The Hiroshima bombing anniversary is August 6th - 77 years ago.
The world is running out of time.
This is a great column. Small excerpts below.
The Anniversary of Hiroshima: John Paul II and Fulton Sheen on the Bomb and Conversion
St. John Paul II made the following remarks during his visit to Hiroshima on February 25, 1981:
Two cities will forever have their names linked together, two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the only cities in the world that have had the ill fortune to be a reminder that man is capable of destruction beyond belief. Their names will forever stand out as the names of the only cities in our time that have been singled out as a warning to future generations that war can destroy human efforts to build a world of peace.
John Paul continued: “To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war.”
Going further, he stated to Japan’s ambassador to the Holy See on September 11, 1999: “The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a message to all our contemporaries, inviting all the earth’s peoples to learn the lessons of history and to work for peace with ever greater determination. Indeed, they remind our contemporaries of all the crimes committed during the Second World War against civilian populations, crimes and acts of true genocide.”
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Ven. Fulton Sheen cuts right to the heart of these effects... pinpoints the moral turning point of country to “8:15 in the morning, the 6th of August, 1945,” when, he says, the world changed. The dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima
blotted out boundaries. There was no longer a boundary between the military and the civilian, between the helper and the helped, between the wounded and the nurse and the doctor, and the living and the dead. For even the living who escaped the bomb were already half dead. So we broke down boundaries and limits and from that time on the world has said we want no one limiting me. … You want no restraint, no boundaries. I have to do what I want to do.
Sheen makes the connection between the bomb and the moral chaos, which would follow in America, especially in the sexual revolution, when we initiated a culture of death.
Doing away with all nuclear weapons is a lofty goal, but I'm afraid it remains a pipe dream which would never work in reality. And the chief reason it would sure to be an abject failure is the profound fallen nature which mankind has struggled with ever since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden 6 to 7 thousand years ago, and which is not likely to improve anytime soon. Once the nuclear genie was out of the bottle in 1945, and mankind discovered the secret of how to construct a nuclear bomb, there was no going back. If the good guys were ever foolish enough to give up all their nuclear weapons, then only the bad guys would have them, since the bad guys certainly would not be foolish enough to give up theirs. Once this happened, an absolute murderous holocaust would ensue for sure.
Posted by: the Lion of Lakes - SWEAT | Wednesday, August 03, 2022 at 09:58 AM
That's a sad view of things. Because as long as they exist we can be sure they will be used again at some point. It was the so-called "good guys" who used them against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. John Paul and Fulton Sheen had it right.
Posted by: tom faranda | Wednesday, August 03, 2022 at 10:18 AM
It is a sad view of things, but it is reality. We have lived in a very sad world ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, not likely to change before the Second Coming. And furthermore, the final book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation says that this world will end in a violent conflagration between the forces of good and the forces of evil; NOT in a peaceful acceptance of God's will for mankind. No! The Bible had it right!!!
Posted by: the Lion of Lakes - SWEAT | Wednesday, August 03, 2022 at 10:33 AM
You must be reading from someone else's scriptures. Read the last chapter of Revelations - chapter 22.
Posted by: tom faranda | Wednesday, August 03, 2022 at 10:36 AM
No. I think it is you cherry picking passages you like. The end - Armageddon - is a violent conflagration. There is no getting around fallen human nature. It will always be there. The Book of Revelation confirms it. And your assertion that that "the good guys" used them in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only proves my point better. For, if not even the 'good guys' could resist the urge to use the weapon, then it is doubly or triply certain that the bad guys would surely use them, given the fact that they have even less of a check on their fallen human nature due to their rejection of God.
Posted by: the Lion of Lakes - SWEAT | Wednesday, August 03, 2022 at 10:47 AM
No as a matter of fact I think you are cherry-picking - and I think I have anunderstanding of the spiritual message of the scriptures. But it's not worth going back and forth on it. I will stick with Fulton Sheen and John Paul on this. You stick with your interpretation. You can have the last word.
Posted by: tom faranda | Wednesday, August 03, 2022 at 10:52 AM
It is not 'my interpretation'. It clearly says it in Scripture. I'll stick with the inerrant, inspired Word of God. And you can stick with whatever lesser lights you're sticking with. And you better not answer this message, since you already said that I can 'HAVE THE LAST WORD.' But if you should dare to renege on this promise, the multitudes will forever view you as dishonest!
Posted by: the Lion of Lakes - SWEAT | Wednesday, August 03, 2022 at 11:01 AM