Dear Editor,
I welcome Michael Quinlan’s contribution to the renewed debate around the issue of nuclear weapons. However, I feel sad in noticing that his “inexorable logic” seems to be stuck within a mindset reminiscent of times past and historical contexts that no longer apply. He recycles his old arguments in favour of deterrence based on ”balance of terror”, except that this time he stretches them further to justify envisaging “uses [emphasis mine] of nuclear weapons that would gravely damage an aggressor state by assailing legitimate targets while killing as few non-combatants as possible, and even during the Cold War Western planning moved in that direction… [emphasis mine]”.

And so Mr Quinlan finally admits that the so-called moral arguments used by him and others in the past to justify possession of nuclear weapons for mere “deterrence” were fundamentally a forerunner of (or a disguise for?) another project that has now become clear: first, to make a decision to “use” nuclear weapons and, then, proceed to make a “moral” case for it.

As a Catholic, he feels the need to enrol the Catholic Church in this exercise. But, the Scottish bishops’ (not alone in this) restatement of Vatican II’s condemnation stands in the way. Their assertion that “the Catholic Church has clear and consistent teaching on nuclear weapons. The use (emphasis mine) of weapons of mass destruction would be a crime against God and against humanity” is, according to Mr Quinlan, “flatly false”. The bishops are further charged with “misleading to the point of distortion” when they “present the use of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ as inescapably coterminus with what Gaudium et Spes condemns.” Consequently, he now wants us to consider the possibility that, with the perfecting of a new generation of nuclear weapons, these might no longer fall within the commonly accepted notion of “weapons of mass destruction” and, therefore, escape the restrictions imposed by the “just war theory”.

If Mr Quinlan believes it is relevant for him as a catholic to take into account the teaching of the “Church as a whole” (expression used by him and not by the Scottish bishops), surely he would demand of himself the same intellectual honesty as expected of the bishops. He makes much of what Pope John Paul II might have meant back in 1982 and 1988 and whether “he plainly did not hold position one” (absolutely against nuclear weapons). His guess is as good as mine. But the Church, like the rest of the world, has moved on in the last twenty years as a result of the very different post-Cold War scenario.

I assume that Mr Quinlan accepts that statements made on behalf of the Holy See today by its representatives at the UN or other world bodies are as relevant as those made back in the 80’s, and that it would be appropriate to consider them as reflecting the position of the “Catholic Church as a whole”. All these statements do show a “clear and consistent teaching on nuclear weapons”.

Just a sampling: “There can be no moral acceptance of military doctrines that embody the permanence of nuclear weapons. That is why John Paul II has called for the banishment of all nuclear weapons…” (Mgr Francis Chullikat, deputy head of the Holy See delegation to the UN, 10 April, 2002). “Nuclear weapons are incompatible with the peace we seek for the 21st century. They cannot be justified [emphasis mine]. They deserve condemnation. The preservation of the Non Proliferation Treaty demands an unequivocal commitment to their abolition… This is a moral challenge, a legal challenge and a political challenge”. (Archbishop – now Cardinal - Renato Martino, Holy See’s UN Permanent Observer, 15 Oct. 1997). In the same line and with even greater “clarity and consistency”, Mgr Celestino Migliore, the current Holy See’s UN Representative, has on many occasions restated the Holy See’s position that “The time has gone for finding ways to a ‘balance of terror’… The Holy See has never countenanced nuclear deterrence as a permanent measure, nor does it today when it is evident that nuclear deterrence drives the development of ever newer nuclear arms, thus preventing nuclear disarmament…. Nuclear weapons, even so-called ‘low yield’ weapons, endanger the processes of life and can lead to extended nuclear conflict” (4 May, 2005). He had earlier expressed disappointment at the failure of nuclear-weapon States to keep their part of the bargain agreed in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: “Nuclear-weapon States have not given evidence of fulfilment of their Article VI obligation, that is, the negotiation of effective measures related to the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. The modernization of nuclear weapons and development of new nuclear weapons technologies is taking place now… some States, which profess ardent support for the NPT [presumably including the UK and USA], are still attached to military policies which hold that nuclear weapons are essential as the supreme guarantee of security [sounds familiar, Mr Quinlan?]. Nuclear-weapon States should be pressed to reveal under what security conditions and assurances they could eliminate their nuclear arsenals”. (7 May, 2004). The UK, for one, has so far not taken up the challenge. Neither has Mr Quinlan indicated why he keeps appealing to the Catholic Church’s teaching on this matter and then refuses to “hear it”.

Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C., along with Pax Christi International and many other Catholics around the world, easily agree that in view of the above statements and many others, the Hoy See’s position on nuclear weapons can now be stated as follows: “Because the nuclear-weapons States have decisively shown that they consider nuclear weapons permanent instruments in their military doctrine, the Holy See has withdrawn the limited acceptance it gave to nuclear weapons during the Cold War. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, nuclear weapons are evil and immoral and must be eliminated as a precondition to obtaining peace”.

Fr. Giovanni Scudiero, imc
Vice President Pax Christi UK
Member of Executive Council Pax Christi International 05/06/2006