Category: Nuclear Weapons

Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Marking 80th Anniversary on 6 & 9 August 2025

This August it will be 80 years since the atom bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagaski, killing as many as 200,000 people instantly and leaving many others to suffer from radiation sickness and forms of cancer for years afterwards.

The threat that these weapons will one day be used again still hangs over the world today. Catholic international peace charity, Pax Christi, organises prayers and vigils every year to recall the suffering of survivors and those who died and to work towards a world where these weapons are no longer necessary.

Pax Christi Vigils outside Westminster Cathedral

6 August, 11.00am-1.00pm: 80th Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima

9 August, 11.00am-1.00pm: 80th Anniversary of the Bombing of Nagasaki

Blessed Franz Jägerstätter Service

9 August, 5.00-6.00pm: Pax Christi Franz Jägerstätter Service – Westminster Cathedral Crypt

Remembering the witness of Austrian farmer and conscientious objector, Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to serve in the in the Nazi army and was executed on 9 August 1943. https://paxchristi.org.uk/resources/peace-people-2/blessed-franz-jagerstatter/

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Memorial Service at Battersea Peace Pagoda

This service on 9th August is followed by an Interfaith Walk to Battersea Peace Pagoda for the annual Hiroshima and Nagasaki Memorial Service.

All are welcome to join us on the walk or at the Pagoda.

For more details visit https://paxchristi.org.uk/calendar/

Brutal lessons of 1984 nuclear bomb drama Threads

Bruce Kent

Bruce Kent, a key figure in the Justice and Peace movement in the Diocese and in anti-war campaigning nationally for many decades, is cited in this review of the 1984 nuclear disaster drama ‘Threads’ which is being reshown by the BBC today.

The television review programme ‘Did You See’ sought a range of views from people with a professional interest in the subject.

Bruce Kent of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament felt that “at the end it could have given people a bit more positive direction about the sorts of things they could actually do”.

Westminster Justice and Peace will be focusing on peace and nuclear disarmament throughout the coming year as we approach the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in August 2025.

Pope Francis has called for the world to put a ‘cancellation of debts and a cancellation of war’ at the heart of the 2025 Holy Year commemorations.

BBC to Show ‘Threads’ – 9 October 2024

One of the most terrifying programmes ever shown on British television, Threads is the nuclear apocalypse drama-documentary that continues to haunt people’s nightmares 40 years on. Ahead of a rare new showing on the BBC, here’s a look at how the drama still has the potential to terrify people.

First broadcast on 23 September 1984, anyone who tuned in to BBC Two on that Sunday evening would experience a bleak and unforgettable depiction of a massive nuclear bomb attack on a British city and its aftermath… more

Read BBC Article

Report from St Alban’s: Prayers at the Peace Pillar for Hiroshima Commemorations

Peace Pillar at St Alban’s Abbey, Hertfordshire

By Mary Harber, Ss Alban and Stephen Church

Parishioners from Ss Alban and Stephen Church held a joint service with the St Albans’ Abbey community, and representatives of other churches and of Pax Christi, in Sumpter Yard at St Albans Abbey (Cathedral) on Sunday 4 August 2024.

This is an annual event which takes place on the Sunday closest to 6 August, when the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. 6 August is also the Feast of the Transfiguration.

This year the Pillar was relocated to a new site at the Abbey and to mark this change, the service started with a blessing of the Pillar in it’s new site.

Pupils from Loreto College produced Origami Peace Cranes which were distributed at all Masses in Ss Alban and Stephen Church at the weekend and were also distributed to those attending the service.

The vigil is always conducted at the Peace Pillar which is a gift from the people of Japan to the Cathedral.

It was given in 1982 to commemorate the decision of Dean Cuthbert Thicknesse to refuse to allow the Abbey bells to be rung to celebrate the end of the War in the East. At the time the Guardian reported the Dean’s decision, as explained at a council meeting on 14th August 1945, as follows:

“After the dean, who is the mayor’s chaplain, had opened the council meeting with prayer, he made a statement to the council. “Let it not be supposed,” he said, “that any of us withhold our due sense of gratitude for the mighty deliverance. The events of the last ten days had given cause for deep searchings of heart to many people. “The decision to use the atomic bomb was made by the leaders of the democratic nations. We are all, therefore, though without our consent, implicated in that act. I do not hold a service of thanksgiving in St. Albans because I cannot honestly give thanks to God for an event brought about by a wrong use of force, by an act of wholesale, indiscriminate massacre which is different in kind from all the acts of open warfare hitherto, however brutal and hideous.”

