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Notes submitted by Classmates |
Subject: Nuclear Weapons-Note from yester year
still pertinent.
C1
From Classmate Jack Crawford 1/15/06
From Classmate Gene Malone: Something to think about-Also one can certainly admire Gene for his contribution to his Church. Gene was the secretary to the Roman Catholic Cardinal in Samoa for 12 years and actually wrote this letter for the Cardinal to be distributed in his name.
1 July 1995
PASTORAL LETTER AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING
TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD OF SAMOA:
My Dear People,
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He gave man dominion
over the land, the sea, and all the living creatures of the earth. "God saw
all he had made, and indeed it was very good", and so He made man
responsible in His name for the care and nurturing of all that He had created.
Once again from all the far reaches of the Pacific the voices of the people are
crying out in anguish and alarm. In the spirit of Vatican II we know that the
voice of the people is the voice of God. The voices of the people of God in
Samoa join in this fervent cry of protest against the proposed sin of France
against the people of the Pacific, our islands and our seas. The strong voice of
the Church is one in harmony with all those who cry for justice, peace and human
rights.
Nuclear tests are conducted to assure the reliability and effectiveness of the
most terrible engines of destruction and war that the mind of man has yet
conceived. The weapons are dedicated to the service of the worst in man's
nature. They are the tools of uncaring mass destruction and death. They are a
crime against love, justice and peace. The very concept of testing is evil for
it contains the threat of violence in its use.
The act of testing poisons forever the test site. Never in all the generations
we can foretell will the earth below Mururoa be clean. In earthly terms the
danger and the ruin will last for more generations than there have been since
the creation of man. Should that radioactive poison ever make its way into the
sea, into the air, the fish will die, babies will be born deformed, and
cancerous lesions will be our early death. This is the heritage that France
would leave the peoples of the Pacific.
The sin of China in its nuclear weapons tests is principally against its own
land and people; the contemplated sin of America is similarly against its own.
The proposed sin of France in Tahiti is entirely directed against a captive
colonial people, their lands and seas, their neighbors. No nation can own the
land and people of another, no more than any man may own another. Colonialism is
no more than mass slavery, the denial of freedom and human rights. Where in this
evil use of its colonial might does France find justice? Where in this sin is
our peace?
The arguments of politicians and their scientists that there will be no leakage
of radioactive contamination pit their selfish arrogance and intellectual pride
against the reality that the poison is here; the poison will always be here. Its
presence in our midst is evil; the possibility of its escape destroys the peace
of our lives. Those who speak for the tests are the enemies of justice and they
must not prevail.
The false arguments of others that the tests are a matter solely at the
discretion of France, a matter of national sovereignty, deny both the evil of
colonialism and the human rights and dignity of the people of Tahiti and of all
the South Pacific.
The fact that this evil has been done before no more justifies its repetition
than would the argument that a man having once committed rape is now free to
rape again. Indeed the similarity is there; France would rape with nuclear
explosiveness the people, the lands and the seas of the South Pacific. Shame.
The principles from which I write are universal, inviolable and inalienable.
Each of us has rights and duties of his own flowing directly and at the same
time from his very nature. Every one of us is a person endowed by the Creator
with intelligence and free will. The dignity of the human person is established
in the divinely revealed truth. Men are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ;
they are by grace the children and friends of God and heirs to eternal glory.
These rights and duties, this dignity, are not matters of governmental decree,
of colonial dominance, of the slavery of one culture to another. They are given
to us by God.
All human beings in every nation, in all our islands, must be able to enjoy
effectively their full rights and dignity under any political regime or system.
Only safeguarding this total completeness of rights for every human being can
ensure peace in its very essence, at its roots. Truth and love and peace are the
elements of our friendship with Christ, which is justice.
When leaders are men of truth and love and peace, there is justice. There will
then be in each man's heart a love for human dignity, the rights and duties of
all. A living and loving response to the voice of God as heard in the voice of
the people. The souls of the leaders are reflected in the lives of the people.
So it is that we must in prayerful solidarity pray for the success of all those
leaders who would save us from the unspeakable evil in our midst, the nuclear
sin of France, the poison that is forever here.
These thoughts and concerns I share with you are lessons in justice that you may
consider in your minds and hearts, your prayers. Your voices added to those of
others throughout the world who love justice, who thirst for peace, may raise a
noise sufficient to put an end forever to the evil we, the peoples of the South
Pacific, and indeed of the entire earth, may otherwise suffer.
Your servant in Christ,
TOP
___________________________
Cardinal Pio Taofinu'u
Archbishop of Samoa - Apia
END