lamented that Americans are no longer pursuing the elimination of nuclear weapons.
“The return to a serious discussion of nuclear disarmament may seem like an outdated exercise,” the bishop said. “Sadly, it is not.”
Bishop Cantu, who chairs the US bishops’ committee on international justice and peace, was visiting Japan for the first time, as a member of an American delegation for the anniversary observances. He said that he came to Hiroshima in “sorrow and repentance.” He will participate in another ceremony, remembering victims of the atomic bombing, in Nagasaki on August 9.
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Posted by: garedawg -
Aug. 08, 2015 11:33 AM ET USA
One can easily make a case using Catholic Just War Theory, which uses the Law of Double Effect, that those bombs should not have been dropped. Ironically, I may owe my very existence to the Bomb; my Dad was on a Navy ship headed for an invasion of Japan when the war suddenly ended.
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Posted by: filioque -
Aug. 07, 2015 6:18 PM ET USA
Perhaps the good bishop has overlooked some facts that other Americans recognize: that our nuclear weapons have successfully deterred the use of nuclear weapons by anyone for 70 years. With Russia and China asserting their hegemony and N. Korea and soon Iran joining the club, this is no time to abandon our best defense.
