I don’t think you’re being quite fair to the questioner. In the Old Testament, God clearly allows the objectively evil actions of the Assyrians and others to visit His Judgment on a rebellious and sinful Israel. If one assumes that the destruction of Nagasaki was a result of the persecution of Catholics there, it does not necessarily follow that the destroyer is morally justified in his act. The moral justification of an act is a separate thing from whether or not that act was in some sense the temporal consequences of the sin of the destroyed. Wondering if God’s judgment was visited upon Nagasaki *by no means* implies that the US was inculpable.

It’s hard to argue with fact.  Finding the right interpretation of what God does in fact will is the human predicament.  He “writes straight with crooked lines.”

  The destructions by God have no relation to any military event after the 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem.  The difference is this: only God knows when a group’s sins are filled and only then did He do such acts within the Old Testament and in 70 AD.  He tells you this explicitly when He says to Abraham in Genesis 15:16 that the Amorites will not be destroyed by Him for another 400 years when at that point their sins will be “complete”.  Christ makes the exact point about Jerusalem:
Matt.23:31 ” Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; 32 now FILL UP what your ancestors measured out.”
  Tacitus says 600,000 were killed in Jerusalem.  Josephus says 1.1 million.  Did God do it? Yes through the Romans but Christ laid out the avoidance path for 37 years after Him as to how one could escape if they trusted His word on this and passed it down in their family: “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city.”. Follow the word and you were safe.  Possibly most who were killed in Jerusalem were younger than those who rejected Christ.  If so it could have been their purgatory and seems to have been in line with
this dictum from God: Deut.5:9. “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,”
Unfair?  Last I checked we are all punished for Adam’s sin…we do not go to hell for Adam’s sin ( see Ezekiel for sons not being punished for father’s sin)... but we endure death and sickness for Adam’s sin.

My parents were both almost killed by American bombs in Europe when they were children during World War 2. They were not guilty of any crime except that they were sinners like all of us. I agree with Mark and add that we can not say God was punishing Germany with Allied bombs for the crimes of Hitler and others. We can not say God was punishing America for its crimes when the diabolical terrorists attacked us. I am 100% pro-life but do get turned off by “pro-lifers” who say “God is going to get us!” Yes, fight and vote for pro-life candidates, but always ask God to have mercy on our country and the world and ask Him to protect all innocent people from punishment for the crimes of others.

“ask Him to protect all innocent people from punishment for the crimes of others.”

Isn’t this the human condition?  Everybody thinks they’re innocent, and the reason they’re suffering is “for the crimes of others.”  Check Genesis, Chapter 3, vv. 8-19.

I agree that the bombings did affect children, but also didn’t bombings in England, Poland and the rest of the Nazi controlled countries do the same?  Unfortunately in a time of war, things like this happen.  Looking back and judging others at that time is a wonderful thing.  But if you talk to war veterans that were involved in fighting the Japanese, there was a fierce struggle and many more innocent lives could have been taken if it had been hand to hand combat.  But you also have to remember there was much bitterness of how the Japanese treated our war criminals,i.c. The March to Battaan .

I believe if there was more time and thought put into it, a better plan would have been provided rather than a atomic bomb. 

I don’t think you were alive then, Mark, and I was a toddler, but I did have members of my family who fought there and their stories aren’t pretty.  Sometimes its difficult to turn the other cheek in wartime.

