Were the Attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Justifiable? A Catholic Moral Perspective
Javier Salman discussed with the University of Miami student group the Catholic moral teaching with regard to the use of nuclear weapons. His presentation focused on the United States’ use of such weapons in Japan during World War II.
Javier presented two competing schools of thought: Proportionalism, and Thomism which is the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. He also analogized the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with King Herod's order, shortly after the birth of Jesus, of the execution of all male children of Bethlehem under the age of two (also known as the massacre of the innocents).
The potential use of nuclear weapons by Russia in the current war in Ukraine was also discussed.
