
Christopher White, the national correspondent for the Catholic news website Crux who wrote about Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen and A Disarming Spirit a few weeks ago, is writing about Hunthausen again in this piece for the Washington Post.
Pope Francis called for a world free from nuclear weapons. Here’s why that was once a controversial idea.
In a highly anticipated address, Pope Francis stood Sunday on the sites where in 1945 the United States detonated nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — killing over 100,000 civilians — and called for a world “free from nuclear weapons.”
“The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral,” Francis said. “We will be judged on this.” …
“With deep conviction I wish once more to declare that the use of atomic energy for purposes of war is today, more than ever, a crime not only against the dignity of human beings but against any possible future for our common home,” Francis said.
That same position once helped label a U.S. archbishop a revolutionary who needed to be brought to heel. Forty years later, Francis made it clear it is now official papal policy.
- Read Christopher White’s Washington Post piece here: Pope Francis called for a world free from nuclear weapons. Here’s why that was once a controversial idea.
- Read White’s interview with author Frank Fromherz here: New Hunthausen bio depicts Seattle prelate as Francis before Francis