Response: Just Peace and Nuclear Disarmament

Maryann Cusimano Love
February 13, 2020
By: Kevin G. Ahern
February 6, 2020
Responding to: The Pope and the Bomb
The seventy-fifth anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki offer us an important moment to rethink the role of religion in the campaign to ban nuclear weapons. In both words and actions, Pope Francis has pointed to the immorality of nuclear weapons and the moral obligation to work for abolition as exemplified by his recent visit to Japan.
With Catholics comprising about 20% of the U.S. population and over 30% of the 116th Congress (spread almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans), the Catholic Church has an enormous social capital that, if actualized, could change the discourse on nuclear weapons. For many observers, the solution seems clear. If the pope has declared the use and possession of nuclear weapons to be immoral, shouldn’t Catholics in the United States be told by bishops and pastors to fall in line? Unfortunately, the situation is not so simple.
According to the Pew Religious Landscape Study, only 30% of Catholics look primarily to the Church for moral guidance on right and wrong (in contrast to Evangelicals at 60%, Jehovah Witnesses at 78% and Mormons at 64%). Given the failures of Church leadership to respond to cases of sexual abuse, the actual number may even be lower. Moreover, large percentages of Catholics diverge (knowingly or unknowingly) from Church teachings on hot-button issues across the ideological divides, such as the role of government in providing aid to the poor, environmental regulation, abortion, racial justice, and capital punishment.
To complicate the situation more, the United States is home to a number of loud voices who appear reluctant to embrace the social and moral teachings of Pope Francis on a range of issues from climate change and the economy to migration and capital punishment. The case of capital punishment is instructive. In 2018, Pope Francis made important revisions to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, declaring the death penalty as “inadmissible” and affirming the role of the Church in “its abolition worldwide.” This represents an important departure or revolution from the past teachings. In response, some conservative voices took issue with the idea that the teachings of past popes contained in earlier versions of the Catechism could ever change. These changes made by Francis, they suggested, were illegitimate and could be overlooked or interpreted differently. Given that Pope Francis is proposing similar changes on nuclear weapons, which is a departure from the framework of deterrence soberly accepted by previous popes, U.S. conservatives are likely to again question Francis’ authority to make such change.
Nevertheless, there is hope. Even if only 30% of U.S. Catholics look to the Church for moral guidance, that is still a sizable number. With over 17,000 parishes, 6,000 elementary and high schools, and 226 colleges and universities, the Catholic Church educates millions of people, including large numbers of non-Catholics. The mobilization of only a fraction of these institutions could help reshape public discourse in some important ways. But how?
Drawing on my research on Catholic social movements, I would like to highlight six ways forward to unlock the Catholic potential for disarmament.
The Catholic Church in the United States has a unique potential to work for nuclear disarmament. This potential, however, only has value if it is actualized. Pope Francis offers a vision, but it will be up to U.S. Catholics and Catholic institutions to decide how we will respond.
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