From Art Laffin--Report of August 9, 2025 Commemoration Witness of the US Nuclear Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Outside the White House

[Catholic Worker]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Art Laffin:

 

 

Nagasaki, September 1945

Dear Friends,

On this 80th anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, over 50 peacemakers from  the  DMV area held a nonviolent witness outside the White House this morning at 10 AM to commemorate the unspeakable atrocities of the U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and called on the U.S. government to join with us in repenting for the nuclear sin and abolish nuclear weapons, uphold God's command not to kill, and follow the way of Gospel nonviolence. (see attached photos) Members of Consistent Life Network, Dorothy Day Catholic Worker and Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore organized this witness. 

I want to express appreciation to all the groups who co-sponsored this witness: Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore, Consistent Life Network, American Solidarity Party of DC-Maryland, Rehumanize International, Pax Christi USA, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Little Friends for Peace, Isaiah Project, Assisi Community, Franciscan Action Network, Norfolk Catholic Worker and the Hampton Roads Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

I also express special thanks to: John Whitehead who helped organize this witness and was the emcee; all who participated, including those who had reading roles; Marie Dennis for her compelling reflection (see attached); and Scott Wright and Jean Stokan who brought bouquets of red and white roses which were placed on the photos of victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that were displayed on the street in front of the White House to remember the victims and express our hope for a disarmed world. This moving ritual followed a reading of the Apology Petition to the people of Japan. More than 500 people and 60 organizations signed this Petition to the Japanese people.https://paxchristiusa.org/2025/07/10/apology-petition-to-the-people-of-japan-on-the-80th-anniversary-of-the-us-atomic-bombings/ And the Catholic Archdiocese of Montreal adapted and translated the Petition into French and presented it to the Japanese consulate on August 5th. Also, the mayor's office of Nagasaki, as well as Nihon Hidankyo, the main Hibakusha organization who received the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, acknowledged receiving this Petition that I sent them, and they expressed their great appreciation.

Today also marks the anniversaries of the anniversaries of the martyrdom of St. Edith Stein and Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, and quotes from them were read at the end of the witness.

We stand in solidarity with people across the U.S. and worldwide who are acting today to call on the U.S. and the other eight nuclear nations to ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which entered into force in January 2021 thereby making nuclear weapons illegal under international law. We especially lift up the Hibakusha who appeal to the world to abolish all nuclear weapons. And we remember Archbishop Wester of Santa Fe, NM, and other prelates and Catholics who are on a Pilgrimage of Peace in Japan praying with the Bishops and wider church there, and fostering dialogue, and global advocacy for nuclear disarmament. https://archdiosf.org/documents/2025/7/250723_NewsRelease_PilgrimageofPeace.pdf

https://archdiosf.org/documents/2025/8/250805_ASF_PWWN_Joint%20statement-1.pdf

The Hibakusha plead to the world: “Humanity and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist.” 

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. exhorts us: “The choice today is…either nonviolence or nonexistence.”

 

Pope Francis declares: "Nor can we fail to be genuinely concerned by the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental effects of any employment of nuclear devices. If we also take into account the risk of an accidental detonation as a result of error of any kind, the threat of their use, as well as their very possession, is to be firmly condemned…The total elimination of nuclear weapons is...a moral and humanitarian imperative of our time.”  

 

Deo Gratias for all actions occurring in our world to abolish nuclear weapons and war, to bring about an end to the U.S.-backed Israeli genocidal war and mass starvation in Gaza, and who are resisting the Trump regimes reign of terror on all fronts and proclaiming God's reign of love, justice, and peace!

In peace and hope,

Art

"SHADOW ON THE ROCK" by Daniel Berrigan, SJ

At Hiroshima there’s a museum 

and outside that museum there’s a rock, 

and on that rock there’s a shadow. 

That shadow is all that remains 

of the human being who stood there on August 6, 1945 

when the nuclear age began. 

In the most real sense of the word, 

that is the choice before us. 

We shall either end war and the nuclear arms race now in this generation,

or we will become Shadows On the Rock.