Had the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki been intentionally directed towards civilians, that would make the bombers guilty of mass murder—but we seem to be jumping to conclusions regarding the motives of Truman and others who ordered or took part in the bombings. Hiroshima was definitely a military target—the city was heavily militarized and contained not only tens of thousands of troops but many military facilities—all of them, of course, supporting Japan’s aggressive and genocidal warfare against the rest of Asia and the United States. You can find confirmation of this not only in John Hersey’s iconic “Hiroshima” first published as a New Yorker article in 1946, but also on the website of the Hiroshima Peace Museum. The fact is, that if Hiroshima was not a legitimate military target, then there is no such thing as legitimate military targets. As for Nagasaki, I understand the target was an industrial area. It is far too easy from the comfort of one’s living room in 2013 to judge the consciences of those faced with crucial decisions amidst the fire and bloodshed of 1945. But we are commanded not to judge what we do not know—and while we can say that intentional targeting of civilians is murder, we CANNOT say that the bombers were motivated by a desire to massacre civilians rather than defend their country legitimately by wiping out military facilities and enemy combatants. Such a rash judgment exceeds the boundaries of our knowledge and can only come from intellectual pride. There is more than enough historical information supporting the belief that the bombings constituted legitimate defense of country in wartime—we means we must leave that judgment to God.

I recognize the sourcing is an issue (SSPX), but Takashi Nagai’s funeral sermon for 8000 of the Catholic dead of Nagasaki in November 1945 is worth reading.

Nagai was a convert to Catholicism, and a survivor of Nagasaki. His wife (a descendant of the hidden Catholics who survived the Shogunate persecutions) died in the blast. He spent the rest of his life meditating on the destruction of his home, and helping the Japanese people to rebuild.

http://www.sspxasia.com/Newsletters/2007/May-Sep/Funeral_Address.htm

I would agree with you, except for Larry’s points, and the fact that every single person in Japan, down to the women and children, was trained to fight invading soldiers with sharp sticks if need be. And I do not think the Japanese code of honor would have allowed them to surrender under any other circumstances.

We have the consolation of knowing that our brother and sister Catholics who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki died in the faith.  And the hope that their example of faith-filled living conferred on their fellow Japanese the grace of a final conversion.

A little yeast leavens a whole batch of dough.

In the logic of Mark Shea, having unquestionably hundreds of thousands of American and other soldiers killed in a land invasion of Japan—not to mention even greater numbers of Japanese than were killed in the Atomic bombings—would have been morally preferable.  Because that was the only other viable choice, short of simply giving up and letting the Imperial Japanese government remain intact.  My guess is that Shea has little understanding of or concern about how brutal the Japanese occupation of Asia was—in a war that was started by Japan.  While it unquestionably makes for exhilarating moral posturing to sit in comfortable judgment far removed from the time when this happened, the Shea Doctrine would have resulted in a greatly prolonged war—or maybe he didn’t notice how quickly it ended after the second bomb—with many more casualties.  You can’t have it both ways.

My own father would have been among those troops being shot at had the bombs not ended the war.  Instead he was in an occupation force that contributed to quickly bringing democracy and prosperity to a Japan that in short order became a solid ally and a force for good in the world.  If Shea believes that an undefeated,Tojo-led Japan would have gone in the same direction, then he is hopelessly naive.

Shea should stick to writing on things he knows about, whatever they might be.

Very, very easy to critcise from the safety of a comfortable desk sixty years on and five thousand miles away.

As stated above,the Japanese citizenry were trained and prepared to fight to the last man in defense of their emperor and country.  All military commanders knew this, especially Truman, the decision maker. 
No one planed to “murder” civilians.  The plan was to end the war as quickly as possible.  The Japanese government was warned of this weapon and failed to act.  That is on the record accurate. 
One can only imagine the slaughter of an invasion scenario.  Ask any veteran of the Pacific War what he felt his chances of surviving a land battle on the Japanese mainland might have been.  This was a horrible, gut wrenching decision made by serious men who had seen war.  Have you ever had the responsibility of ordering men to go into harms way, Mr Shea? Shame on you for slandering these men as murderers.  They most certainly are not.

St. Alphonsus Liguori said to view all things as coming from the hand of God. Of course, that doesn’t mean God is on “Team America”. ^_^ Sorrow and remorse is an appropriate response on our part (a formal apology better still but that ain’t happening soon). The Japanese should take it for the evil that it is but bear with it accordingly - that is, with faith, hope, patience, and perseverance - because although evil is never the will of God this is something He allowed to happen to them (did not obstruct the American capacity for evil). God works all things for the good for those who love them.

