A cohort of Japanese and US bishops has applauded a meeting of nations that have formally joined the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as “another historic step on the journey toward hope, toward the light, toward a world free of nuclear weapons”. Source: Crux.
The second Meeting of State Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons began Monday at the UN headquarters in New York, where it will run until Friday. The meeting is chaired by Juan Ramón de la Fuente Ramírez, Permanent Representative of Mexico.
The focus of the meeting, according to a news release from the Mexican Government, is to assess the status of the treaty’s implementation and discuss the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. In addition to representatives from nation-states that have joined the treaty, present at the meeting will be atomic bomb and nuclear test survivors, representatives of international organisations, and other representatives from civil society and the scientific community.
“It is the duty of our dioceses to support this treaty while working toward universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament,” the bishops said in a joint statement on Monday.
The bishops, whose dioceses all have a connection to nuclear weapons and have all been long-time advocates of nuclear disarmament called the meeting historic despite its limitations, considering participants include only those nation-states who have signed the treaty.
None of the G7 countries have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which includes the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
The group of bishops consists of American Archbishops John Wester of Santa Fe and Paul Etienne of Seattle, who both lead an archdiocese with ties to the production and deployment of nuclear weapons. It also consists of Japanese Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura of Nagasaki, Bishop Alexis Mitsuru Shurahama of Hiroshima, and Archbishop Emeritus Joseph Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki, who lead the Japanese dioceses the US bombed on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively.
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US, Japanese bishops hail UN summit on prohibiting nukes as ‘journey toward hope’ (By John Lavenburg, Crux)
