‘THE CHURCH AGAINST TRIDENT’
DISCUSSION IN RENFIELD ST STEPHEN’S
CHURCH, GLASGOW
TUESDAY 27 JUNE 2006
TALK BY CARDINAL KEITH PATRICK O’BRIEN
Introduction:
I am delighted to be able to be here with
you all this evening, along with my friend, the Moderator
of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Right
Reverend Alan McDonald.
You are aware of the cause which brings us
together. It is the invitation to enter into debate requested
by our Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, regarding the possible
renewal of the Trident Nuclear Weapons System. Chancellor
Gordon Brown has given added urgency to this debate at this
time, following on his own statement last week.
In my own presentation this evening, I intend
to do two things: give some indication of the history of my
own involvement in this issue; and give something of my Church’s
teaching with regard to nuclear deterrence.
History of involvement at this present time:
Like any good Christian, the call to peace
was quite simply basic to my call as a Christian.
Aware of many Old Testament readings regarding
‘beating swords into ploughshares’ and texts like
that, I saw the teaching of Jesus Christ as a natural continuation
of the desire for peace among the people of the Old Testament,
despite wars and conflicts which surrounded them.
Obviously, Christ himself was the great peacemaker.
Peace and reconciliation was always an underlying theme in
his teaching and we remember those very beautiful words of
the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers
for they shall be called children of God!”.
“We try to realise as Christians that
we are sisters and brothers and that the earth is our common
inheritance. We have a responsibility to share this world
with everyone else, to pass it on uncontaminated, unpillaged,
unspoiled, to future generations. We have to rid ourselves
of prejudice and mutual suspicion. We must totally reject
any ‘arms race’, any policy of revengeful slaughter,
all greed and self-preservation at the expense of others.”
And there I quote a statement from my own Bishops’ Conference
issued in 1982.
In that statement of 1982, the members of
the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Scotland stated
with regard to nuclear weapons: “We are convinced that
if it is immoral to use these weapons, it is also immoral
to threaten their use. Some argue that the threat can be justified
as the lesser of two evils. The crux of the problem is whether
in any foreseeable circumstance a policy of self-defence based
on the use or even the threat of use of these weapons of terrible
destructiveness can ever be morally justified”.
Those words “if it is immoral to use
these weapons, it is also immoral to threaten their use”
caused me to think deeply on this issue some 20 years ago.
Having that statement before us, the members
of the present Bishops’ Conference of Scotland issued
a statement regarding the possibility of the Trident replacement
on 11 April 2006. We welcomed the Prime Minister’s comment
that there should be the fullest possible public debate on
the Trident Nuclear Missile System. And we stated then that:
“We urge the Government of the United Kingdom not to
invest in a replacement for the Trident System and to begin
the process of decommissioning these weapons with the intention
of diverting the sums spent on nuclear weaponry to programmes
of aid and development”.
I myself developed my own thought in my Easter
Sunday sermon on Sunday 16 April 2006, indicating that as
Easter people we must not only be people of prayer, but people
of action, living in that Easter promise of peace from Jesus
himself, whose first words after his Resurrection were: “Peace
be with you”.
In that letter I spoke of the consistent
teaching of the Church on war, especially nuclear war –
to which I will refer later.
I indicated that: “We here in Britain
are in a marvellous position to take concrete steps towards
making real the demand of Pope Benedict XVI in his New Year
message for peace when he stated with regard to nuclear arms
as a means of ensuring security in their countries that “This
point of view is not only baneful but also completely fallacious.
In a nuclear war there would be no victors, only victims”.
I added that here in Scotland we have a duty to lead the way
in campaigning for change because we have the shameful responsibility
of housing these horrific weapons. And I called on my own
people to demand that these weapons of mass destruction be
replaced but not with more weapons of mass destruction. Rather,
I asked that Trident be replaced with projects that bring
life to the poor!
On 15 May I led representatives of the principal
Churches here in Scotland in the signing of a petition on
the replacement of Trident nuclear weapons outside the Scottish
Parliament. The petition reads: “We the undersigned
urge the Government of the United Kingdom not to invest in
a replacement for the Trident System and to begin now the
process of decommissioning these weapons with the intention
of diverting the sums spent on nuclear weaponry to programmes
of aid and development”. Copies of that national petition
are available at this meeting and I do urge you to sign them
and to bring them back to your own communities and towns.
In my own Archdiocese, I launched a process
of education on the whole matter of ‘Nuclear Weapons
and Catholic Teaching’ – with study evenings being
organised throughout my Archdiocese. As a follow up to this,
our own Church’s National Commission for Justice and
Peace are making copies of the material used in these evenings,
which is available in a power point presentation to all those
who request it as a means for further education of people
throughout the length and breadth of Scotland.
The Teaching of the Roman Catholic Church
on Nuclear Deterrence:
In what I have said above, I have indicated
something of the position of the Roman Catholic Church with
regard to war in general and hinted at the position which
I believe is now the firm teaching of the Church.
