Forbidden: Receiving Pope Francis's Condemnation of Nuclear Weapons

Moral theologians, defense analysts, conflict scholars, and nuclear experts imagine a world free from nuclear weapons At a 2017 Vatican conference, Pope Francis condemned nuclear weapons. This volume, issued after the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, presents essays from moral theologians, defense analysts, conflict transformation scholars, and nuclear arms control experts, with testimonies from witnesses. It is a companion volume to A World Free from Nuclear Weapons: The Vatican Conference on Disarmament (Georgetown University Press, 2020). Chapters from the perspectives of missile personnel and the military chain of command, industrialists and legislators, and citizen activists show how we might achieve a nuclear-free world. Key to this transition is the important role of public education and the mobilization of lay movements to raise awareness and effect change. This essential collection prepares military professionals, policymakers, everyday citizens, and the pastoral workers who guide them, to make decisions that will lead us to disarmament.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction Drew Christiansen, SJ Part I: How We Got Here 1. From Deterrence to Abolition: The Evolution of Roman Catholic Nuclear Ethics William Werpehowski 2. Just-War Lessons We Should Remember Tobias Winright 3. Philosophical Debate on Nuclear Deterrence Gregory M. Reichberg 4. The Moral Ecology of Deterrence and Abolition William Barbieri Part II: Witnesses 5. Nuclear Realists David Cortright 6. The Testimony of Witnesses Daniel Hall 7. Swords into Plowshares Carole Sargent Part III: Toward a World without Nuclear Weapons 8. National Attitudes toward Nuclear Deterrence James E. Goodby 9. 6 + 6 = 9: Law and Nuclear Weapons David A. Koplow 10. Abolition in the Context of General Disarmament Pierce S. Corden 11. New Models: Building Capacities for Nuclear Cooperation Richard A. Love 12. Nuclear Abolition and Global Human Needs Lawrence J. Korb Part IV: Evolution of Just War 13. Nuclear Disarmament: Ethical Challenges at or Near Zero Gerard F. Powers 14. Just Peace and Nuclear Disarmament Maryann Cusimano Love 15. Peacebuilding and Nuclear Deterrence Daniel Philpott 16. Prophetic Indictment or Deliberative Discussion? Bernard G. Prusak Part V: Conscience Formation 17. Formation of Conscience Regarding the Development, Possession, and Use of Nuclear Weapons Margaret R. Pfeil 18. Catholic Conscience and Nuclear Weapons Joseph J. Fahey 19. The Conundrum of Deterrence: A Practical Christian Response Lisa Sowle Cahill 20. Pastoral Accompaniment: Pope Francis’s Approach to the Human Vocation Drew Christiansen, SJ Part VI: Moral Education 21. Reviving Disarmament Education Kelsey Davenport 22. The Nuclear History Boot Camp David Holloway 23. Propaganda for Peace: Memes, Mass Moralizing, and the Great Game for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons Theodore G. Dedon 24. A World without Nuclear Weapons: Imagine It One Step at a Time John Paul Lederach Part VII: Responsible Actors 25. The Ethics of Nuclear Stewards Maryann Cusimano Love 26. In the Chain of Command Drew Christiansen, SJ 27. Responsible Actors Susi Snyder 28. The Condemnation of the Possession, Threat of Use, and Use of Nuclear Weapons: Reflections for Catholic Scientists and Technologists Pierce S. Corden 29. Morality Matters: A Parliamentarian Reflects on Nuclear Disarmament David Lammy 30. The Ethics of Manufacturing Nuclear Weapons Ramón Luzárraga 31. The Responsibilities of “Enabled” Citizens for Integral Disarmament and Sustainable Human Development James P. O’Sullivan VIII. The Role of Lay Catholic Movements 32. Organizing the Church for a World without Nuclear Weapons Kevin Ahern Index About the Contributors

About the Author :
Drew Christiansen, SJ, PhD, was Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Human Development in the Walsh School of Foreign Service and Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Ethics and World Affairs, Georgetown University. He was lead editor of the award-winning companion to this book, coauthor of Forgiveness in International Politics: An Alternative Road to Peace (USCCB), and former editor-in-chief of America: The Jesuit Review. He was on the Holy See delegation to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Carole Sargent, PhD, is author of an antinuclear activist biography, Transform Now Plowshares (Liturgical Press 2022), and coeditor with Drew Christiansen of this book’s companion volume. She is founding director of the Office of Scholarly Publications at Georgetown University.

Review :
Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by the team of Drew Christiansen, SJ and Carole Sargent, and of particular interest and relevance to moral theologians, defense analysts, conflict scholars, and nuclear experts imagining a world free from nuclear weapons, Forbidden: Receiving Pope Francis's Condemnation of Nuclear Weapons is a core and unreservedly recommended addition to professional, governmental, community, college, and university library Nuclear Arms Control and Religious Ethics collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. Christiansen and Sargent have provided an indispensable source on the moral and practical issues related to nuclear weapons and to Pope Francis's condemnation of them, and anyone interested in these issues would profit from reading the book in full. Forbidden, emphatically, is a book to borrow or buy. In this impressive edited volume, Drew Christiansen and Carole Sargent assemble thirty-two chapters in seven parts that react, interpret, and discern possible responses to Pope Francis's 2017 pronouncement that "firmly condemned" the possession of nuclear weapons. The volume achieves its stated aim of offering needed reflection and guidance to people in the Catholic community who wish to take seriously the challenge of being disciples in a world burdened by the existence of nuclear weaponry.