According to a survey that was made in 2016 of the 14,900 nuclear weapons 93 % are possessed by Russia and the United States. France, China, England, Pakistan, India and Israel each of them, it is surmised, possess from 80 to 300 and North Korea would have under 15. Pope Francis reminds us in the first chapter of Laudatio Si that the earth "is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us." And yet we have enough nuclear fire power to destroy the world a number of times over.
Nuclear power plants likewise are dangerous. He mentions the Chernobyl Fukushima and the Three Mile Island accidents. At present we have 442 nuclear power plants. The spent fuel will take 10 thousand of years before declared safe. They are not safe and or not economical and are not friendly to our environment.
We pray to be delivered from evil Matt. 6:13 scripture scholars remind us this is not subjecive evil but human evil that will harm all of us. At the time of Jesus people thought that the devil was the cause of much of sickness, Evil brings about division and death, People doubted the dignity of those who were sick and were treated as sinners. and where isolated from the community. Jesus worked against this to reunite people to the community.
We no longer believe this to be the case but the devil has found in recent times a better way to bring about division and death with more efficient methods: wars, development of munitions, military installations, corruption, lies, violence, conflict, destruction of the environment.
He conculdes the article with the mention of a Paris Foreign Mission who died recently at the age of 78. He spent the last 16 years in the seminary as a teacher and friend to students. He asked the students in his talks do you bring to prayer the things you read in the newspapers? Regretfully many Christians separate the religious life from the daily life and privatize and individualize what they hear and see. They do not see Jesus suffering in what is happening in the world. When we are indifferent to the suffering of our brothers and sisters we are indifferent to God.
He remember on a trip to the Holy Land in a room where the Lord's prayer was commemorated he heard the missioner crying. He asked him the reason for the tears and he replied: "Why is it that we all recognize God as our Father but can't do it together. When will that day come?"
May we be delivered from the indifference to the suffering of our brothers and sisters. Deliver us from the exploitation and the destruction of the creation you have given us only in search of profits and mammon.
