Ukraine war reminds us to fight for nuclear disarmament

Popes have spoken about the immorality of even merely possessing nuclear weapons

Published: March 9, 2022

By Bishop Anthony B. Taylor

CNS photo/Air Force, Staff Sgt. Roidan Carlson, Handout via Reuters

In this 2014 file photo, an unarmed AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile is released from a B-52H Stratofortress over the Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City during a Nuclear Weapons System Evaluation Program sortie.

CNS photo/Air Force, Staff Sgt. Roidan Carlson, Handout via Reuters

Prayer for Ukraine

O Lord God of powers, and God of our salvation, O God, who alone works wonders: Look down with mercy and compassion on your humble servants, and out of love for mankind hearken and have mercy on us and on the land of Ukraine.

For, behold, enemies have once more gathered together, in order to cause division and enmity. But you who know all things, understand that they have risen up unrighteously, and that it will be impossible to oppose their multitudes unless you show us your help.

Therefore, we who are sinful and unworthy pray unto you in repentance and with tears: Help us, O God, our Savior and deliver the land of Ukraine for the sake of the glory of your name, that the enemy may not to say: “Their God has forsaken them, and there is none to deliver and save them.” But let every nation understand that you are our God, and we your people are always protected under your dominion.

Reveal your mercy, O Lord, and let the words spoken by Moses unto the people of Israel (Exodus 14:13-14) be applied to us: “Fear not. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord. For the Lord shall fight for us.” Work for us a sign for good, that they who are filled with hatred may see our faith and be humbled and shaken.

Yes, O Lord God, our Savior, our strength and hope and help, remember not the transgressions and unrighteousness of your faithful people and turn not away from us in your anger. But visit your mercies and compassions upon your humble servants, those who fight in defense of Ukraine and her much-suffering people, outnumbered though they be, and hear us who fall down before your deep compassion. With your mercy enlighten and make glad the hearts of the civil authorities and strengthened them by your might.

Rise up to their help and lay low the evil councils purposed against them by the enemy. Judge them that provoke and make war, and turn their impious boldness into fear and flight. And unto them that you have judged to lay down their lives for faith and country, forgive them their trespasses and in the day of the righteous reckoning grant unto them incorruptible crowns.

For you are the health and victory and salvation of them that put their hope in you, and unto you do we send up glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

Amen.

Adapted from a prayer courtesy of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Toronto and Eastern Canada. “Prepared by the sinful Reader Ilya, feast of the Hieromartyr Clement of Ancyra. Brampton, 2022.”

As we enter the penitential season of Lent in the midst of the completely unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia, I would like to follow up on my recent statement on Just Peace by endorsing the pastoral letter on nuclear disarmament published Jan. 11, 2022 by Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, N.M.

This is a very timely document given the invasion of Ukraine (a country which gave up its nuclear weapons following the breakup of the Soviet Union almost 30 years ago) by their nuclear weapon possessing neighbor. Can you imagine the danger to the whole world if both countries still possessed nuclear weapons? The text of his 51-page presentation can be downloaded from the website of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and now Pope Francis have all spoken repeatedly about the immorality of even merely possessing nuclear weapons, given the existential threat they pose to the whole human race, the impossibility of their moral use and the grave danger of accidents that might occur. Over time the teaching of the Holy See has moved beyond the previous conditional acceptance of “deterrence” to the moral imperative of abolition. Indeed, the Vatican was the first nation state to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

As Pope Francis declared: “We must never grow weary of working to support the principal international legal instruments of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, including the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.” As such, Pope Francis calls all of us to work toward universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament.

"Can you imagine the danger to the whole world if both countries still possessed nuclear weapons?"

As we begin this Lent, let us recall Jesus’ call to be peacemakers in our families, in our communities and in our broken world. Our prayer for peace must then lead to concrete action to foster peace, that we might all live in peace as brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the one Heavenly Father of us all. As Archbishop Wester writes in the epilogue to his statement, “But it is not enough that we become instruments of peace, as important as that is. No, we must take up the cause of worldwide nuclear disarmament with an urgency that befits the seriousness of this cause and the dangerous threat that looms over all of humanity and the planet.”

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor issued this letter March 2 regarding nuclear disarmament.

Prayer for Ukraine

Amen.

Adapted from a prayer courtesy of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Toronto and Eastern Canada. “Prepared by the sinful Reader Ilya, feast of the Hieromartyr Clement of Ancyra. Brampton, 2022.”

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