Pope Francis calls for elimination of all nuclear weapons

In Vatican
Charles Collins
March 28, 2017
MANAGING EDITOR

An atmospheric nuclear test conducted by the United States at Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands, on November 1, 1952. (Credit: US government file photo.)

In a letter to a UN congress promoting the elimination of atomic weapons, Pope Francis wrote that nuclear deterrence is ineffective against the principal threats in the twenty-first century, mentioning in particular terrorism, asymmetrical conflicts, cybersecurity, environmental problems, and poverty. The pontiff said the international community must consider “the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences” that would follow from any use of nuclear weapons.

ROME - Pope Francis has called for a “collective and concerted” multilateral effort to eliminate nuclear weapons, telling a United Nations conference working on a treaty to prohibit such weapons that international peace and stability “cannot be based on a false sense of security, on the threat of mutual destruction or total annihilation, or on simply maintaining a balance of power.”

The conference took place March 27 in New York, after the UN General Assembly voted in December to negotiate a legally binding treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, with the aim of working toward their total elimination.

Such a treaty would make explicit what is implied in the 1970 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which calls on declared nuclear powers to aim for complete nuclear disarmament.

The talks seemed doomed from the start, since every state with nuclear weapons - including the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council - boycotted the congress.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. representative to the UN, said she “would love to have a ban on nuclear weapons, but in this day and time we can’t honestly say we can protect our people by allowing bad actors to have them and those of us that are good trying to keep peace and safety not to have them,” specifically mentioning the threat of nuclear-armed North Korea.

The pontiff answered these objections directly in a letter to the congress, noting the current “unstable climate of conflict” might not seem the best time to approach the “demanding and forward looking goal” of nuclear non-proliferation, and even nuclear disarmament.

However, the pope said nuclear deterrence is ineffective against the principal threats in the twenty-first century, mentioning in particular terrorism, asymmetrical conflicts, cybersecurity, environmental problems, and poverty.

“These concerns are even greater when we consider the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences that would follow from any use of nuclear weapons, with devastating, indiscriminate and uncontainable effects, over time and space,” Francis writes, adding “we need also to ask ourselves how sustainable is a stability based on fear, when it actually increases fear and undermines relationships of trust between peoples.”

The pope said the world needs to go beyond nuclear deterrence: “The international community is called upon to adopt forward-looking strategies to promote the goal of peace and stability and to avoid short-sighted approaches to the problems surrounding national and international security.”

Francis said the goal of the total elimination of nuclear weapons becomes “both a challenge and a moral and humanitarian imperative,” and “a concrete approach should promote a reflection on an ethics of peace and multilateral and cooperative security that goes beyond the fear and isolationism that prevail in many debates today.”

He said this reflection should involve the voices of all people, including religious communities, civil society, and international organizations.

“The common destiny of mankind demands the pragmatic strengthening of dialogue and the building and consolidating of mechanisms of trust and cooperation, capable of creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons,” the pope said.

The Vatican has condemned the use of nuclear weapons since even before they were developed.

Pope Pius XII, in 1943 - two years before the first successful nuclear weapons test - urged such weapons never be developed “because otherwise the consequence could be catastrophic not only in itself but for the whole planet.” After the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Pius called the nuclear bomb “the most terrible weapon that the human mind has ever conceived.”

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