Despite saying he has received a somewhat muted response from the local faithful, Santa Fe’s Catholic archbishop is still pushing nuclear disarmament as vital to humanity’s spiritual well-being and continued existence.
“I think nuclear weapons are blasphemous, because I think nuclear weapons are humanity’s attempt to build a Tower of Babel, an attempt to eat from the apple of the tree of the Garden of Eden, to become like God, to become gods,” Archbishop John C. Wester said in a roughly 30-minute address at Santa Maria de la Paz Catholic Church south of Santa Fe.
“In humility, we must avoid inventing anything that, in a matter of hours, can destroy what God has created,” the leader of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe continued. “The story of Adam and Eve is archetypal, I think: When human beings try to become as God, they lose the Garden of Eden and they must endure the cruel reality of paradise lost.”
The archbishop’s comments followed a journey he undertook to Japan on the 80th anniversary of the U.S. military’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki toward the end of World War II. He spoke in front of an audience of about 50 people — who gave Wester a standing ovation — at Monday’s event
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