New Stance on Atomic Bombs?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ส.ค. 2023
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The thing I'm afraid of is that during the disarmament process, the *last* guy to decommission his weapons has a crushing advantage over the people who've already disarmed. Francis' teaching is stern, but ... well, nobody ever said being a good Christian was going to be easy.
Don't worry because nobody's dismantling their nukes. Sadly.
*That* is why we mustn't never ever disarm, but constantly increase in armorment, as being well-armed is the sole certaintly of safety; and is the only thing that comes even close to allowing man to defend himself- so really, God *as* God is really a devil, due to His requirement to not resist one who's evil; and that whole stance is unequivacably heretical from God's own mouth.
@@EyeLean5280 No, that's a *GOOD* sign, objectively, especially as it is a direct righteous disobedience to God in His stupidity *as* He is really a highly abusive tyrant do to that singular directive to not resist one who's evil.
I wish Francis's teaching on homosexuality and adultery was as stern.
@@Dabhach1 We have much more reason to be strict in our condemnation of sodomy and adultery; things that're really intrinsically evil, as opposed to the *objectively good* possession and use of nuclear weapons- and any deterant is only useful if the other guy isn't sure it *is* just a deterant, but you may, just may, be likely to push the button; then it works- but if we ever, and I mean *ever* as a Catholic heed the papal teachings, then we are sure to be complely overrun by Hell's vassals that call themselves "Socialists". They were waiting all the time for us to disarm, only to invade and overrun us.
Never forget that it was the possession and use of nuclear weapons, WMDs that prevented mankind from being completely wiped out, so thus we know that the holy spirit is in fact a devil if he's teaching *this* sort of heretical nonsense that's been coming out of the papacy on this topic, plus nowhere in Catholic teaching is it forbidden to own, possess, and use weapons, even WMDs; that's the whole basis of the Crusades put into modern times for crying out loud, so those papal letters are in fact blatantly heretical, and they prove beyond any possible doubt that the holy spirit, the pope's protector, is in fact a devil while he is God- and thus by sheer logic: an infallible source, that God as God is a devil, and thus all worship is forbidden, and never has been permissible due to that single heretical dogmatic doctrinal teaching.
It’s also worth mentioning that it wasn’t just the atomic bombs dropped on civilians in Japan. The firebombing of Tokyo was every bit as bad as the atomic bombs, it’s just that the destruction was spread out over a longer period of time
Good point. The problem with the pope and others condemning the use of the two nuclear bombs on Japan is pointing out what would have been the "moral" alternative. Go forward with Operation Downfall? The planned invasion of Japan through the rest of 1945 and into 1946 that was estimated to have close to 5 million death toll? The difficult thing with Japan was actually defining who was a combatant and who was a truly innocent civilian. The Japanese population was so fanatical in the worship of their Emperor and the Japanese Empire and their willingness, and in some cases, desire, to die protecting both. A scary large portion of the Japanese society (children also) were being trained to make bamboo spears with the full intention of charging from hiding and killing as many invading American soldiers as possible before receiving a glorious death for the emperor and empire. American soldiers would have become emotionally conditioned to kill any Japanese person who merely approached them.
Had the bombs not been dropped, Japan would have been painted red with the blood of millions upon millions of American soldiers and fanatical Japanese civilians with Operation Downfall. Would surrounding the island of Japan and continued bombing raids resulting in widespread starvation to force surrender be more ethical than two nuclear bombings? I am just glad the war ended before Stalin had redirected the Red Army to Japan. Can you imagine the carnage that sick maniac would have spread in Japan? It is difficult to think that maybe the bombings truly were the least horrible decisions. If there was a better decision, what was it?
@@bluegrasskid4835That's consequentialism, Patrick.
@@bluegrasskid4835 Or the isolation of Japan by embargo, without invasion. That was the alternative.
100,000 souls in one night.
That’s not a very long time.
@@bluegrasskid4835 Perhaps the US could have left the door open for negotiation instead of insisting on unconditional surrender.
I can simultaneous say my grandfather may not have survived a land invasion and I may not be here today, while also believing that using the two bombs was a war crime and deeply immoral. I don't think this is a contradictory position to hold.
Agreed. I’m surprised by a lot of takes. This is the exact reason why Frodo was tasked with destroying the power of the ring (disarmament) rather than using it to prevent further death in battles. I think that the use of Atomic bombs are the kind of utilitarian thinking Catholicism is against.
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends”
People defending a nuclear bomb literally dropped on a cathedral (with consecrated hosts inside!!!) and still call themselves Catholic is beyond me honestly
I appreciate this take.
That implies there is only one nuke and those that made it somehow lost it along with recipe to make more of them.
You can see immediately why this is a poor metaphor.
Sauron could just immediately make another ring.
God wants humans to perish in nuclear fire or does he want them to go for the least worst option of MAD and a standoff?
Also we aren't talking about Gollum we are talking about avowed murders and sinners like Putin and Biden.
I fear the sword of Damocles which hangs over the heads of all mankind, but I also fear that were that sword to miraculously disappear, the great powers would at once be at each other’s throats as they were in the dawn of the last century.
The "great powers" have been at one another’s throats by proxy since WWII.
Yeah
Nuclear weapons have saved more lives by orders of magnitude then they've ever taken. I don't think this should change the church's teachings, but it is the truth.
It looks like the USA is falling apart. Too much cocaine in the white house. Russia is offering tools to other nations to help those nations keep the USA out. World peace is not impossible. We have a long way to go though and USA is like a runaway train in the wrong direction eventually it will come to a stop.
NATO!!!
