Justice & Peace Scotland reaffirmed its opposition to nuclear weapons and marked the 40th anniversary of the Scottish Bishops’ historic 1982 declaration Peace and Disarmament.
A video, recorded in collaboration with Sancta Familia Media, features clergy, youth and laity reaffirming their opposition to nuclear weapons and the reasons for their position.
The video features Bishop William Nolan (Glasgow), Bishop Leo Cushley (Edinburgh), Bishop John Keenan (Diocese of Paisley), Bishop Brian McGee (Diocese of Argyll and the Isles) as well as young people from all the Catholic dioceses in Scotland .
Archbishop Nolan has long expressed his opposition to the arms trade and nuclear weapons. He said in a statement: “In March 1982 the Scottish Bishops issued a Pastoral Letter on Peace and Disarmament.
“In this letter, they not only challenged the use of nuclear weapons, which the Church has always condemned, but they also challenged the very notion of deterrence and the morality of deterrence.
“This challenge was not accepted then, but now more than ever the Church has come to recognize that deterrence is unacceptable.
“Unacceptable is also the fact that 40 years later these weapons still exist, but also that countries are spending huge sums of money to manufacture new and worse weapons of destruction – money, resources and personnel all of which could be better used to build peace rather than weapons of war.”
