Choose Life: Abolish Nuclear Weapons (a Good Friday reflection)

by Leonard Eiger

March 29, 2024

TRIDENT IS GENOCIDE

CHOOSE LIFE

NOT TERROR

On March 13, 2024 Ray Towey of Catholic Peace Action in the United Kingdom marked the Ministry of Defence building in London with the sign of the cross and those words. Why would someone, particularly a person of faith, do such a thing? Let’s take a step back and take a walk down memory lane in order to answer that question.

In his message to the First Meeting Of States Parties To The Treaty On The Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) on June 21, 2022 Pope Francis said that, “Nuclear weapons are a costly and dangerous liability. They represent a ‘risk multiplier’ that provides only an illusion of a ‘peace of sorts’. Here, I wish to reaffirm that the use of nuclear weapons, as well as their mere possession, is immoral. Trying to defend and ensure stability and peace through a false sense of security and a ‘balance of terror’, sustained by a mentality of fear and mistrust inevitably ends up poisoning relationships between peoples and obstructing any possible form of real dialogue. Possession leads easily to threats of their use, becoming a sort of “blackmail” that should be repugnant to the consciences of humanity.”

Decades earlier, the Archbishop of the Seattle Archdiocese, Raymond Hunthausen, was active in resistance to the U.S. stockpiling of nuclear weapons and the new Trident submarine-based nuclear weapons system, which included the Bangor Trident submarine base in Puget Sound just 20 miles west of Seattle. In 1981 Archbishop Hunthausen referred to the Trident submarines based there as “the Auschwitz of Puget Sound.”

The invocation of “Auschwitz”, especially in today’s highly charged atmosphere, would likely raise a far greater uproar than the one Archbishop Hunthausen’s words caused roughly 43 years ago. And yet, if we think deeply about his statement in the context of the insane and immoral threat of use of nuclear weapons by the US, or any of the nuclear powers, it is perfectly clear and correct.

In context, it was both a profound and prophetic statement of fact. As Hunthausen said in that 1981 speech, “Trident is the Auschwitz of Puget Sound because of the massive cooperation required in our area — the enormous sinful complicity that is necessary — for the eventual incineration of millions of our brother and sister human beings.”

More recently, the current Archbishop of the Seattle Catholic Archdiocese, Paul Dennis Étienne, along with Archbishop Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bishop Shirahama of Hiroshima, Archbishop Nakamura of Nagasaki, and Archbishop Emeritus Takami of Nagasaki issued a statement on the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki: Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons.

In their statement they called on people of “all religious traditions”, and both clergy and lay people, to “participate actively in this partnership to ‘remember, walk together and protect’ so that we may create a legacy of peace for current and future generations.”

And they stated in prophetic words, “The road to peace is difficult—we cannot travel it alone.”

The Church’s condemnation of nuclear weapons is grounded in the Church’s respect for life and the dignity of the human person. People of faith have been active throughout the movement to abolish nuclear weapons, and the struggle to resist Trident – both in the US and the United Kingdom (UK) – mirrors this history. Even before the first Trident submarine sailed into Bangor (on August 12, 1982), people were coming together to build a resistance to it. The Pacific Life Community (PLC) is a small intentional community, that was formed to resist the coming of Trident to the Pacific Northwest. Two years later, out of the initial PLC experience, Jim and Shelley Douglass co-founded Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (GZ). GZ ultimately purchased land adjacent to the Bangor base, laying the groundwork (literally) for the long work ahead.

As the new (OHIO Class) ballistic missile submarines came (along with their missiles and thermonuclear-armed warheads) and the base grew, so did the resistance. In the early years resisters handed out leaflets at the Bangor entrance gates. When the first Trident submarine, the USS Ohio, arrived it was met by thousands of protestors on land in addition to a small flotilla of boats. One boat stood by in a nearby cove with a dozen members of the clergy aboard, including Hunthausen, to witness the Ohio’s arrival and the resistance to it.

Soon after came rocket motors, and then the thermonuclear-armed warheads, transported by trains to Bangor for assembly to prepare the Trident missiles to be loaded on the submarines. These trains were met by huge numbers of people, many of whom risked arrest blocking the tracks leading into the base. Archbishop Hunthausen was also present at some of these actions in solidarity with the resistance.

The Douglasses later moved to Birmingham, Alabama to start a Catholic Worker House, and GZ’s work continued. Today that work is as strong as ever. A new Center House rose from the ashes of earlier structures on the grounds (one of which was burned to the ground by two Marines from the submarine base). Three annual actions at the Bangor base ground GZ’s continuing resistance to Trident – Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Mother’s Day weekend and a Hiroshima/Nagasaki commemoration.

This continuing resistance, deeply rooted in nonviolence, is absolutely necessary in this time of a new and rapidly developing Cold War, along with the associated renewed pursuit of nuclear weapons as a foreign policy tool (and threat) by the US and other nations. Besides the US Government’s buildup of its nuclear weapons research, development and production infrastructure, it is pursuing new nuclear weapons systems – among them a new generation of Trident submarines and a new warhead for the submarine-launched, thermonuclear-armed missiles.

The new submarines, currently in production, are intended to replace the existing Trident nuclear weapons system, a relic of the Cold War. The costs (to US taxpayers) to develop, buy, and operate the 12 submarines through 2042 are at least $479 billion – money desperately needed for human needs.

Beyond the costs – For people of faith killing is simply wrong, and nuclear weapons, which are omnicidal by design, are an abomination in the eyes of God.

Lent is a time characterized by fasting, prayer, and repentance in preparation for the celebration of Easter Sunday. It is a time that should bring us closer – closer to all other human beings as children of God, as brothers and sisters, as fellow travelers. And, if that is (and should be) the case, then we are called to not just help a stranger on the Jericho Road, but to transform the entire road (to paraphrase the late Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Of course, transformation requires taking risks, not unlike what Jesus did throughout his time on Earth. We are called to be participants in the transformation of this world, and as Jesus modeled, we are called to nonviolent action. Many people have, and continue to, model the radical, nonviolent Jesus.

Among those practicing nonviolent witness during this year’s time of Lent was Ray Towey of Catholic Peace Action in the United Kingdom (UK). Ray – as he and others have done since 1984 – bore witness to the horror that is the Trident nuclear weapon system in the UK, which happens to have direct connections with the United States’ (US) Trident nuclear weapon system.

And so, on March 13th, Ray marked the Ministry of Defence building in London with the sign of the cross and the words,

TRIDENT IS GENOCIDE

CHOOSE LIFE

NOT TERROR

The prayers recited before Ray’s witness included the following:

Indeed! May we all find our way to the Love and Nonviolence that Jesus lived and taught.