Great comment Larry.

Why weren’t my comments on this blog permitted?  They contained no profanity or otherwise inappropriate language.  The only charges were directed at the author’s historical judgment.  I guess that’s one way to make it look like most respondents agree with you.  Nice.

speedy:

The system, using arcane and mysterious technology, sometimes filters comments for reasons I can’t fathom.  I had nothing to do with it.  Hopefully, somebody will fish it out of the spam filter.

Going on bit of a tangent the August 6 Hiroshima bombing is also the Feast of the Lord’s Transfiguration.  How ironic that His divinity was revealed with a pure, dazzling white light and centuries later man’s technological advancement compressed critical uranium with the resulting fission of atoms…producing the same blinding aura.

Mr. Larry’s comments were, if not exactly great, at least greatly in a Shea blog commentariat tradition: of insisting that defining what torture, or abortion, or in Mr. Larry’s case mass murder, or in short what obvious reality really is, lies beyond the human mind’s capacity to determine.

antigon, you bring up a point I was considering, regarding Mr. Shea’s initial question: does the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear event represent divine judgment?  My answer is twofold:
1-No one but God could have arranged or contrived for such an event (or events), notwithstanding Oppenheimer’s pride in having become “death, the destroyer”.
2-Only God could shoulder the responsibility for causing these events.  The responsibility for inducing this level of pain would drive men and angels mad.

Thank God for Mark Shea to make us feel guilty for being white, American, and not starving…

Perhaps we should have invaded Japan and let my grandfather and a million other American GIs die. Or perhaps we should have made peace with Japan, allowing them to rape and murder millions more Chinese civilians? Mr. Shea’s endless anti-war/anti-military political tripe reflects neither logic nor Catholic doctrine.

Me thinketh thou protesteth overmuch, Elohim.

Thank you for posting this, Mark.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima were intentional. If I recall my history lessons, Truman dropped the atomic bombs upon these two cities to cripple Japan’s morale, i.e “We can wipe you out with the push of a button. Surrender or else.” Regardless where you lie on the political spectrum, blasting innocent men, women and children is NEVER an option. And if you studied your Catholic doctrine, Mr. M. Elohim, you’d know that. The Catechism has a section on Just War. Look it up.

Such hypocrisy. The same people who justify the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima are the same who’d cry foul if our enemies did that to us.

Consider the following. The Japanese were idolaters who worshipped the Sun in the person of the Emperor. The bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki operated on principles similar to those that drive the Sun. The Japanese had no choice but to surrender when they saw that the Americans had discovered how to control the forces of nature which they worshipped.

Antigon:

The amazing and blasphemous rationalizations for the deliberate mass murder of children in their beds (not to mention the weird racism Michael Elohim gratuitously inserts into the conversation and bizarre Americanist piety Michael Petek brings to bear on the question) are but a sample of the pretzels Christians twist themselves into in order to justify an act of mass murder that, according to the Church “is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.”

Thanks to you and others who have expressed the sane view of the mad rationalization for deliberate mass murder.  The Cafeteria is, alas, wide open on the right as much as on the left.

First off, Michael, that analogy doesn’t get very far off the ground.  The Sun works on nuclear fusion - the fusing of hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei, helium nuclei into lithium and beryllium nuclei and so on.  The bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki worked on the opposite principle:  the destruction of uranium and plutonium nuclei into lighter elements.  More importantly, though, the Sun was created by God as an engine which sustains life.  Nuclear weapons were created by sinful man as engines to destroy life and inspire the fear of instantaneous mass death in other nations.

