Forbidden : receiving Pope Francis's condemnation of nuclear weapons

Moral theologians, defense analysts, conflict scholars, and nuclear experts imagine a world free from nuclear weapons At a 2017 Vatican conference, Pope Francis condemned nuclear weapons. This volume, issued after the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, presents essays from moral theologians, defense analysts, conflict transformation scholars, and nuclear arms control experts, with testimonies from witnesses. It is a companion volume to A World Free from Nuclear Weapons: The Vatican Conference on Disarmament (Georgetown University Press, 2020). Chapters from the perspectives of missile personnel and the military chain of command, industrialists and legislators, and citizen activists show how we might achieve a nuclear-free world. Key to this transition is the important role of public education and the mobilization of lay movements to raise awareness and effect change. This essential collection prepares military professionals, policymakers, everyday citizens, and the pastoral workers who guide them, to make decisions that will lead us to disarmament. "In 2017 the Holy See became the first state to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In November of that year the Vatican invited participants to a symposium on a World Free from Nuclear Weapons. At the conclusion of that conference, Cardinal Silvano Tomasi requested that two books be published. One would compile the papers delivered at the conference. GU Press published it as A World without Nuclear Weapons: The Vatican Conference on Disarmament in August 2020, timed to commemorate the 75th solemn anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For the second volume, he requested a collection of essays of pastoral and moral guidance on the condemnation, designed for teachers and counselors of ethics, other pastoral workers, and--the ultimate audience--military professionals, diplomats, and defense experts charged with supervision of nuclear weapons. Forbidden is that book. It is the collective effort of experts in many fields, especially moral theologians, defense analysts, and scholars of conflict transformation. Together these experts explain how, with Pope Francis' leadership, Church teaching on nuclear weapons has evolved from a carefully calibrated acceptance of deterrence to a blanket condemnation of both the weapons and the defense systems based on them. This book presents a necessary background of nuclear condemnation in Catholic just-war analysis. It also engages emerging approaches of moral analysis such as moral ecology and pastoral accompaniment, while interweaving the essential witness of survivors of nuclear attacks and test explosions. The contributors grapple with new thinking among American policymakers, led by the 60th US Secretary of State, the late George Shultz. In the interest of making Pope Francis' teaching "church-wide and parish-deep," this book takes up questions of conscience formation and pastoral accompaniment, as well as public education and the mobilization of lay Catholic movements. Of note are chapters dedicated to those with special responsibility for nuclear armaments: the missile personnel ("nuclear stewards"), officers in the chain of command, weapons scientists, legislators, military industrialists and citizens in nuclear-armed states"-- Provided by publisher Cover Title page Copyright page Dedication Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction PART I. How We Got Here 1 From Deterrence to Abolition: The Evolution of Roman Catholic Nuclear Ethics 2 Just War Lessons We Should Remember 3 Philosophical Debate on Nuclear Deterrence 4 The Moral Ecology of Deterrence and Abolition PART II. Witnesses 5 Nuclear Realists 6 The Testimony of Witnesses 7 Swords into Plowshares PART III. Toward a World without Nuclear Weapons 8 National Attitudes toward Nuclear Deterrence 9 6 + 6 = 9: Law and Nuclear Weapons 10 Abolition in the Context of General Disarmament 11 New Models: Building Capacities for Nuclear Cooperation 12 Nuclear Abolition and Global Human Needs PART IV. Evolution of Just War 13 Nuclear Disarmament: Ethical Challenges at or Near Zero 14 Just Peace and Nuclear Disarmament 15 Peacebuilding and Nuclear Deterrence 16 Prophetic Indictment or Deliberative Discussion? PART V. Conscience Formation 17 Formation of Conscience Regarding the Development, Possession, and Use of Nuclear Weapons 18 Catholic Conscience and Nuclear Weapons 19 The Conundrum of Deterrence: A Practical Christian Response 20 Pastoral Accompaniment: Pope Francis’s Approach to the Human Vocation PART VI. Moral Education 21 Reviving Disarmament Education 22 The Nuclear History Boot Camp 23 Propaganda for Peace: Memes, Mass Moralizing, and a World Free of Nuclear Weapons 24 A World without Nuclear Weapons: Imagine It One Step at a Time PART VII. Responsible Actors 25 The Ethics of Nuclear Stewards 26 In the Chain of Command 27 Profiting from the Bomb 28 The Condemnation of the Possession, Threat of Use, and Use of Nuclear Weapons: Reflections for Scientists and Technologists 29 Morality Matters: A Parliamentarian Reflects on Nuclear Disarmament 30 The Ethics of Manufacturing Nuclear Weapons 31 The Responsibilities of “Enabled” Citizens for Integral Disarmament and Sustainable Human Development PART VIII. The Role of Lay Catholic Movements 32 Organizing the Church for a World without Nuclear Weapons Index About the Contributors Forbidden moves beyond the conceptualization of a ban on nuclear weapons to the implementation of the Pope's teachings, the first pontiff to condemn possession. This book interweaves the essential witness of survivors of nuclear attacks and test explosions with the voices of leaders who provide needed context for Pope Francis's condemnation