Letter to Archbishop John Wester to Urge Pope Leo XIV to Call a Peace Conference to Stop Nuclear War Signed by Prominent Peace Organizations and Activists
On Friday, July 31, at an online Roundtable Conference, “Solve the Immigration Crisis With Development: The Strategic Significance of Pope Leo’s Encyclical,” sponsored by EIR News Service and the International Peace Coalition, Jack Gilroy, a long-time peace activist with the Pax Christi New York State Council, Veterans for Peace, Ban Killer Drones, and the International Peace Coalition of the Schiller Institute, released the news that he, in collaboration with leading peace activists, has written a letter to the US Catholic Archbishop John Wester, the strongest advocate for the banning of nuclear weapons. (Wester’s Santa Fe, New Mexico diocese is the home of Los Alamos). The letter urges the Archbishop to request that Pope Leo XIV convene an international peace conference with Presidents Putin, Xi, and Trump, to stop the expansion of nuclear weapons in Europe to Russia’s border, and to ban nuclear weapons, as we face the greatest threat of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Over 130 prominent peace activists and several leading peace organizations have already signed the letter.
Gilroy stated at the conference that, in organizing support for the diplomatic initiative called for in this letter, “It’s primarily Pax Christi and the International Peace Coalition which have worked together for the past three weeks to fulfill what the International Peace Coalition is all about: to try to prevent war- nuclear war- and to use development as the alternative, as the answer, to the constant military buildups.”
“All of that is possible,” Gilroy stated, “but we asked, ‘Where are we going to find the answer?’ And we are looking back at history, and we think diplomacy can work, does work. But getting diplomacy started is… extremely difficult.”
In examining the history of diplomacy to stop a nuclear war, Gilroy cited the famous case of Pope John XXIII, during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which is detailed in the letter, of being called upon to intervene as a mediator between Kennedy and Khrushchev by a group of prominent Americans and Soviets, along with a Vatican-linked monk, who just happened to be meeting for an informal discussion about disarmament in the U.S. in October, 1962, as the President announced on TV the blockade of Cuba, due to the discovery of Soviet missiles there. At this meeting, a friend of President Kennedy, journalist Norman Cousins, contacted the White House, and a Soviet figure of some stature contacted the Kremlin about this proposal, while the Belgian monk, Fr. Felix Morlion, an advisor to the Pope, who had initiated the proposal, contacted the Vatican. Neither the White House or Kremlin had any objection to the idea.
The Pope agreed and delivered a very stirring message for peace. It stated in part: “With your hand on your conscience may each one hear the anguished cry which is raised to the skies from all parts of the earth: Peace, peace! We renew this solemn plea today.” The Pope’s message for peace. identified in the letter, had a tremendous effect on Khrushchev, and his speech, published in full on the front page of Pravda at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, was later characterized by the Soviet leader as “the first ray of real light” during the crisis. Cousins would then serve as a “covert operative” continuing to relay messages among the three, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Pope, to continue the dialogue for peace, until the Pope’s death on June 3 1963. This process culminated in the famous Kennedy Peace speech at American University on June 10, 1963.
As Jack Gilroy states in the letter to Archbishop Wester, “With this in mind, we were thinking it might be time for something similar to happen today. Might Pope Leo XIV call for a Peace Conference to withdraw nuclear weapons from the Russian border and call for the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide? He already suggested something along these lines at the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when he prayed that the bombings would ‘serve as a call to the international community to renew its commitment to pursuing lasting peace for our whole human family — a peace that is unarmed and disarming,’ Perhaps the Vatican or another neutral location such as Vienna or Geneva could be the venue.”
Gilroy concludes the letter with this appeal to Archbishop Wester: “Would you be able to help bring this recommendation to Pope Leo? We believe you, as a strong and highly-respected advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons, would be the ideal diplomat to encourage Pope Leo to bring Putin, Trump, and Xi Jinping together to plan an end to nuclear weapons and to pave a new road of economic conversion from a war economy to economic development for all people everywhere. Your intercession and the strong leadership of Pope Leo could move us away from the sheer madness we are now experiencing.”
Jack Gilroy stated in his presentation at the July 31 conference that one of the signers of the letter, Peter Kuznick, Professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, Washington, D.C., was the lead speaker at a peace conference in Nagasaki, Japan on July 25, where, before many Japanese public officials, Kuznick brought up the significance of widely circulating this letter internationally. Several Japanese figures have already signed. Peter Kuznick has also discussed this appeal to the Pope in a recent Consortium News webinar, “How Close Are We to Nuclear War?”, with fellow letter signer, Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and Co-Founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), hosted by Consortium News Editor-in Chief, Joe Lauria.
As we head into the proverbial “Guns of August,” Gilroy’s letter makes clear that “we are getting as close to nuclear war as we were during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. That crisis ended with diplomacy that saved the planet, and Pope John XXIII was a key figure in making that happen.” Today, he is calling on prominent figures around the world to urge Pope Leo XIV to play the same role today, and he is calling on more peace activists and organizations to sign the letter.
This letter was written in collaboration with the Pax Christi New York State Council, and Rosemarie Pace, Ed.D., PCNYS Coordinator; USA Palestine Solidarity Working Group; Pax Christi International Sudan Working Group.
This is a link to the letter, with the list of signers:
The letter has been endorsed by 7 recipients of the annual Pax Christi USA “Teacher of Peace” Award — Jim Albertini (2010); Roy Bourgeois (1997); Marie Dennis (2022); James W. Douglass (1994); Kathy Kelly (1998); William Quigley (2003) and Martin Sheen (1999). Archbishop Wester is this year’s honoree of the same award.
Some of the other prominent individuals endorsing the letter include: Professor Richard Falk; Ira Helfand; Professor Peter Kuznick; former US Congressman Dennis Kucinich; Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Melissa Parke (Executive Director of ICAN); Susan Schnall (President, Veterans for Peace USA); Col.(ret) Lawrence Wilkerson; Col.(ret) Ann Wright. (Please consult the entire list for more on these and all other endorsers, and their organizational affiliation.)
Organizations which have endorsed the letter include: Veterans for Peace USA, and Historians for Peace and Democracy (USA). In addition are numerous leaders of organizations.
For more information, and/or to add your name to the letter, please contact Ron Bettag at ronbettag@gmail.com