LINK

St Alban’s Cathedral: www.stalbanscathedral.org/

Rev Nagase with speakers and participants by the Peace Pagoda Photo: ICN

Source: Jo Siedlecka, ICN

The 79th anniversary of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki was commemorated in London on 9 August 2024, with a procession from Holy Apostles Catholic Church, Pimlico – following the memorial service for Blessed Franz Jagerstatter – to the Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park, led by Buddhist monk the Rev Gyoro Nagase with several monks and a nun from the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Order.

They were accompanied by representatives from several London churches, Pax Christi, Westminster Justice and Peace, CND and other peace campaigners.

Arriving at the Peace Pagoda they were welcomed by Mr Shigeo Kobayashi from Japan Against Nuclear UK (JAN). After a water sprinkling and blessing by Rev Nagase Shonin, participants chanted chapter 16 from the Lotus Sutra. This was followed by Christian prayers for peace by Catholic Deacon Rev Jon Dal Din, from Southwark Diocese, Unitarian Pastor Rev Fergus O’Connor and Quaker David Stephenson.

All participants then were invited to come forward to offer incense and flowers.

Mr Shigeo Kobayashi then gave a brief address, reflecting on the horrors of war in an atomic age, and calling for prayers for peace and harmony between all peoples and nations. He said that more than 74,000 people had died in Nagasaki, in 1945 but people there now still suffer the consequences of the bombing. He noted that for the first time the ambassadors of the UK and other countries had declined to attend the memorial service in Nagasaki, because the ambassador of Israel had not been invited. ( The Mayor of Nagasaki Shiro Suzuki, said that the reason for not inviting Israel was not political. Commentators suggested it was rather for security reasons.)

The last speaker was Ms Carol Turner, chair of London CND. In her address she warned that we are living in a very dangerous time, particularly with events in the Middle East, bringing us closer to nuclear war than we have ever been since 1945.

As an orange sunset began filled the London sky, the colourful lanterns on the steps of the pagoda, represented souls of the 74,000 people who perished in the bombing in 1945, started to glow.

Singer Brigette Bennett gave a beautiful acapella performance of ‘Song for Peace’ as the crowd slowly dispersed into the night.

Next year will be the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and Westminster Justice & Peace aim to mark the occasion with some special events to inspire future peace-makers. Mark 6th and 9th August 2025 in your diaries now!

Pax Christi

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

6 & 9 August 2024 – Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered

Westminster Justice and Peace will be joining Pax Christi UK for the annual commemorations of the events of August 1945 when two nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan, killing over 150,000 people instantly and causing devastating long-term effects for millions more.

You are invited to join us as we unite our prayers with peacemakers around the world and call for an end to all nuclear weapons so that they can never be used again.

WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL

6 August, 11.00am-1.00pm: Hiroshima Day – Vigil at Westminster Cathedral

Hiroshima Day Liturgy

Hiroshima Day Scripture Reading

Hiroshima Day Reading

Hiroshima Day Reflection

9 August, 11.00am-1.00pm: Nagasaki Day – Vigil at Westminster Cathedral

Nagasaki Day Liturgy

Nagasaki Day Scripture Reading

Nagasaki Day Reading

St Albans

4 August, 3-4pm: Hiroshima & Nagasaki Memorial Service, St. Albans Cathedral

Members of St Alban and St Stephen Catholic Church Justice and Peace Group will be among the participants at the annual ecumenical Hiroshima and Nagasaki Memorial Service on Sunday 4th August 2024. Meet at 2.50pm at Abbey Peace Pillar, Sumpter Yard, St Albans Cathedral.

Online

6 August, 8.00-9.00pm: Hiroshima Day Online Prayer Vigil

The Anglican Pacifist Fellowship and Christian CND invite us to join their online prayer vigil on Hiroshima Day. The vigil starts at 8.00pm and you can register here:

APF and CCND Online Prayer Vigil Registration

Interfaith Walk and Peace Pagoda Vigil

9 August 2024, from c. 7:30pm: Interfaith Peace Walk from Holy Apostles Pimlico to the London Peace Pagoda

Nagasaki Day coincides with the anniversary of an important martyr for peace, Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, and every year Pax Christi combines these two anniversaries with an ecumenical service, followed by an interfaith walk and vigil.

