I recently read a short book on the subject of Nuclear Weapons, “Nuclear Paranoia” by Chas Newkey-Burden, leaving aside the sneeringly superior and cynical tone of the book the author at one point states the following:
“The British Home Office claimed you could survive a nuclear war by hiding under a table with a few boxes and jumpers stacked around it. The Catholic Church, meanwhile, thought we should love nuclear weapons provided they are ‘clean and of good family’.” (page 9)
I’ve done a google search for that quote but the only results link back to reviews of the book in question.
Did the Catholic Church actually say this, and if so what was the full quote and context of the comments?
I have a very hard time believing the Catholic Church ever said anything of the sort. Nuclear weapons, by their nature, cause massive civilian casualties. It is exceedingly difficult to imagine a scenario where their use would be acceptable per Christian morality.
No, the vastly more likely answer is that Chas Newkey-Burden is a moron.
Catholic doctrine is very leery of nukes and dubious of their place in any theory of “just war.” The Vatican supports eventual universal nuclear disarmament.
Agreed, this is why it got an eyebrow-raise from me when reading. But stranger things have happened (“That horse becoming Pope for one” to quote Blackadder).
But the whole book is pretty much a “Right on!” screed from a former CND activist. I’m not a fan of nuclear weapons either but I prefer my objections to be based in fact not on some wild misconceptions and outright lies of what they’re capable of.
As an ex Anglican I preferred the pronouncement of our Archbishop of Canterbury sometime in the 1950s — a rather fearsome one before Ramsey — that such weapons were not to be feared since the only effect was merely that millions would be swept beforetimes into the eternity which they were already bound to go.
Back then Archbishops were Archbishops.
That reminds me of the quote from the police officer in charge during the 1975 Balcombe Street Siege (when an IRA cell in London took a couple hostage)
Police Commissioner Sir Robert Mark, “Though we were deeply concerned about the safety of hostages, I did not consider for one moment that they were not expendable.”
Page 44, “Ambush: The War Between the SAS and the IRA” by James Adams
Can you imagine a senior police officer saying something like that today! :eek:
I would suspect that it’s an actual quote from someone, but not originally referring to nuclear weapons at all.
Given that it’s a pretty common-sounding phrase, you’d probably have a hard time nailing down the specific instance that was in the author’s head when he wrote this, but it does sound like there is one.
Yeah, the passage seems to have been a bit of throwaway snark, the author is mentioning how the political establishment was telling us we could survive through duck-and-cover and then he just adds a line putting another conservative institution in the same boat, probably using some sort of common phrase from the time (that may be otherwise entirely unrelated to war).
**The Challenge of Peace: **
** God’s Promise and Our Response **
**
A Pastoral Letter on War and Peace
by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops
May 3, 1983 Linkety-link here
**B. On Deterrence
“In current conditions ‘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. 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 II, Message to U.N. Special Session on Disarmament, #8, June 1982.)
No use of nuclear weapons which would violate the principles of discrimination or proportionality may be intended in a strategy of deterrence. The moral demands of Catholic teaching require resolute willingness not to intend or to do moral evil even to save our own lives or the lives of those we love.
Deterrence is not an adequate strategy as a long-term basis for peace; it is a transitional strategy justifiable only in conjunction with resolute determination to pursue arms control and disarmament. We are convinced that “the fundamental principle on which our present peace depends must be replaced by another, which declares the true and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms but in mutual trust alone”. (Pope John XIII, Peace on Earth, #113.)
C. The Arms Race and Disarmament
The arms race is one of the greatest curses on the human race; it is to be condemned as a danger, an act of aggression against the poor, and a folly which does not provide the security it promises. (Cf:Pastoral Constitution, #81; Statement of the Holy See to the United Nations, 1976).
Negotiations must be pursued in every reasonable form possible; they should be governed by the “demand that the arms race should cease; that the stockpiles which exist in various countries should be reduced equally and simultaneously by the parties concerned; that nuclear weapons should be banned; and that a general agreement should eventually be reached about progressive disarmament and an effective method of control.” (Pope John XXIII, Peace on Earth, #112.)