Good discussion, Fr. Casey. Since even before I (briefly!) lived in community with my brothers in the OFM, I came to understand the Bible as a comprehensive commentary on Gn 1:27. If we do nothing else as Christians, we must uphold the sanctity of human life, which means condemning any philosophy asserting the necessity or utility or benefit of taking human life, and vocally condemning the taking of any life by any means whatever. We have many exemplars in this regard, including Fr. Daniel Berrigan, my brother Fr. Jerry Zawada, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and St. Francis himself. We are the Imago Dei. Murder, war, abortion, genocide, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and capital punishment are all ghastly and impermissible affronts to the truth of our standing as the sacred Image of God.
What about St Augustine’s just war principle?
What about Genises 19 and destruction of every man woman and child in Sodon.
Why did God instruct the Israelites to use capital punishment in certain situations?
@@yxtqwf why did Vatican City keep capital punishment on its statue books long after Liberal Democracies such as France, Italy, Australia, Norway abolished such.
The Churches usually follow Secular countries in law reform and moral development.
We also allow war, and killing in defense of others; so thus the teachings you cited are and always were, and always will be, completely heretical.
“Hard to come up with a more tragic event in all of human history.”
… man there are so many worse events. First one that came to my mind was the battle of Stalingrad
Communism? Maybe not an event, but communism has been much more destructive to human life than the bombs.
I graduated catholic grade school, high school and college. Then I joined the nuclear Navy. Served 22 years active and reserve. I was trained to systematically annihilate the Soviet military and government, as part of an efficient team. We live in a free world because we have an overwhelming nuclear response capability, if we were ever attacked. The two weapons used in WW2 were orders of magnitude lower than the weapons I trained with. Nobody wants to do it, but if the United States was destroyed by any enemy we would retaliate and completely destroy that enemy over a two week period. This, upon receipt of a legal order, issued by national command authority and properly authenticated. For nuclear deterrent to be effective it must be credible. I served with many catholic officers. Living in a free world with nuclear weapons allows freedom of worship, that is never allowed in Communist China, Soviet Russia, or Nazi Germany. Who picks the bishops in China? The CCP. Not the Pope.
The biggest, meanest rull rules the herd, that is the animal world
I'll take your word on this and God bless America we still got people like you defending the country, but let me offer a rebuttal to this by being very very preachy.
This world is fallen and nothing in this world: nations, families, friends, the Pope, etc. compares to an everlasting life lived in harmony with Christ. We strive not to gather possessions and power in this wretched world, we strive to be like Him, and to be like Him is to take up a cross and forgive our enemies, especially if they're red disgusting socialists who'd spit on an image of Christ. I know this path of preemptive and defensive force is a necessity to secure a future not only for the country and families, but also for the Church, but God's love is beyond them all and unless He literally goes Old Testament and dictates that we permanently cease the future operations of the enemies of the United States, we should live in utmost prudence towards those we deem as adversaries.
That's debatable. It can also be argued that the balance of terror also allowed the enemy to continue to tyrannize their population and control or forbid religion. It worked both ways.
Nuclear deterrence has worked so far. Much better than UN resolutions.
Were the two bombs dropped on Japan immoral? No more so than any other bombs dropped. The other bombs weren't very precise and also killed civilians. The bombs saved 100s of thousands of US lives and millions of Japanese lives. A nation's duty is to defend its people.
Here's the problem with deterrence, all it takes is for one side to call the others bluff.
Are you willing to call God's bluff of the existence of hell? We do not put our Lord to the test, nor would a leader of meager wisdom test another country's resolve to use a nuclear weapon. The moment one side launches a nuke, it's game over for everyone.
@@CaptainBill22 Well its a good thing there are no insane world leaders...wait...
And that's exactly the situation we have with Putin's vile invasion of Ukraine. He's using them as a human shield while holding nuclear bombardment over the rest of us, if the rest of the developed world does anything more than supply Ukraine with armaments. We're doing the reverse of what was done in Japan: we're aiding a conventional war in order to prevent a nuclear exchange.
I think a lot of commenters are missing the point of the video. Of course you can formulate a compelling argument for using nuclear weapons to prevent an even more devastating outcome - that is precisely why they *were* used. But Fr. Casey's point is that the Catholic Church teaches that doing such a great evil can NEVER be justified, no matter what argument you offer. If you see it differently, you disagree with the Catholic position, that's all.
I try to be as adherent to Catholic Dogma as possible, but I am having trouble with this. The government estimated that Operation Downfall (the land invasion of Japan) would result in 500,000 to 1 million American deaths and between 5 and 10 million Japanese deaths, and a large portion of the Japanese mainland would be in ruin in the subsequent 2 years of war. Conversely, the dropping of the bombs killed 150,000-200,000 people and brought peace upon the world 2 years sooner. The way I see it, both courses of action are evil and deeply regrettable, but war is often necessary. If I had the choice to invade or drop the bombs, I would choose the bombs, resulting in millions less of God’s children dying and allowing Japan to remain standing as a nation to be rehabilitated after the war. I agree with the Church that disarmament is the best path from here, but in my mind I can’t justify not using the atomic bombs
Well also most of us reject the concept that acts of war, during war, are inherently evil. Unless you just straight up say war is always bad, no matter what.
boomer here - & remembering what my parents said about the necessity of dropping the bomb - WWII was brutal - we fought on 2 fronts - German & Japan - lots of soldiers died, both in battle and in prison camps [Bataan death march] - the Japanese people would have fought over every square inch of Japan - and were prepared to do so . Such a battle would have destroyed most of Japan and most of her people, as well as our own casualties. We seem to want to simplify war, both the reasons and the people. There are not 2 groups in war - combatants & non-combatants. Everyone in a country is involved in war on its soil. And even when it is not on its soil, as was the case with US in WWII - every person was encouraged and most willingly engaged in the war effort - whether it was on the battlefield or making munitions, ships, planes, growing food for troops, or caring for injured soldiers. Entertainers were flown to troop rest areas to give them relief from stress of fighting. People at home bought war bonds to help the cause. And we would have fought at our own doorsteps if the battle came to US. [See the movie Red Dawn to get an idea of that mindset]. Yes there were people who didn't want to be soldiers - many became medics, radio operators, supply chain personnel, chaplains and other necessary tasks that didn't require hefting a weapon. But all were involved in the cause of liberty, and not just our own. Hindsight tends to smear the details and we seem to be rewriting history and the how and whys of various wars. Eliminating bombs - nuclear, dynamite or just plain gunpowder - can't eliminate the knowledge of how to make and use them. The problem is not the tools, it's what's in each persons heart. Keep in mind that a teenage made a nuclear device in his garage, ostensibly for a science project. We can't have science and technology without someone figuring out how to weaponize it. God Bless.