This year the service will take place at the Holy Apostles Church in Pimlico, in memory of the 81st anniversary of Blessed Franz Jägerstätter’s execution in 1943 for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army. 

Following the service, there will be an interfaith Peace Walk to the London Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park for a Lantern-Lighting Ceremony around the pagoda (not in the Thames!) This will begin when the peace walkers arrive at the Peace Pagoda, to commemorate the 79th Anniversary for victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all wars. The ceremony seeks to reflect on the horrors of war in an atomic age, and to pray together for peace and harmony between all peoples and nations. 

All are very welcome to join us at any point in the evening for the service, walk or vigil and to offer flowers and incense.

Pax Christi Website

Nagasaki Remembered

St Alban’s Cathedral Holds Ecumenical Memorial Service for Hiroshima and Nagasaki

6 August 2023, Memorial Service for Hiroshima and Nagasaki in St Alban’s, Hertfordshire

On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. On Sunday afternoon, Sunday 6 August 2023, some of the Cathedral congregation gathered alongside members of other local churches, including St Bartholomew’s and St Alban and St Stephen’s Catholic Churches, at the Peace Pillar to remember those affected by those bombings and to pray for world peace.

The Peace Pillar stands at the entrance to Sumpter Yard and was given by the people of Japan in gratitude that the Dean at that time, Cuthbert Thicknesse, refused for the Cathedral bells to be rung with other bells in the city to mark Victory in Japan because it had come at such a cost in terms of destruction and loss of life.

The Cathedral would now like to move the Peace obelisk, now very obscured by the tree and hedge (barely discernible in the picture above, behind the woman in red on the right), to a more prominent location.

We continue to pray for all who strive for peace in our own day.

Peace and Disarmament – Scottish Bishops Conference

Video from the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Scotland addressing Peace and Disarmament (2022)

In 1982, the Scottish bishops released a landmark statement on nuclear weapons. In this letter they challenged not just the use of nuclear weapons, something the church has always condemned, but they challenged also the very notion of deterrence and the morality of deterrence.

Last year, 40 years on – with the help of schools – bishops and anti-nuclear activists made a video version to endorse the words of the statement. The school pupils also call for peace education in the classroom as a right.

The Bishops have re-shared the video to mark Hiroshima Day, 6 August 2023.

Justice and Peace Scotland

Events to mark Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Diocese of Westminster

Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Diocese of Westminster

Pax Christi vigil outside Westminster Cathedral, 9th August 2022

The nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945) killed hundreds of thousands of people and left countless others living with the effects, many of which continue today. Those who survived the bombings, known as Hibakusha, have been leading campaigners for nuclear disarmament for nearly eight decades.

This year the Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship will come together on the evening of Sunday 6 August, 8.00pm, for an Online Vigil – ‘Reflections for Peace’ -including prayers, reflections and songs. While the evening will include prayers for the victims and survivors, it will also look forward with hope towards a world without nuclear weapons.

Register for the free Zoom link here.

In London, there will be also be a Pax Christi vigil and stall outside Westminster Cathedral from 11.00am to 1.00pm on both Sunday 6 and Wednesday 9 August.

On Wednesday 9 August there is a Service to Commemorate Blessed Franz Jägerstätter (1907-1943) on the 80th anniversary of his death at 6.30pm in the Crypt of Westminster Cathedral, which is followed by a walk to the London Peace Pagoda in Battersea to join an interfaith gathering to remember the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and pray for a world free from nuclear weapons.

In Hertfordshire, on Sunday 6th August, 3.00 pm, the Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation Group from Ss Alban and Stephen Catholic Church in St Albans mark the event with a short service on the theme ‘Against Nuclear Proliferation’ at the Abbey Peace Pillar in Sumpter Yard, Holywell Hill, St Albans, AL1 1BY. 

View All Pax Christi Events Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

New Prime Minster faces the ultimate first job

Source: Christian CND

By Russell Whiting|Published 

As Liz Truss prepares to take the reigns in Downing Street – Christian CND Development Manager Russell Whiting examines one of her first jobs as Prime Minister.

