How do we commemorate Nagasaki in Baltimore?/"Peace advocates plan to apologize for nuclear bombings"

Friends,

 

 The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee and Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility are preparing to hold the annual commemoration of the bombings of the Japanese cities in 1945.  On August 6, two Japanese survivors will come to Baltimore.  However, on August 9, we are open for suggestions as to what we should do.

 

 Should we invite musicians and poets to perform on August 9?  Unfortunately, many progressive poets will be reading on August 9 at a benefit for a homeless shelter.  Should we invite a speaker to talk about the spying on peace and justice groups in Baltimore and around the country?  Should we host a forum on the dangers of nuclear energy?  We have been working on stopping Calvert Cliffs III.  Or do you have another suggestion for August 9?  Please respond with your ideas.  Kagiso, Max

 

Peace advocates plan to apologize for nuclear bombings

Posted on July 8, 2009 by Dennis Sadowski

 

http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/peace-advocates-plan-to-apologize-for-nuclear-bombings/

 

A group of faith-based peace activists will lead a small contingent to

Japan to mark the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and

Nagasaki and to apologize for the U.S. action.

 

“We want to acknowledge the tremendous damage done by our country, by

what has happened,” long time Tacoma, Wash., peace advocate Jesuit

Father Bill Bichsel told Catholic News Service. “We wish to attach

ourselves to the continued work of nuclear abolition.”

 

The trip gets under way July 31. Sixteen people from various faith

traditions will make the journey to the two cities on the

anniversaries of the bombings: Aug. 6 for Hiroshima, Aug. 9 for

Nagasaki. The group includes Dominican Sister Teresa Montes,

Franciscan Father Louis Vitale, Catholic Worker and U.S. Navy veteran

Tom Karlin and Mitch Kohjima, a former Buddhist monk.

 

Father Bichsel, 81, who has committed acts of civil disobedience to

express his opposition to the nuclear weapons present at the Naval

Base Kitsap near Seattle, has been working with Bishop Joseph Atsumi

Misue of Hiroshima and Archbishop Joseph Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki

to coordinate activities.

 

The apology is necessary in order to begin to repent for the sins of

war, Father Bichsel said.

 

“What we have done not only has inflicted tremendous damage on the

Japanese, it also has done tremendous damaged on the (American) people

when we don’t remember what we have done,” he said.

 

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