Issues of this week, remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki - reflection by Claude Mostowik MSC
Andre Claessens MSC, General Councillor, writes: August 9th we celebrate the memory of the Jewish Carmelite Edith Stein or Saint Therese of the Cross (Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1942 – canonized in 1998 by S. John Paul II)
and we commemorate also that on this day in 1943 the Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter was martyred for his refusals to participate in the unjust wars of Nazi Germany and to take an oath of loyalty Adolf Hitler. He was beatified as a martyr by Pope Benedict XVI in October 2007 in Linz. You can watch the movie about this testimony A hidden life (2019). Above all this day will be remembered because of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, as we remembered on August 6th “little boy” dropped on Hiroshima.
It is also a good opportunity to remember that the year 2023 marks the 60th anniversary of the encyclical Pacem in Terris of S. John XXIII, written in 1963 in the context of the cold war. Since then all contemporary popes condemned the nuclear destruction power some nations built up. Pope Francis reminds us frequently this condemnation of the nuclear armament.
Claude Mostowik MSC on Hiroshima Day August 6, 2023, Sydney Town Hall
For 78 years, the earth and its inhabitants have lived under the threat of nuclear destruction. Trillions of dollars have gone into their development and maintenance, while actual human needs of shelter, health care, food, and education are deeply underfunded.
Since its founding in 1945, Pax Christi has prioritised the work of nuclear disarmament and is member of the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons. Many Christian churches celebrate The Feast of the Transfiguration. The mountain top experience gave them a glimpse of Jesus that stretched their imaginations where they saw themselves as part of something bigger – to be courageous instruments of justice and compassion. On that mountain, they hear a voice that calls, ‘Listen to him (Jesus)!’ But the one who is transfigured on the mountain will soon be disfigured on the cross and points to the disfigured in the world. This feast also commemorates a disfiguration. As Jesus climbed the mountain, on this day pilots climbed into cockpits to kill 100’s of 1000’s of people. As we remember the mushroom-shaped cloud that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we keep killing our siblings and disfiguring the Earth.
The call to us is to listen. Who is listening the hibakusha? Who is listening to the many voices speaking against the evil of nuclear possessions, the manufacture of more lethal weapons, threats against nations, the abuse of power, everyday hatred, rivalry, violence, greed, bullying and disfiguring of peoples’ reputations? The call from the mountain is to proclaim peace by our lives, our actions, and words. We have a choice. Our every choice can be liberating or diminishing of others and our world..
The Transfiguration was a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. Hiroshima was a turning point in human history. Both involved light. One was the light of love, life and hope and the other a deadly light, the death of everything for generations, of mass murder and ongoing threat. Pope Francis (2019) asks ‘How can we propose peace if we constantly invoke the threat of nuclear war as a legitimate recourse for the resolution of conflicts?’ He has repeatedly said that the mere possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. They do not ensure stability and peace. They give a false sense of security sustained by mentality of fear and mistrust that poisons relationships between peoples and obstructing any possible form of real dialogue. But are we listening? Are we listening to the prophetic voices of the hibakusha survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who continue to serve as a warning to us and for coming generations?
We can counter hatred with love. Compassion, sharing, generosity, sobriety, and responsibility are for us the choices that nurture personal fraternity.
Western media often fail to report on the fears of billions of human beings around the world who want a just peace that includes a chance for sustainable development. Politicians and media try to justify the unjustifiable. They systematically whitewash their crimes by engaging in a form of totalitarian censorship and a vicious persecution of whistle-blowers who tell us about crimes committed in our name. Indeed, secrecy is an enabler of crime. That secrecy ignored the critical voices who then argued against the need to drop a bomb, or two, on Japanese cities that were already devastated by U.S. fire-bombings. That secrecy does not address the health impacts of the research, testing, and production of such weapons, which still cause disease and death as victims of nuclear weapons’ development as were the people impacted by the fallout from U.S. nuclear testing in the Western United States and the Marshall Islands in the Western Pacific, uranium miners on First Nations lands, and many others.
Let’s work for the elimination of these weapons. The threat of nuclear war has not gone away. We learn today that it is possible to see things differently and act differently. It is possible to recognise the sacredness and dignity in each other. It is possible that we can live together in our diversity, to work for peace at home and abroad, to let go of racism and hatred for homosexuals and gender diverse people, to let go of greed, power, to let go of the need to control, to give up violence in word and action, to let go of fear that leads to paralysis and inaction.
Fr. Claude Mostowik msc, President, Pax Christi Australia
