We stand for peace among nations and peoples and for the preservation of our common home. - Photo: canva.com
Columban missionaries felt impelled to sign the Joint Interfaith Statement on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The first Columbans experienced first-hand the terrible effects of war in China. Columbans work among the poor in many countries around the world, whose lives could dramatically be improved with increased funding for development, but whose wellbeing is instead sacrificed on the altars of the vast profits of the arms trade.
Columbans work in Japan, the only country in the world to have experienced the devastation of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In the Columban Region of Oceania, we have experienced environmental damage and dislocation of local people because of nuclear testing in Maralinga in South Australia and Mururoa in the Pacific.
With the advanced delivery systems of today, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the risk of retaliation, nuclear war would have a wide-spread and long-lasting impact far beyond the targets of attack.
For all these reasons, the Central International Leadership Team of the Missionary Society of St Columban, and I as Director of the Columban Region of Oceania and of the Columban Centre for Christian-Muslim Relations, felt called to sign the Joint Interfaith Statement to the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
We stand for peace among nations and peoples and for the preservation of our common home.
Rev Dr Patrick McInerney
Regional Director of Oceania
Related links
- Read Final Statement: Joint Interfaith Statement on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons - PDF