Forbidden: Receiving Pope Francis's Condemnation of Nuclear Weapons - Hardcover

by Drew Christiansen (Editor), Carole Sargent (Editor), William Werpehowski (Contribution by)

Moral theologians, defense analysts, conflict scholars, and nuclear experts imagine a world free from nuclear weapons

At a 2017 Vatican conference, Pope Francis condemned nuclear weapons. This volume, issued after the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, presents essays from moral theologians, defense analysts, conflict transformation scholars, and nuclear arms control experts, with testimonies from witnesses. It is a companion volume to A World Free from Nuclear Weapons: The Vatican Conference on Disarmament (Georgetown University Press, 2020).

Chapters from the perspectives of missile personnel and the military chain of command, industrialists and legislators, and citizen activists show how we might achieve a nuclear-free world. Key to this transition is the important role of public education and the mobilization of lay movements to raise awareness and effect change. This essential collection prepares military professionals, policymakers, everyday citizens, and the pastoral workers who guide them, to make decisions that will lead us to disarmament.

Author Biography

Drew Christiansen, SJ, PhD, was Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Human Development in the Walsh School of Foreign Service and Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Ethics and World Affairs, Georgetown University. He was lead editor of the award-winning companion to this book, coauthor of Forgiveness in International Politics: An Alternative Road to Peace (USCCB), and former editor-in-chief of America: The Jesuit Review. He was on the Holy See delegation to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Carole Sargent, PhD, is author of an antinuclear activist biography, Transform Now Plowshares (Liturgical Press 2022), and coeditor with Drew Christiansen of this book's companion volume. She is founding director of the Office of Scholarly Publications at Georgetown University.