After months of campaigning and endless talk in the media, Liz Truss has now been elected as Leader of the Conservative Party and will take up the position of Prime Minster after visiting the Queen later in the week.

Much has been made throughout the campaign of the various crises facing the new Prime Minster, from energy costs, Ukraine and the wider cost-of-living crisis. Yet little has been said about one of the first duties Liz Truss will undertake when she arrives in Downing Street as Prime Minister for the first time.

Before any announcements on the economy, or even the appointment of the cabinet, Ms Truss will be asked by Senior Civil Servants to write the ‘letters of last resort’  – instructions for the submariners aboard the UK’s nuclear-armed Trident submarines in the event of an attack on the UK.

During a hustings in Birmingham Ms Truss said she was “ready” to give the instructions to launch nuclear weapons, despite the host prefacing his question by saying “it would cause global annihilation”. Despite the gung-ho rhetoric in public, we will never actually know what the letters say. As soon as Ms Truss has written her letters the ones delivered on behalf of Boris Johnson in 2019 will be destroyed without being opened.

According to an article in The Guardian in 2016 the options for the submarine commanders are “Put yourself under the command of the US, if it is still there”, “Go to Australia”, “Retaliate”, or “Use your own judgement”.

The issue of whether or not a politician would “press the button” to launch a nuclear attack has become increasingly political in the past decade – and especially since Jeremy Corbyn said he would not give the instructions were he to become Prime Minister.

Writing to Timothy in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul gives us clear advice on what our response to the new Prime Minister should be. We are to offer “petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving” for everyone, including “kings and all those in authority” which he says “is good, and pleases God our Savior”. While that instruction is always applicable, regardless of our own views about any Prime Minister’s policy agenda, we should be especially fervent in our prayers this week as Ms Truss prepares to undertake this most solemn duty, away from the political and media pressure to act tough.

Westminster Justice and Peace Newsfeed on Nuclear Disarmament

Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Hiroshima Day, 6th August 2022, Outside Westminster Cathedral

Westminster Justice & Peace joined Pax Christi, London Catholic Worker and other peace campaigners to remember the devastation caused by the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th and 9th August 1945.

We mourned for those who lost their lives, prayed for an end to nuclear weapons and handed out leaflets to visitors to the Cathedral.

On 9th August, the 77th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, we also joined a procession from Westminster Cathedral – following the memorial service for Blessed Franz Jagerstatter – to the Peace Pagoda by the Thames in Battersea Park, led by Buddhist monk the Rev Gyoro Nagase with several monks and a nun from the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Order.

Arriving at the Peace Pagoda, we were welcomed by Mr Shigeo Kobayashi from Japan Against Nuclear (JAN).

Colourful lanterns on the steps of the pagoda represented souls of the 74,000 people who perished in the bombing in 1945.

The monks led prayers and ceremonies with incense and chanting for all victims in Nagasaki and offered prayers for peace in the world.

Fr Alan Gadd, from the South London Interfaith group, offered a Christian prayer. Hannah Kemp-Welch, CND co-chair, gave a brief address in which she voiced fears over the increasing tensions in the world where so many countries have nuclear weapons.

Shigeo Kobayashi spoke about the urgent necessity of implementing promises made in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and hopes for the tenth Review Conference of Parties to the treaty (#NPTRevCon) which is currently taking place at the UN in New York. He said the danger of a catastrophic accident has never been greater – pointing out that the bomb on Nagasaki was actually an accident – the original intention was to drop it somewhere else but plans were changed because of the weather.

The Peace Pagoda was presented to London in 1984 by the Venerable Nichidatsu Fuji, founder of the Japanese Buddhist movement, Nipponzan Myohoji. Following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he pledged to build pagodas worldwide as shrines to peace. Altogether, there are now 80 peace pagodas worldwide.

“Civilisation is not to kill human beings, not to destroy things, nor make war; civilisation is to hold mutual affection and to respect one another.”

Rev Fuji

All are invited to join us next year to mark the 78th anniversary of the bombings and to continue, in the meantime, to work for an end to these weapons so that all may live without fear of them ever being used again.

Full Report: Independent Catholic News