A-Bombing Anniversary To Be Noted
Christians and pacifists are gathering in Spokane this weekend to call for an end to nuclear weapons and repent for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“As a Christian, there would be no other approach,” said Patrick Copeland-Malone, who works for the Peace and Justice Action League and First Presbyterian Church. “Life from our tradition has great value, and that means life on all sides.”
To observe the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings, several religious denominations, along with the Peace and Justice Action League, are bringing in Jim Douglass, a theologian, pacifist and anti-nuclear-weapons activist.
Douglass will begin the weekend with a lecture at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Spokane Public Library downtown.
Following the lecture, a panel discussion titled “The Hanford Story” will feature Spokesman-Review reporter Karen Dorn Steele, Tim Connor of the Energy Research Foundation and Cindy Greene of the Hanford Health Information Network.
The plutonium in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki was manufactured at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
A forum on “The Morality of Nuclear War” will begin at 3:30 p.m., when the Revs. Frank Costello, Mike Cook and Charlie Skok of Gonzaga University join Douglass at the library.
A program for children ages 9 and older will begin at 2 p.m. at the library. The children will learn the history of nuclear bombs and their impact on the cities where they were detonated.
The children also will make paper cranes, learning the story of a Japanese girl who made 1,000 of the birds as symbols of peace. The girl made the cranes as she was dying of radiation exposure from the bomb.
Douglass will be guest speaker at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, 5021 N. Nelson, during Mass at 5:30 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Sunday.
An interfaith service is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Sunday at St. Ann’s Catholic Church, 2120 E. First. That ceremony will be a combination of hymns and readings, said the Rev. Larry Dunphy, sacramental pastor of the church.
“We will call for repentance and reconciliation,” Dunphy said. “And we will look to the future for renewal - sort of a ‘Where do we go from here?’ focus.”
Sunday evening, the Peace and Justice Action League is inviting people to bring picnic dinners to the pond at Manito Park. There, several traditional Japanese exhibits, such as art and calligraphy, will be on display.
At dusk, participants will light paper lanterns and set them afloat on the pond. The traditional Japanese ceremony commemorates all who have died in war.
“One of the things the world has seen in the last 50 years is that nuclear weapons transcend all our understanding of destruction,” said Copeland-Malone. “It totally changes the way we look at life.
“In the true sense of repentance, we try and reverse the clock,” he said. “We cleanse ourselves and ask God to cleanse us of that kind of human destruction.”
, DataTimes