Archbishop Etienne, Seattle Archdiocese continue to advocate for nuclear peace

SEATTLE — Eighty years ago, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“The fact of the matter is that when we dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, we dropped a bomb on the center of Catholicism in Japan,” said James Nolan Jr., a professor, author and founder of the Nagasaki Bell Project. “For centuries, Nagasaki had been the epicenter of the Catholic Church, and we destroyed the largest Catholic Cathedral in East Asia.”

Seattle Archbishop Paul D. Etienne embarked on his second trip to the sites of those bombings in two years after he, alongside Archbishop John C. Wester of Sante Fe, New Mexico, visited the country in 2023.

There the two archbishops met with Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura of Nagasaki, Bishop Alexis Mitsuru Shirahama of Hiroshima, and Archbishop Emeritus Joseph Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki to form the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons (PWNW) and sign a formal pledge.

The agreement urged for “concrete progress” to be made by the 80th anniversaries of the bombings, which are Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, respectively.

This time, Archbishop Etienne and Archbishop Wester are joined by Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago and Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of Washington, D.C., and will meet with the same Japanese bishops they did two years ago, along with Tokyo Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi.

Terri Nelson, the archdiocese’s director for human integral development, said that concrete progress has been made internally, largely in the form of the PWNW’s official bylaws, which were established late in 2024.

The bylaws revolve around promoting “the ratification and expansion of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and to promote activities to protect all life and the environment from all forms of devastating and pernicious harm caused by the development, testing, production, transport, possession, use, and threat of use of nuclear weapons.”

It states that the members of the PWNW want to build a network of Catholic organizations to achieve these goals.

“Nuclear disarmament is something we’ve been taking about for a long time,” Nelson said. “As the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said it’s morally wrong to have nuclear weapons. And yet, we’re a country that has [around 3,750].”

Through activities for remembering the events on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, journeying together with those impacted by nuclear devastation and protecting all life from nuclear weapons, the PWNW seeks to expand its membership.

In that vein, the group of bishops will be accompanied by members and students from the Archdiocese of Chicago, Archdiocese of Washington, Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities in North America, Georgetown University, Loyola University Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University and Sophia University in Tokyo.

Archbishop Etienne will speak at several sites on the pilgrimage, mentioning before the trip of his plans to speak about using weapons of peace rather than weapons of war.

“The world is in need of a revolution of love,” he said.

Nolan’s Nagasaki Bell Project will serve as a symbol of peace as it comes to fruition Aug. 9. While Archbishop Etienne is in Nagasaki, a new bell will be dedicated to Urakami Cathedral, funded by donations made by American Catholics, and replacing a bell that was destroyed from the bombing.

“That kind of suffering that the Nagasaki Catholics endured rests against the backdrop of a long history of suffering and persecution,” Nolan said. “I think we have a great deal to learn from them and from the kind of hope and perseverance they exemplified in the way they responded to these forms of suffering.”

Back in Seattle, Auxiliary Bishop Frank Schuster celebrated the archdiocese’s annual Mass for Peace at St. James Cathedral Aug. 6. After Mass, Jim Thomas, author of the new book “Atomic Pilgrim: How Walking Thousands of Miles for Peace Led to Uncovering Some of America's Darkest Nuclear Secrets,” shared highlights from his book, spoke on the issue of nuclear peace and disarmament as well as hosted a Q&A and book signing.

Thomas, a resident of Seattle, has researched the issue of nuclear disarmament since 1982, after he embarked on a peace pilgrimage from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and then from Cork, Ireland, to Bethlehem, dedicating a large part of his life to the cause.

“It’s been the grace of God [that] I’ve been able to focus on it for four decades now,” Thomas said.

“It really is incumbent on us, the citizens of the world, to raise our voices and to insist upon peace and disarmament,” he added.

Additionally, the Fierce Nonviolence Pilgrimage has begun traveling from Spokane to Hanford to Seattle to hear stories from communities impacted by the United States’ nuclear weapons, including hibakusha — survivors of the bombings — from Hiroshima, members of the Spokane and Yakama nations as well as the Marshallese community.

While they learn about the history and devastation of nuclear weapons, Thomas mentioned that it’s something few Catholics really know about.

Because of this, he and Nelson have created a nuclear weapons and Catholic social teaching Q&A for the archdiocese, to educate people on the Catholic Church’s stance on nuclear weapons and how people can respond.

Nuclear weapons are “not conducive to human life in any way, shape or form,” Nelson said. “If we use them, human life as we know it will no longer exist. It behooves us to educate and try to get rid of them completely.”

While the PWNW has progressed in its efforts to encourage others to push for disarmament, Thomas mentioned that the reality of the situation is that nuclear weapons are increasing in number and effectiveness.

“It’s going the other way. It’s rearmament,” Thomas said. “We’re spending tens of billions of dollars every year on just the weapons themselves — much more on top of that is modernizing the delivery systems. … It’s just a very, very bad situation.”

“When we think about what was dropped 80 years ago, to what our capabilities are today — bombs today have a minimum of a 1,000 times potential yield than what was used in Japan,” Nelson said. “So think of the obliteration that occurred. … What we can do today is exponentially worse.”

Read more as Archbishop Etienne blogs during the Pilgrimage of Peace at archbishopetienne.com.