5:30 "the threat of their use" So where is the Popes condemnation of King Putin and the Russian Criminals about their threat of use of nuclear weapons? 🇺🇦How about the condemnation of Patriarch Kirill and his fervent blessing and support of the Russian Criminals???🇺🇦
Our Lady Queen of Peace, Pray for Us!
*Ave Maria Purisima/Bűn nélkül fogantatott*
Unfortunately the US and it's Allies where in a very difficult spot with Japan at the end of the War. Japan's goal was to make invading the Japanese home islands so costly for the Allies that they would agree to the Japanese terms which meant making peace with Japan but no occupation of the home islands by US forces, no change in government and no trial's for Japanese war criminals. The dropping of the Atomic bombs made clear to the Japanese Emperor that the US could inflict catastrophic damage to Japan from a distance without a invasion. Apparently the fire bombings where not catastrophic enough for the Japanese Emperor. This forced the emperor to make the decision that Japan needed to surrender and accept Allied occupation. A allied ground invasion would have caused millions of Japanese deaths both soldiers and civilians. After the war ended it was only the allied occupation that prevented mass starvation in Japan. Without the allied occupation, millions would have starved to death. War in itself is evil but sometimes difficult decisions have to be made and dropping the 2 atomic bombs was one of those difficult decisions that saved lives by bring the war to a swift conclusion. At the end the US was reading Japanese diplomatic messages since they had broken the Japanese codes and knew fairly well about Japanese strategy to bleed Allied forces. A good book to read on this subject is DOWNFALL: The end of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank.
Well said.
Maybe the bigger conundrum is in that scenario the Japanese leaders should negotiate for peace under reasonable conditions and their refusal to do so or reject of reasonable offers would leave the USA probably back to the same scenario they were trying to avoid. Natural Moral Law would require the Japanese leaders to save their women and children by surrender, and such a refusal is the conundrum.
Very true. The bombings were not “good” but they were the best decisions.
So, what's your point?
but the Japanese samuri code and Emporer worship would have never allowed it.@@whatsup3270
War is tough. It is ideal that non-combatants and wounded soldiers be treated humanely. For those who watched Transformers the movie in 1986, Optimus Prime treated Megatron humanely when we was wounded and assuming a non-combatant position. Optimus had mercy on him, and Megatron pulled a gun from nowhere and shot him to death. Another example is the 1917 movie where two soldiers tried to save a wounded enemy pilot. The enemy pilot stabbed one of the people who were helping him and then got shot by the other. It is hard for a soldier to know if a non-combatant or wounded soldier is going to attack by surprise or not. Soldiers have to be very careful, but I think still is possible for soldiers to be humane with them with the proper measures.
As innocent as doves, as wise as vipers
So glad to hear your thoughts on this can we maybe get a more in depth review of the OPPENHEIMER film on your other channel?
Tito and I did a review on our podcast, Everyday Liminality
@@BreakingInTheHabitwhat about "The popes Exorcist"? If you could review it on Upon frair review.
Morality is good to have in your backbone, but you cannot ask people to ignore the realpolitik. I'm sure every sane person wants nuclear weapons gone, but it's foolish to get rid of our weapons if authoritarian regimes retain theirs. That was the problem immediately after WW2 and is the problem today still.
Exactly.
Off topic: Are you guys bringing back Uppon friars review any soon?
I ask this question in earnest, but what do people think of the Japanese invading China and committing atrocities? Given the time period, after seeing what the Axis powers were doing, we can only speculate what was going through the Allied power’s heads. Nothing was off the table for them and hindsight is always 20/20. It’s easy for us to say this was an abominable action, and you’re absolutely right, but *they* only sought vengeance for the worst kinds of evil they’ve seen, however they also could’ve gone about it in a much more righteous way. To my original question though, I say this also because I’ve been seeing lately that there’s been historical denialism about Japan being a peaceful nation that had no blood on its hands, and it always rubbed me the wrong way when people downplay what Japan did. Again, I’m not condoning the use of nuclear weapons or atom bombs but it’s just something the Allies thought as necessary.
If we had not used Fat Man and Little Boy, it is very likely that there would not even be a Japan today.
The Japanese had demonstrated that they were willing to fight to the death to the last man. There is evidence also they were training mass numbers of civilians to fight as well.
Plus, they were warned days in advance.
The conditions today are not substantially different than 50 years ago. As a pragmatic matter, disarmament is not possible. We are not "on our way" and never were.
I think maybe perhaps if you had a father, husband, brother in the war and Japan was still fighting and had no intention of surrender (they would not even surrender after one was dropped, stubborn?) The US wanted to end the war and go home but Japan wanted to continue fighting . The war was over in Europe. and Japan was BRUTAL TO THE POW's and they deserved it. AND THEY ATTACKED THEY the US not the other way around.
Whoo, even more glad I'm not a Catholic now. You'll never be able to convince me that preventing the invasion of Japan was a bad thing. (And no, I'm not justifying evil for good, I disagree with your supposition that cities producing war goods are non-military targets.)
Truman had to do it. The casualty estimates were well over 1 million the 1st few days. If it came out later, the American people would have been furious that he sacrificed so many troops.
It prob also kept the European war turning into US/ England vs the USSR after the Nazis fell.
