“The nuclear-armed states have a moral obligation to hear the voices of the majority of the world and to listen to those who are threatened by annihilation at the decision of any one of the nine leaders of the nuclear weapons states,” the prelates wrote.
Those nine states are the United States, Russia, China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Israel, and the United Kingdom.
“The international legal force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is limited to those states that have formally ratified the treaty,” the prelates wrote. “But its moral power does not recognize boundaries between nations nor lines on a map — the moral power of this treaty is global and universal.”
“It is another historic step on the journey toward hope, toward the light, toward a world free of nuclear weapons,” they said.
The bishops in their letter noted that their respective dioceses have been key witnesses to nuclear history: the “birthplace of nuclear weapons” in Santa Fe, the “most deployed nuclear weapons in the United States” in Seattle, and those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “the only two cities that to date have suffered horrendous atomic attacks.”
“It is the duty of our dioceses to support this treaty while working toward universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament,” the bishops said. “We lend our voices in strong support of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”
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