Over the centuries there have been various
theories with regard to war and its justification. With regard
to nuclear deterrence, we might say that the Catholic Church
has moved along a line from reluctant acceptance of nuclear
deterrence to a firm position against any form of deterrence
– this progression having taken place over the past
40 years and being consistent in as much as it always has
sought disarmament.
In a 1982 UN address, Pope John Paul II said:
“In current conditions [ie, in 1982] deterrence based
on balance certainly not as an end in itself but as a step
on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be
judged morally acceptable.” And he added the crucial
next sentence: “Nonetheless in order to ensure peace,
it is indispensable not to be satisfied with this minimum
which is always susceptible to the real danger of explosion”.
Pope John Paul was referring to conditions in 1982, and they
did not improve much throughout that whole decade.
By the 1990’s it was becoming increasingly
clear that the biggest nuclear powers had no intention of
negotiating the removal of nuclear weapons, nor did they intend
to disarm. Belief in the goodwill of the nuclear powers had
been the mainstay of the Holy See’s reluctant acceptance
of temporary nuclear deterrence. It had also realised, what
it seems that nuclear nations have yet to realise, that the
world is a very different place in the 21st century.
Cardinal Martino, as the Holy See’s
Permanent Observer to the UN, addressed the First Committee
of the General Assembly in 1997 as follows: “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 abolition”. And in 1998,
also before the UN, he went even further: “The most
perilous of all the old Cold War assumptions carried into
the new age is the belief that the strategy of nuclear deterrence
is essential to a nation’s security. Maintaining nuclear
deterrence into the 21st century will not aid but impede peace.
Nuclear deterrence prevents genuine nuclear disarmament. It
maintains an unacceptable hegemony over non-nuclear development
for the poorest half of the world’s population. It is
a fundamental obstacle to achieving a new age of global security.”
It seems then that far from being weapons
which keep peace nuclear weapons in fact prevent peace, and
we, the UK and other nations of the world who possess such
weapons, are therefore also a stumbling block to peace. How
can the Church remain silent, if the fundamental Easter gift
of the risen Lord to his disciples is the gift of peace?
Returning to the UN, the current Permanent
Observer of the Holy See, Archbishop Migliore, in May 2005,
leaves us in no doubt about the clear and consistent nature
of the teaching which we, the Bishops of Scotland, have a
duty to pass on. “The time has gone for finding ways
to a ‘balance in terror’; the time has come to
re-examine the whole strategy of nuclear deterrence. When
the Holy See expressed its limited acceptance of nuclear deterrence
during the Cold War, it was with the clearly stated condition
that deterrence was only a step on the way towards progressive
nuclear disarmament. The Holy See has never countenanced nuclear
deterrence as a permanent measure, nor does it today when
it is evident that nuclear deterrence drives the development
of ever newer nuclear arms, thus preventing genuine nuclear
disarmament. The Holy See again emphasizes that the peace
we seek in the 21st century cannot be attained by relying
on nuclear weapons.”
The Pope has, within months of the start
of his papacy, confirmed and strengthened this clear and consistent
teaching. In January of this year he addressed a remark to
those few governments such as our own who hold the world to
ransom with our nuclear weapons: “What can be said…
about those governments which count on nuclear arms as a means
of ensuring the security of their countries?
Along with countless persons of good will,
one can state that this point of view is not only baneful
but also completely fallacious. In a nuclear war there would
be no victors, only victims. The truth of peace requires that
all – whether those governments which openly or secretly
possess nuclear arms, or those planning to acquire them –
agree to change their course by clear and firm decisions,
and strive for a progressive and concerted nuclear disarmament.
The resources which would be saved could then be employed
in projects of development capable of benefiting all their
people, especially the poor. In this regard, one can only
note with dismay the evidence of a continuing growth in military
expenditure and the flourishing arms trade, while the political
and juridic process established by the international community
for promoting disarmament is bogged down in general indifference.
How can there ever be a future of peace when investments are
still made in the production of arms and in research aimed
at developing new ones?” (Message for World Day of Peace,
January 1st 2006)
Conclusion:
As the Pope asks, how can peace have a future
if we develop a replacement for Trident? With this promise
of a public debate we have a golden opportunity to show that
we can be a peaceful nation, not one which bullies and threatens
other nations. We could, like so many other countries the
world over who have dismantled their research programmes and
have even given up their nuclear weapons, do this in the name
of peace. Threatening behaviour changes the behaviour of the
other, and peaceful action does too. This is the heart of
the witness of Jesus, the heart of the Gospel, the heart of
our sign of peace at Mass. We have a chance to be a nation
of peace. Let us bury our belligerence, let us beat our swords
into ploughshares and call on the world to follow our lead.
Having campaigned just one year ago to try
to ‘Make Poverty History’ – let us now campaign
to achieve this by ‘Making Nuclear Deterrence History!’.
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