While I agree and wish we could live in a world without ☢️ weapons, it is hard for me to imagine that disarmament is actually possible. Like it or not, the people and nations are complicated.
Let’s assume 🇺🇸 and allies decided to disarm, will 🇷🇺 and 🇨🇳 do so as well? How can we know that those guys who actively use violence to suppress their own people and keep their power will accept to surrender their most powerful weapon?
I think Pandora’s box was opened in 1945 and putting that demon back in would be an utopia. That’s why realpolitik makes sense in this situation, dreaming of the world we’d like to achieve but playing by the rules of the world we live in.
What do you guys think? I’d love to read those who disagree.
How would this apply to a project Orion nuclear rocket?
This is a good argument if that project preceded the bomb in a "good creation used for bad intentions" way. This is different. The atom bomb was inherently evil and was used to end lives, either with good or bad intentions. Intent does not matter in the eyes of a Christian when it comes to the murder of innocents. Who were they that they would bomb the innocents just to prove a point against an unyielding imperial government? It was a necessary-evil to end more evil, but there in the word "evil" lies the intent.
Sure, the discovery of nuclear fission was revolutionary for humankind in every way, but the fact that governments are continuing to create larger and larger nukes to scare off the other is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.
In time, sooner than you think, you will regret ever commenting what you have written.
"As long as Moses held up the staff in his hand, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he dropped his hand, the Amalekites gained the advantage." Exodus 17: 11-13
...but you don't see THIS as an example of a weapon of mass destruction?
How about applying your concept of Proportionality to this?
Hello! What do Catholic scholars think about the practice of elective and neonatal circumcision? Could you make a video about it? Thank you!
I think you could do that research yourself for better understanding in that matter, but, to lessen your work, as written in Acts during the first council held in Jerusalem presided by Peter, they basically said "meh" and allowed anyone circumcised or not to be Christian, thus extending as to when or if you would have your baby be circumcised or if you decide to be circumcised. Therefore, Catholics, just like Peter, would probably say "meh" and do what you gotta do. To add on this, Paul was very outspoken on this matter since gentiles definitely didn't want anything removed from that region.
Coming from a predominantly Catholic nation where most men are circumcised, I still have to find someone who regretted it or wanted to imprison their parents for "mutilating" them. For them, honor your father and your mother. Very profound understanding of an act being complicated by the "ME! ME! ME!" movement.
Seems to me that it should be a best medical practice issue. Ask a urologist.@@annalgesic5874
Fr. Casey Could you PLEASE do a video on celebrating Jewish holidays such as Passover and Yom Kippur
We need to get this for Father Casey. I have questions about this too.
Same@@Sleepyuncletony
Easy one, leave that to the jews. It's theirs.
Definitely a great idea -- perhaps understanding the Jewish High Holy Holidays can enrich and deepen understanding of the Catholic experience.
@@Sleepyuncletony But how do we get this to him? We need answers and the only answers I can find are all from Messianic Jews.
"was it ethical? It wasn't!"
Except it was. It was because the only reason we used them was to end the war as soon as possible. Japan was willing to fight to the last man. Death before dishonor.
If you want to look at it from a religious lense, all we did was show them God Fire, twice. There is argument that it was overkill, but considering what Japanese soldiers did in China and the rest of Asia, was it?
But Japan was ready to surrender under the right conditions but the US gave them an ultimatum "unconditional surrender or utter and total destruction".
@@SP-ct2rj Yes the Japanese war machine was to be completely and unconditionally dismantled
@@SP-ct2rj
Unconditional surrender was the only option since many figured out that leaving Japan or Germany unoccupied will create the whole "stab in the back" theory starting the whole problem again
@@genghiskhan5701 I’m not sure how this is supposed to convince me that dropping atom bombs on civilians is thereby justified. It’s the equivalent of state sponsored terrorism. Bombing civilians to get the country to capitulate. Sounds like isis and alqaeda. We aren’t utilitarians but we know that committing the lesser of two evils is still an evil. And with the atom bombs it was the greater of two evils because it traded military with civilians.
A very thought provoking and interesting video thank you
I can't say I agree with the Pope on this subject. Leaving aside their historical use, the focus on saying that investment into arms and the possession of nuclear weapons is wrong is not correct.
The simple fact is, disarmament leads to death. We saw that in Ukraine. All people of the world deserve security, but unfortunately there are evil actors who would use the threat of force to coerce others. It is therefor necessary to arm ourselves.
A world without weapons is an okay ideal, maybe in the future when all authoritarians have been deposed that might be possible. But in our imperfect world, deterrence is necessary. What is necessary to prevent war can't be immoral. Without nuclear weapons and their fear, I feel that the world would have been engulfed in a third global conflagration by now.
The bombs saved millions of lives.
By violating a fundamental principle of Catholic moral theology. No intrinsic evil can be supported for the sake of good. To intentionally do harm, even if to save others, is morally corrupt and leads us down a horrible road.
@@BreakingInTheHabit I'm catholic. I've studied the pacific war extensively. Foreign Minister Togo had a meeting with Emperor Hirohito. The Emperor said the bombs made him decide to end the war. every day Japan didn't surrender 8-14 k people were dying in Asia (Not Japanese). if the war went on for 6 months to a year longer up to 5 million non Japanese would have died. that doesn't include Japanese civilians (millions) would have died during operation downfall in the fall of 1945.
@@BreakingInTheHabit ending the pacific war as soon as possible was the most humane thing to do.
@@martthesling I recommend that you read "Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan." It is at the leading edge of scholarship on this important issue. As to the Catholic perspective, the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki nearly wiped out the entire Catholic community within the city (the bomb detonated over the Urakami district, the largest concentration of Catholics and the site of two of the oldest Cathedral Churches in Japan). A good book to read would be "The Bells of Nagasaki" to get a better understanding of the suffering.
@@Navigation_Recommends how would you have had Japan surrender? explain it to me.
