Archives: Quotes

“We are pushing closer and closer to that point where [nuclear weapons are] eventually going to be used, and we have to drastically change,”

-Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN.

“The Ban Treaty represents the only available path out from under what President Kennedy described as the ‘nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness.’”

– Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester’s Statement in Support of the First Meeting of State Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons June 21, 2022

“The world is at war. A few years ago, it occurred to me to say that we are experiencing a third world war fought piecemeal. Today, for me, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.”

– Pope Francis, Vatican News June 13, 2022

“Small modular reactors, long touted as the future of nuclear energy, will actually generate more radioactive waste than conventional nuclear power plants.”

— Stanford-led research finds small modular reactors will exacerbate challenges of highly radioactive nuclear waste

“The risks [of nuclear war] now are considerable… The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it.”

— Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, April 25, 2022. Ironically, the worse Russia performs militarily in Ukraine increases the chances that it uses a tactical or battlefield nuclear weapon. Escalation from there would be likely.

“…In addition to upending the global nonproliferation regime, Russia may have also delivered the death knell to arms control, which has already been on the ropes over the past 20 years—being diminished by both Russian and American governments.”

— Siegfried Hecker: Putin has destroyed the world nuclear order. How should the democracies respond?

“The U.S. may want to be the only great power in the world, free to expand its hegemony with impunity, but it is not. Refusing to see this is dangerous for us all.”

MSNBC: Russia and Putin’s Ukraine war may have been preventable

“The might and will of the Ukrainian citizens and their fight for sovereignty shows us how everyday citizens have the power to institute change. Although we aren’t fighting in the sense that they are, we are still able to voice our concerns to incite reform.”

OPINION: All nuclear weapons should be disarmed, abolished

“People of Russia, how is it even possible? We fought the consequences of the 1986 Chornobyl disaster together. Did you forget? If you remember it, you can’t stay silent. Tell your leadership you want to live.” 

-Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, on Russia’s attack on Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant.

“It is my firm belief that the infinite and uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason.” Mikhail Gorbachev, in a 1995 statement.

“In a world where millions of children and families live in inhumane conditions, the money that is squandered, and the fortunes made in the manufacture, upgrading, maintenance and sale of ever more destructive weapons, are an affront crying out to heaven.”

-Pope Francis, during a 2019 visit to Nagasaki.

“We welcome the leadership of Archbishop John C. Wester in taking His Holiness Pope Francis’ message of support for nuclear weapons abolition and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to the heart of the U.S. nuclear weapons enterprise in New Mexico. The Archbishop courageously joins the global community of religious leaders working to make the dream of a world free of nuclear weapons a reality.”

“We need to be instruments of peace…especially as we head into the Christmas season, a ‘season of peace.’” 

– Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester (click below to view live footage from the recent event)

Live Event on Sunday, December 19: Unveiling & Blessing of a “Sign of Peace” from the Catholic Archbishop of Santa Fe

“Hopefully members of Congress will come to experience this and at least see the consequences of the choices they’ve made about nuclear weapons issues…They will see everybody in that virtual room is trying to do their job, but it’s an impossible job.” – Sharon Weiner, associate professor at the School of International Service at American University.

Source: The Guardian article December 14, 2021 – ‘15 minutes to save the world’: a terrifying VR journey into the nuclear bunker

“If we can spend trillions on missiles, drones, and nuclear submarines, we can fund climate action.” – Ratu Inoke Bainimarama, leader of the first contingent of Fijian sailors in 1957.

Source: Inside Story article – AUKUS disrupts “a very peaceful part of planet Earth”

U.S., UK aid to Australia’s acquisition of nuclear submarines “sheer act of nuclear proliferation”: Chinese envoy
“literally turns existing precedence and practice on their heads in order to extend traditionally northern hemisphere cooperation to Australia and bolster its role in countering an increasingly assertive China.”

— The Australian submarine agreement: Turning nuclear cooperation upside down

“There is nothing comparable in our history to the deceit and the lying that took place as a matter of official Government policy in order to protect this industry. Nothing was going to stop them and they were willing to kill our own people.”

— Stewart Udall, United States Secretary of the Interior under President Kennedy and President Johnson.
He was the father of Senator Tom Udall (who ended up being a vigorous supporter of expanded nuclear weapons “modernization” plans).

“Nuclear wastes last for hundreds of thousands of years before they are half-decayed. Our United States government — perhaps the longest continuous government in the world — is only 232 years old. Who will be around to manage uranium wastes?” David Ross, Courier-Journal