Internationales Kolloquium zur Nuklearen Abrüstung am 23./24. Mai in London
Catholic Bishops and Scholars from Europe and the United
States
Renew Efforts on Nuclear Disarmament
On May 24th and 25th,
40 bishops, Catholic
scholars, and policy specialists from nine countries
gathered in London to identify issues that need to be addressed to create the
conditions for a world without nuclear weapons, especially largely unexamined
theological and moral issues. The meeting, which included a public event as
well private meetings, also highlighted policy issues on which religious
leaders and ethicists have a comparative advantage or can make a distinctive
contribution.
In an effort to support and enhance this
religious and moral voice, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and
Wales joined The Rt. Hon. the Lord Browne of Ladyton and The Rt. Hon. the Lord
McFall of Alcluith, and the University of Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway in
hosting this Colloquium on Catholic Approaches to Nuclear Proliferation and
Disarmament.
“The technical strategic debate about
nuclear proliferation and disarmament is critically important, but it must be
guided by moral considerations,” said Cardinal Vincent Nichols (Westminster), President
of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW).
“Global
leaders are responsible for the security of their citizens, but faith
communities have a responsibility to engage when it comes to matters that
challenge and threaten our humanity and indeed, our very survival,” said Des
Browne, the Rt. Hon. the Lord Browne of Ladyton, who serves as Vice Chairman of
the Nuclear Threat Initiative and served as UK Secretary of State for Defence.
Bishop
Stephan Ackermann (Trier), President of
the German Commission for Justice and Peace, stated, “It is time to broaden
this discourse beyond the usual suspected. We should include also
representatives from Russia, China, India etc. Nuclear Disarmament has to be
treated in the context of global security and disarmament policy and in the perspective
of the global common good.”
“The policy debate is ahead of the moral
debate,” noted Bishop Oscar Cantú (Las Cruces), the Chair of the U.S. Bishops’
Committee on International Justice and Peace, in introducing the Colloquium. He added, “We need to educate and empower new
generations of Catholic leaders on the ethical and policy arguments for
reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons.”
This London Colloquium is connected to a
U.S. initiative to revitalize Catholic engagement on nuclear proliferation and
disarmament.
At the opening public event, held at the
University of Notre Dame’s Global Gateway, Maryann Cusimano Love of The
Catholic University of America urged that “the Church and policymakers go
beyond the debate on the ethics of nuclear deterrence and consider nuclear
disarmament as a challenge of peacebuilding.”
Colloquium participants included Bishop
Marc Stenger (Troyes), President of Pax Christi France; Bishop Werner Freistetter, Military Ordinary of Austria; Fr. Bryan Hehir of Harvard’s Kennedy
School of Government; Patricia Lewis
of Chatham House; Sylvie Bukhari-de
Pontual of the Catholic Institute of Paris; Bishop William Nolan (Galloway), President of the Commission for
Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Scotland; Bishop Declan Lang (Clifton), Chairman
of the CBCEW’s Department of International Affairs; Bishop Robert McElroy (San Diego) of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on
International Justice and Peace; Paolo
Conversi of the Holy See's Secretariat of State; Fred Frederickson, Director of NATO’s Nuclear Policy Directorate; Kelsey Davenport of the Arms Control
Association; and Charles Reed, senior
policy adviser for the Church of England.
This event was sponsored by the Catholic
Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales; Deutsche Bischofskonferenz; Justice
et Paix, Conférence des évêques de France; the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops’ Office of International Justice and Peace; the University of Notre Dame’s
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies; Institut fur Theologie und
Frieden; the Catholic Peacebuilding Network; Georgetown University’s Berkley
Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; and the Nuclear Threat
Initiative.
The initiative has included a major
Colloquium at Stanford hosted by former Secretary of State George Shultz and
former Defense Secretary William Perry (April 2014); a symposium at the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops headquarters (September 2014), and public events
at the Carnegie
Council for Ethics in International Affairs
(May 2015) and in Washington
tied to the visit of Pope Francis (September 2015).