So, suffering 1 - 3 million casualties in a full invasion of Japan (and that's just Allied casualties) is better? They were an implacable, imperialist and cruel enemy at the time. How do you answer this?
They cannot, so they will not
“I don’t know what WW3 will be fought with, but WW4 will be fought with stick and stones”
Wrong! World war four will be fought with samurai cyborgs and giant robots with giant lasers on their head. Einstein was wrong sometimes and that's ok because he is still the smartest man in history.
They'll be using laser muskets and pipe pistols. The lucky ones will have mini nukes.
Yep. We have to get there quicker.
I agree that dropping an indiscriminate weapon is bad, that ends don’t justify means, and that we should work towards ending war, but these don’t apply to Japan. A family member of mine was at the signing of the treaty that ended World War II. One of the terms of surrender is that all Japanese weapons would be covered with a cloth so that disarmament could take place. According to my family member, “You couldn’t see the ground; there wasn’t anywhere there wasn’t a white sheet.”
The Japanese were not innocent civilians. They were all militarily involved in the same way that Americans would be if they had to use their 2A rights. Stop attributing the horrors of war to nuclear weapons of eighty years past. Hiroshima is flourishing. We can work towards disarmament today but only with international cooperation. Because WMDs have gotten indiscriminate, the civilized western world has foretold horror, but as long as the eastern countries have no respect for their own people, they will not cooperate.
A lesser of two evils is still evil, but a choice needed to be made. Doing nothing was not an option. We can both be Monday night quarterbacks, but the reality is that war can never be totally moral. So as it is, we have to defend our nation and our values, for failing to would be evil as well.
Nico Machiavelli: “the ends justify the means”
Jesus H Christ: “love your enemy’s, and bless those who curse you”
Jesus had no middle name (the H is silent-SNL)
@@Cjnw if you wanna get technical it’s Yeshua
To many Asian countries, the surrender of Japan after the dropping of the atomic bomb is a blessing to them as they were then liberated from the brutal and savage reign of the Japanese colonisers. Many civilians died and women raped with pregnant woman' womb sliced open and babies impaled. The atrocities of the Japanese occupational forces knew no boundaries. The nuking of Japan saved these Asian countries from further atrocities and ended the War. For this many remained grateful to the US and became its allies till this day. Dont let Liberal wokes and Japanese ultra right wing propaganda mess up the minds of many who didn't experienced the War. More American lives would have been lost.
That is true but they were doing that to each other even before the European colonization of the Pacific and south east Asia.
The woke refer to them as humans, not Asians.
I am Chinese and the Japanese committed atrocious war crimes in many countries(that they have yet to own up to). My family members were directly impacted. But the ends don't justify the means, and all those Japanese civilians were not the ones participating in war crimes.
Who built the war machine, the people@@dansedevie123
Great video
I normally agree with you Fr but this one challenges me, especially your suggestion that there is a sharp distinction between civilians and soldiers in combat. In real life, the distinction is not so clear. As for ditching all the nukes, I’m on board with that, so long as they go first. The nuclear genie (Jinn!) is not going back into the bottle so perhaps the Church can teach us how to live with this evil.
Just to be clear, I haven’t shared any opinions in this video. This is straight Catholic teaching.
@@BreakingInTheHabit Thank you for your reply! That why I said it “challenged” me… and challenging “devout Catholics” like myself should affirm your vocation :-) I used quotation marks around devout Catholic because it was the term used by the Deportment of Children and Family (DCF) here in Massachusetts to deny adoption to a Catholic couple.
In an era of total war everyone is a combatant, and nowhere was this more true than in WW2 Japan. Church teaching is great, but it only applies if it matches facts on the ground
Just going based upon what was said in Oppenheimer and also by somewhat of a chronological order of 1940s history, but if apparently the atomic bomb during WWII was originally supposed to be used for the Nazis but by then they were defeated, why did the U.S. decide to drop them on Japan in the first place?
The US dropped the bombs to force a Japanese surrender. If Germany hadn't surrendered before the Atomic bombs where ready then Germany would have had the weapons used on them.
The bombs were to end the war and save US lives, however and let's be honest, without use the military never really knows what weapon it has. Many a great plan has failed and that is especially true of weapons. From a pure military point of view and invasion of Japan was expected to be vicious and cost many, many lives.
People will say it was to save lives and prevent an invasion of Japan. But in my opinion, it was far more political. It was to prevent the Soviets from advancing and occupying Japan. The US knew that the Soviets were going to turn their gaze toward Japan and wanted the war to end before they had a chance to claim territory.
@@Cklertkeeping the Soviet from doing to Japan what it did to to Korea was a good plan.
Um, because the US was also at war with Japan concurrently and Japan was a fellow axis power that was also committing war crimes and hadn’t surrendered?
Singling out nuclear weapons as a special enemy to be erradicated is not intelectually honest. The conventional bombings Germany and even Japan endured were much worse in both economic and human losses. While it is an inherent evil to target a city during war, it could be argued (although not very hard) that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate military targets given them being respectively the headquarters of the 2nd Army and the site of the Mitsubishi Shipworks that produced the biggest battleships in the World. If the war had continued, the damage inflicted would have prevented any new ships from endangering American ones. Also, the planned Operation Downfall would have caused incomprehensible harm to both military and civilians in Japan alike and the war ending earlier is a big reason why Japan did not become a pile of rubble like Germany did. It's undeniable the role that nuclear weapons have played in preventing direct conflict between major world powers. The war in Ukraine would not have happened if not for Ukraine giving up its nukes. It's a dangerous zero-sum game but it's much worse to not have nuclear deterrance and the world witnessing frequent bloody conflicts between the biggest armies in the world.
1:13 I believe you, but I'd like to have the document.
We're currently living in the single most peaceful period in human history, and this peace is largely maintained via the threat of nuclear weapons. Given this, I would argue that there is a moral argument to be made for the possession and potentially even the limited use of atomic weapons in certain circumstances.
