August 9, 2022 Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Vigil Outside White House

What: Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Prayer Vigil 

When: Tuesday, August 9 (Anniversary of the U.S. Nuclear Bombing of Nagasaki): Noon-1 PM

Where: Outside the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. 

Sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker

Nagasaki, September 1945

“Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil”.

(Epitaph at bottom of the Hiroshima Peace Park Memorial Cenotaph and Peace Flame to remember all the victims of the atomic bombings)

Dear Friends, 

To commemorate the 77th anniversary of the sinful and criminal U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker invites you to attend a prayer vigil on August 9th outside the White House. August 9th marks the actual anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Nagasaki.  

We will remember and pray for the victims of these unspeakable nuclear atrocities and all those who have witnessed the destructive power of nuclear weapons use, testing and mining–hibakusha, pacific islanders, Native Americans, downwinders,  and all other victims of nuclearism–and call for nuclear abolition. 

Pope Francis has declared that the possession of nuclear weapons is immoral and 66 countries have now ratified the new UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which entered into force on January 22, 2021, thereby making nuclear weapons illegal under International law. The nine nuclear-armed nations — the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea — have not signed the treaty, nor has any nation from the NATO alliance. The Biden Administration is committed to the modernization of U.S. nuclear forces, as evidenced by its proposed 2023 nuclear weapons budget request of $50.9 billion, a 17 percent increase over this year’s $43.2 billion. The U.S. nuclear arsenal upgrade now underway is estimated to cost $1.7 trillion over the next several decades, while poverty increases, the climate crisis worsens and basic human needs go unmet. In January of this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists turned the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds before midnight. This determination occurred just prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This conflict has further exacerbated the nuclear peril between the two foremost nuclear powers as both Russia and U.S. nuclear arsenals are now on high alert. 

As we call on the nation to repent for the nuclear sin, abolish all nuclear weapons, ratify the TPNW and redirect exorbitant military and nuclear expenditures to meet urgent human needs, we do so in solidarity with actions taking place around the U.S. and worldwide. In the U.S. see: 

Days of Action Working Group

The Hibakusha plead to the world: “Humanity and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist.” 

Martin Luther King, Jr. exhorts us: “The choice today is…either nonviolence or nonexistence.”

Please join us and share with friends. Please let me know if you can attend. 

In hope for a disarmed world,

Art Laffin