Should All Nuclear Weapons Be Destroyed?
"The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. In being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to barbarians of the Dark Ages. Wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”
Nuclear weapons (along with chemical and biological weapons) are called Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Unlike conventional bombing – tactical bombing of weapon production factories in order to cripple the enemy – a nuclear weapon wipes out everything in its devastating path. So should all nuclear weapons be destroyed? Ethically speaking, absolutely. Nuclear weapons should
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More recently there has been increased concern regarding the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons by extremist groups who are not deterred by the ‘nuclear nightmare’.
Everything a nuclear weapon is used for completely contradicts Catholic teachings and values. In 1997, during a speech to the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), Archbishop Martino stated: “Nuclear weapons are incompatible with the peace we seek for the 21st century. They cannot be justified. They deserve condemnation. The preservation of the non-proliferation treaty demands an unequivocal commitment to their
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While nuclear weapons completely conflict with Catholic virtues, it is realistically impossible to entirely eliminate nuclear weapons. No country would destroy their warheads so easily in the mistrust of the enemy, who might not destroy all of theirs. Nuclear weapons are the reason we haven’t had a war on a massive scale since World War II – simply because no one is willing to fire the first ‘nuke’, as it would ensure their own destruction. The irony is that the one weapon that is designed to wipe out life also prevents another world war from breaking