I don't think it is peaceful, they just moved wars outside of the first world, but there have been constant wars, dictatorships and tyrants ever since ww2 ended
No it's not, utilitarian consequentialism is a heresy
@@james-chit’s self defence not consequentialism
@@helwrecht1637 dropping bombs with the intention of murder is not 'self defence' do you even know what self defence is?
I don't know if you've been hiding under a rock, but Ukraine and Russia are at war, there's a war brewing in Africa, Myanmar is still at war with their Junta, the list goes on and one of the wars I've mentioned is between a country that has nuclear weapons and another whose allies have nuclear weapons. If this is deterrence, then i dknt want it. Also, peaceful? Don't compare your safe space to the world, Biden's one ice cream cone away from accidentally pressing a shiny red button 😂
Off topic,
Could a 60 year old widower become a Trappist Monk or a Priest?
Idk about a Trappist monk or Trappist priest, but you certainly can become a regular priest.
Talk to your bishop's office.
Visit some monasteries. They all need new blood. Maybe one or the other is open to a bit of old blood, too. 😉
Whilst it was absolutely horrific, none of us ever will ever have to make the decision.
Also, do you really think that Ukraine would be invaded if they still had nukes?
Is this video released due to the recent event over at the Pacific? Gossip says that those are new and modern types of weapon. I wonder what the Church is saying about it.
I am a staunch 2nd A comservative, and believe wars should won quickly. However, you have to have a serious moral blind spot not to find a first strike nuclear attack on a civilian target problematic.
This is a good take
To add to this, the reason why Hiroshima was A-bombed first was because it was a suitable testing site for the bomb's destructive power since there were still operational munitions storages in the area and most of the big towns and cities at that time have been destroyed by fire caused by previous fire-bombings. This was the theoretical reason why Tokyo wasn't bombed first (that and if the emperor died, Japanese soldiers would probably enter into berserker mode)
So you are a unilateralist? You'd rather the enemy use WMD first?
Some topics like this might be better served with a roundtable discussion than in this one-man format.
I'd love to hear Fr. Casey, Jimmy Akin, Bishop Barron and Fr. Gregory Pine have a longform discussion on such things as the bomb. (What they would all agree on, of course, is that the bomb can never justifiably be used to purposefully target civilians for the sake of inducing an enemy's surrender via terror, as was the American tactic in WW2.)
Yesss I love Fr. Gregory Pine
Why not? It worked and saved millions of Japanese and American lives.
I could see a legitimate use for nuclear weapons in mining applications, on earth or in space.
Or just because explosions are fun. God created hi-explosive to bring us joy! He combined it with low explosive and the invention of coke cans so that we all my go forth and plink!
What happened to the other channel?
And no... Nukes should not exist
Thanks father ✝️☦️🛐
What about the comploance of civilians? Drezden germany was manufacturing arms and ammunition for the war. At what point is a civilian makimg bombs and absoldoer driving a truck with artillery to resupply the artillery guns not a soldier?
Ukraine surely regrets giving up the nuclear weapons on its territory to Russia in the 90‘s
What about lying? Isn’t that an intrinsic evil? But if you are sheltering a family of Jews in your attic in WW2 when the Gestapo knock on your door and ask you if you have seen any Jews recently, I have always thought that, in almost paradoxical way, you are morally OBLIGED to lie as the lesser of two evils. Am I wrong?
This is being too absolutist.
Lets all agree that atomic bombs are nothing but destroyers.
Two of them finally destroyed the Japanese war machine
Great video! I am a Catholic , American, and a member of the US Navy and work in Intelligence. While it is not ideal that the US, Russia, and China all have massive destructive capabilities with nuclear weapons, is deterrence the worst case?
I would love to take the nuclear wild card out of play, but I also think more war would come without the threat of mutually assured destruction. On the opposite side of that, the methods to nuclear technology are public. If no one had nuclear weapons, then the country, private company, or terrorist sect who decides to not listen would then become as powerful as the US, Russia, and China.
The Western nuclear alliance has allowed us to dominate the World and ensure our safety.
I've never believed the atomic bombs were justified and I never ever will.
. I debated to and fro . Now I have a side I can come down on . I defer to those I trust that are more moral and smarter than I.
Great video thanks. A definite Not right from here on.
I suppose this applies to all weapons of mass destruction and indiscriminate injury, such as chemical and cluster bombs? Why wouldn't it apply to all guns and weapons of all kinds?
because a gun can be used discriminately while mass destruction is indiscriminate killing.
@@whatsup3270 Mass shootings in America would beg to differ.
@@kentslocum I think that is a backwards question, what is the beneficial used of an A-Bomb. For example car crashes kill 30,000 Americans a year, however the car is designed to kill no one. Guns while certainly abused could be used beneficially.
@@whatsup3270 I know they're not the same thing; I'm just pointing out that we need to address the root issue of violence instead of simply banning certain weapons. Because when you ban weapons of mass destruction, the only ones who will have them are the ones who don't follow the rules.
@@kentslocum like napalm and nerve gas which everyone should keep with their children, so they will be ready if another has it? (LOL, a little sarcasm)
I'm always kind of torn by various church teachings that don't apply to individuals but to nations. The Vatican as a nation state could have a legitimate opinion in my view but I also think religions should stay out of national politics.
As for the topic of this video, I tend to agree it ended the war earlier and caused less casualties. Okinawa had over 100,000 dead, and Tokiko firebombing had 100,000. The Japanese would not have given up and there would have been far more dead (including Americans).
The information was given in a fair way I think - I just disagree.
I love that Catholicism in Focus is back!
You know it’s been back since January, right? Hopefully you’ve seen all the others!
@@BreakingInTheHabit I have! I felt extra appreciative today lol.
I believe it would be great if nuclear weapons were banned, but until everyone dismantled their arcenal, I will support my country to own one, for the sake of my own people.
