Peace Cranes Fly with Prayer

By Fr. John Rausch
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 10/23/03)

On a crisp Sunday morning in late September the Catholic Committee of Appalachia (CCA) ended its annual meeting with a prayer vigil before the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The 25 participants prayed, sang and reflected about the consequences of nuclear weapons. Education, healthcare and services for America's 33 million poor suffer cutbacks so places like Y-12 can exist. Y-12 played a pivotal role in developing the atomic bomb and today it actively keeps America's nuclear stockpile upgraded. Recently it was commissioned to produce replacement parts for warheads deployed on Trident missile systems.

Nuclear weapons, once justified solely as a deterrent, appear ready to assume a more active role in America's national security. In 2001 the Bush administration abandoned the 29-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty intended to prevent a next-generation arms race. The treaty, a major arms control agreement, specifically barred nuclear nations from developing missile defense systems, a policy the administration now vigorously pursues.

In 2002 the United States and Russia signed the Treaty of Moscow setting a limit on deployed strategic weapons at 2,200 each-seemingly a two-thirds reduction of each nation's arsenal. Unfortunately, the treaty's major loophole allows storing the excess warheads, not dismantling them. The warehoused missiles could reappear in 2012.

Finally, the administration's Nuclear Posture Review charts some twisted paths into morality's brave new world. The Review rejects America's commitment not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, provides for the resumption of nuclear testing and envisions developing new types of nuclear weapons, known as bunker busters and mini-nukes.

These innovations represent a designer weapon ideal for targeting a "rogue" country's deeply stored cache of biological and chemical weapons. Each mini-nuke, less than a third the size of the Hiroshima 15-kiloton bomb, would be precisely targeted to limit civilian casualties. However, scientists and strategic planners question the administration's confidence. Critical tests indicate the difficulty of containing the nuclear yield of a bomb even 1 percent the size of Hiroshima's. Radioactive dirt would rain down a lethal dose of radiation over a wide area. Strategic planners caution that America will breach the nuclear threshold by using its first mini-nuke, thus enticing other nations into a potential holocaust scenario.

Catholic social teaching on nuclear weapons admits their existence only as a deterrent. Nations may possess them only while negotiating for their elimination. Archbishop Renato Martino speaking for the Holy See at U.N. headquarters said, "There can be no moral acceptance of military doctrines that embody the permanence of nuclear weapons...they cannot be justified."

America's intentions to integrate nuclear weapons into its conventional military forces contradicts this Catholic moral teaching.

As CCA members joined hands in prayer before the perimeter fence, a sign touting Y-12's 60 years of service (1943 - 2003) beamed its message: "A proud history...A promising future." Just several yards distant from that sign the Tennessee Department of Health and Environment posted another sign by the creek running along the property boundary: "Warning. No Fishing. No Water Contact. Stream Contaminated."

Ten years after the Hiroshima bomb, Sadako, a 12-year old Japanese girl and victim, folded origami peace cranes while she lay dying from radiation sickness. The Haiku she wrote put a human face on nuclear weapons: "I shall write peace upon your wings, and you shall fly around the world so that children will no longer have to die this way." The service ended when participants blessed origami peace cranes, said a prayer and hung them on the fence.

Fr. Rausch is a Glenmary priest who lives, writes and organizes in Appalachia.

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