That is the Western philosophy on WMD. The West has already unilaterally destroyed an entire class of WMDs (biological) in the early 70s. The intention is the remove every nuclear device. This is also the teaching of the Roman Catholic church. But Pope Francis has never advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament or excommunication of Roman Catholics engaged in development, deployment and use of WMD. Br Case Cole is wrong
Seems to me, in and of itself, nuclear bombs (or any bombs) when used against human lives, are a bad thing, because killing is basically a bad thing; it is not good that men die, especially from something as brutal as radiation. But like homicide, when left with no better options, when deescalation or incapacitation is impossible, it is permissible to kill in self defense, even though the death is not a good thing. Killing becomes somehow a moral act when all other alternatives in a bad situation have been exhausted. If the US could swiftly end a bloody war to prevent the scale of death from invading the Japanese mainland, in an extreme enough way to cause them to lose morale for the war, and do it before Stalinist Russia can take advantage, going so far as to drop leaflets to warn the citizens to leave before the bombing, it seems the nukes are the best option amidst an overall bad situation. I have doubts about calling it a sin outright (especially mortal sin), since one is judged on their full knowledge and deliberate consent on a grave matter, if one seriously cannot think of an alternative to nukes (and let’s say there is a better way but you can’t think of it), can full knowledge really be met? Perhaps it’s venial sin then, but I really don’t see how choosing the least bad option within context is mortal sin. In hindsight it’s a good thing the nukes didn’t leave Hiroshima and Nagasaki irradiated wastelands and they were able to rebuild.
I think it’s like a modified trolley problem: a train is coming, there is a Y in the track, one side has 5 people strapped on the track, the other has 1, and you have to choose which way to send the train or a bomb goes off and everyone including you dies. If there’s no way to stop or derail the train or remove the people off the tracks and save all of them, it seems the only sensible thing you can do is make it go to kill the one person, saving the 5 and yourself. If it was possible to stop the train, then that is obviously the better option. We know God is merciful and powerful enough to bring good out of evil.
The only post WWII pope Father Casey failed to mention was John Paul I. But the reason for that should be obvious: he only occupied the Chair of Peter for less than a month.
@BreakinginTheHabit I have a friendly challenge for you or any Catholic for that matter starts w a question because I have a claim that Catholics cannot claim so question first then I’ll go into the claim and go from there.
How does one receive the Holy Spirit in Catholicism?
Subtitles please!!!!
*It's not hard to come up with a more tragic event. It's literally riding the coattails of the more horrific event in history.*
Also, Japan would not have surrendered without using the nuke. Also, citizens were warned days in advance.
Wrong
Right
If we could create ways to make enemy Atomic Bombs unuseable then disarming them would be possible, but it is still not yet possible. Thus if we disarm ours, and our enemies do not, we may well be destroyed. I think it would be wiser to spend money making shields that protect against Atomic Bombs.
Perhaps using cyber warfare? Preventing the silo doors from opening would prevent a launch because, you know, it's just gonna explode at its own launch site.
How nice would it be if all nations agree to this at once and keep an end to such cruel weapons. But sadly there will always be few who will not follow the rules, so its not wise for the leading nations to disarm themselves immediately, but maybe in a future day, when humanity in its entirety reach an advance Level of knowledge, spiritual awakening and mutual consensus we may be able to create a paradise where such weapons may not be necessary other than to prevent an impending threat from an outside source such as an asteroid or an alien invasion.
Like POTUS once said, no matter how justified war only promise one thing, that is tragedy.
Can we please change that guitar intro/outro?
You didn’t even give a reason why it should be changed
Shout out?
what is the popes stance on cross bows ?
I wish world wide nuclear disarmament was as simple as "tomorrow everyone disarm". But I don't think that'll happen unless we become a more united people. Which has been an issue and the leadership of a lot of countries are not necessarily peace loving.
Let's reflect on the use of nuclear weapons in WW2.
Option A: Millions Perish (Invasion)
Option B: Several Hundred Thousand Perish (Bombs)
Arguing that the deployment of "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" was entirely unethical neglects the broader circumstances of the bombings and the imminent threats from Japan. One issue with my generation is our prolonged experience of peace, which sometimes skews our modern perspective on past events. Furthermore, it's essential to recognize that pamphlets urging evacuation were dispersed before the bombings. That's an oversimplification of history right there.
3:00
As a member of the US military, I can tell you we do not live in a time of peace. We’ve been at war my entire life, and I can say without a doubt I would rather a million people die in justified conflict than 1 child murdered for the sake of war.
It’s not the killing of enemy combatants that destroys veterans’s mental state, it’s those instances of the killing of innocents.
This mindset you give is one that completely dehumanizes the other side of a conflict. We are all people. I don’t want my family murdered by a nuke, and I am just like them. A soldier doing a job.
Similarly I know that I can be justifiably killed, just as I can kill them. That’s war.
Your mindset is one that lacks any form of honor.
I am so glad that the world has moved past this all out conflict idea, and I think it came as the draft died.
Since the military is selective again, we now fight with honor again.
@@Leo-vr3bg While you are correct that we've had the GWOT and been in combat in places like Africa, objectively, the violence of the 20th century is several orders of magnitude larger than that of today. Which is really what I'm saying. Most of this generation doesn't know violence, combat, or suffering. That doesn't undermine your service, by the way, it's exemplifying its rarity.
I could also argue that your perspective dehumanizes the sacrifice of the millions that would have died and the lost generations that followed if the nukes hadn't been dropped.
@@robert4049 but the difference being that they would have a choice.
Thousands of innocent lives destroyed in the blink of an eye is far worse than millions dying by choice. The choice to live and die by the sword. That is what I’m getting at when I say this mindset lacks any form of honor.
Surprised that you did not mention that a great many of our brothers and sisters in Christ died in Nagasaki
Two things that never should have been created by humans. The atomic bomb and Covid-19.
Lol stop your conspiracy theories nonsense
Covid-19, just like any other pandemic, was another pandemic in the long history of man kind
I guess that's a good reason to seperate church and state.
La La La Bomb LaLaLa!!!!
How does possession of such things become ethical. Like examining the moral act itself, I suppose I can see some argument for it accidentally going off its use case being particularly for mass killing.
His words saying it’s to be firmly condemned do sound strikingly similar to the language of its always inadmissible when speaking of capital punishment however just like the death penalty being inadmissible doesn’t change the morality of the act to always immoral a very different thing from inadmissible. I don’t think it’s necessarily an immoral act simply to possess Weapons of Mass Destruction. It would be an interesting video for you to examine the morality of the act of possessing such a weapon by going over the moral criterion of any given act!
Also think we need to be careful in our language regarding change of church teaching esp around the death penalty as it hasn’t been changed because such a reversal firstly hasn’t occurred and the morality of that act cannot be deemed immoral in all cases esp. when we consider Natural law theory. The act may be deemed moral yet we can still say it’s inadmissible in all cases today.
What about tactical nukes? Those are battlefield weapons. Not like the big ones.
As for disarming, that would be great as long as everyone else did it. It would only take one nation to lie and keep their weapons, or just manufacture replacements after disarming, or even create their first one, to cause unimaginable death and destruction, because a country that would do that would do so because of intent to use it soon. I have to disagree with him about it being a sin to possess nukes.
I mean... Isn't old testament God a weapon of mass destruction?
So what would you have done to end WW2? Invasion of Japan or Atomic Bomb?
Another thing is if the US decided to withdraw from having one, Russia and China or even North Korea would take their chance ... Now possessing and development of new kinds is a must, just as in the 50s.
Personally I'm concerned with the stance that possessing them is sinful, simply because bombs can be used for good, not just war. Perhaps we want to create a giant hole in the ground one day for a construction project, or we could use them to generate power. It's not the explosion we're condemning, but how it affects life. As long as the radiation could be mitigated I don't see anything wrong with using explosions for good purposes.
You don't use a nuclear bomb for that.
But you could, and thats the point. Look up project Orion, it was an atomic bomb based propulsion system from the 50s, worked just fine in the extremely limited scale tests
@@stananders2333 Exactly, a fellow aerospace nerd
@@stananders2333 Nuclear reactors are not the same than atomic bombs,
Bombs used to make big holes aren't called bombs, they're explosives. A bomb is created and engineered for the sole purpose of efficiently destroying whatever your opponent has. Nuclear Plants don't use bombs, they harness the power generated by the fission/fusion of atoms. A bomb harnesses that very power to destroy. Also, no one is condemning explosions, they're condemning bombs. You can cite to me the dictionary term for a bomb, but nothing will change the fact that society, even laws, see the word bomb as something destructive.
Also, using nukes to create a big hole? Really?
"As long as the radiation can be mitigated..." Yeah, if an idiot decided to create an atom-splitting bomb that didn't emit radiation (which is impossible and useless to mitigate) just to make big holes, sure. Just so we can be clear, using bombs to make holes is extremely messy (where do you think the dirt goes?) and may contaminate the land due to the chemicals required to create the explosion. It wouldn't even penetrate the required depth to create foundation. Don't even get me started with using nukes to mine ores 😂
You definitely sound like a child 😂
Review any recent podcast where Richard Franks explains how the use of the atom bombs was better than starving millions by blockade or losing way more combatants in the invasion of Kyushu and that forcing the war to end saved the lives of countless others in Asia who were under brutal Japanese occupation and dying at a frightening rate. You may or may not agree, but since I had a father stationed in the Pacific theatre, and an uncle who had already given his life in a B-24 mission over Germany you can guess where I come down on the issue.
Take those nuclear weapons apart and use them for nuclear impulse rockets. Then you can go from destroying God's creation to visiting it in all its stellar grandeur.
If your threshold for an unjustified act in war includes “indiscriminate destruction” of cities (including those built up around military bases), Hiroshima and Nagasaki are just two of possibly 100 attacks… and those two didn’t even have the highest death toll for city attacks.
Through two high losses of life, and dozens more events like it it 1945, untold millions survived and conflict came to a swift end.
Our pope is in La La Land
Welp time to hand in my h bombs 😅
Just war😂. There is no such thing. War is fighting evil with evil
I prayed against my dreamt that I had couple years ago. I was up the air next to Jesus looking down the earth 🌍 and I saw seven nuclear bombs dropped on the USA (seven different States) 🇺🇸 because we have taken God out, sins of abortions, etc.
Jesus I trust in you!
Most Precious blood of Jesus Christ cover, save and protect us and the whole world.
Let us all Repent daily and pray for the loss souls away from God. Including my two adult daughters too.
Thank you so much for posting this video. I have always felt that the dropping of nuclear bombs was an absolutely immoral act. I didn’t know the Church held that to be true as well.
Don't be quick to take the word of Father Casey on matters Catholic.
What's the point in having weapons that you're unwilling to use? It only gives a risk that there will be an accident with them. Of course, without them, well....y'all know what would happen. And the church would suffer too.
It is widely and reasonably believed that the atomic bombs saved millions of lives. American, Japanese even Soviet.
If it becomes a required Catholic belief that possessing or using nuclear arms of any kind is wrong, then I will have to pray for my unbelief.
That is not Roman Catholic teaching
@@russellmiles2861 I know. That's why I'll have to pray for my unbelief.
I've concluded that anything taught by Francis can be ignored, as it will all be with the passage of time.
Found the prot
@@james-ch Francis' errors will be corrected, in time.
Found a sede
@@generalyousif3640 lol. You don't need to be a sede to know that Francis has spread many errors. He is a bad Pope. His errors will be corrected, in God's time.
What is Father Casey's specialty? "Ménager la chèvre et le chou". He would have made a good politician! Lol