My grandfather was also a naval medic in the Pacific theatre of the Second World War.  I live in China; my wife is from Henan (her grandfather also fought the Japanese), and I have friends from Nanjing.  I do not condone, and cannot abide defence of, the war crimes that Japan has committed.  And I am on record as saying that Japan’s leadership needs to offer public, unconditional, physical contrition to China, Korea and the Indochinese nations, comparable to Willy Brandt kneeling at the Warsaw Ghetto.  But I am not about to engage in the equivalent wrong of apologising for war crimes, even when they are committed by the morally-right side.  The Holocaust does not excuse Dresden; the Rape of Nanjing does not excuse Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Mark is right.  Invocation of divine vengeance for an act of murder is blasphemy.  (The supreme irony is, the Japanese soldiers saw themselves as instruments of the divine will of the Emperor.  What does it make us if we make the God we worship as petty as theirs?)

I would say that those who think this was a divine sign of the wrath of God must explain who it is they think is God. It sure sounds like Prometheus and the declaration of the Enlightenment that man is God—therefore, our actions are divine actions. That is, of course, quite common today—so many people confuse our desires, our actions, our thoughts, our deeds as being God’s, and they do indeed turn God into an image of fallen man.

I mean, liberals could use this same rhetoric to say, “How do you know that all the aborted children might not be divine judgment against them?” The same argument can be used by all sides to justify evil. Abortion is evil. Genocide is evil. The use of weapons of mass destruction over civilian territories is evil.

Mark is right. Condemn this evil.  The Church has.

Larry argues that we cannot judge the consciences of those who dropped the bomb. This is very true, but we can and must make a judgement about the act itself.

Directly taking the lives of innocent human beings is never justified. Saying that they faced a tough set of circumstances, or that we would do the same thing in their situation, or that the consequences would be worse than if we didn’t, does not change that basic moral fact. Even if Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets, that still does not justify the direct taking of innocent human life.

You can get mad at Mark all you want, but he is simply applying the very clear teaching of the Church (and basic human morality) to this event.

The significance of the ‘nuking’ of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that God brings good out of evil. In this case, the destruction of these two cities by means of the forces that drive the Sun may have been the means God saw fit to use to break the idolatry of the solar religion that held Japan and Korea (both then under the rule of the same Emperor). Had He not done so, the whole of Korea and Japan might have fallen under the even worse evil of the demented idolatry which grips North Korea to this day. If we consider the matter further, it is not difficult to conclude that North Korea is the most evil place on earth, a land where human beings are as wicked as it is possible for a human being to be in this life, and where eternal salvation is impossible save by a special grace at the moment of death or shortly before it.

Larry’s assertion that the Japanese cities were legitimate military targets contradicts what Thomas Merton wrote in ‘On Peace’.

The fact that good can be made out of evil does not mean the evil is right. Sorry, that’s mixed up logic. Good can be brought out of evil, so abortion is fine, because God can do something good after the abortion, right? Sorry, this is consequentialism and this viewpoint has been condemned by the Church

I would agree with you, except for Larry’s points, and the fact that every single person in Japan, down to the women and children, was trained to fight invading soldiers with sharp sticks if need be.

This is the total war philosophy which magically turns every one into a combatant. The problem is that it is bogus: like all total war arguments for similar conclusions, it is conveniently vague about the one and only step that matters: how we move rationally from the real conditions of total war, including the moral conditions of waging total war at all, to everyone being fair game — without ever effectively saying that morality is expendable and that anything in war is justified as long as it conduces to winning. Because if one were to go so far as to claim that anything is justified in war, there is a name for that, and it is moral depravity. So what is this amazing line of reasoning that actually does the work of getting us from A to B without using morally depraved assumptions? It’s always the one step missing.

A well-documented account is Gar Alperovitz’s The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb: and the Architecture of an American Myth (Harper Collins, 1995, 800 pages), based on declassified documents of all sorts.  A year before the bomb drops President Roosevelt included in the Hyde Park Agreement with Churchill, this:  “(W)hen a ‘bomb’ is finally available, it might perhaps, after mature consideration, be used against the Japanese, who should be warned that this bombardment will be repeated until they surrender.” He had not yet decided before he died. 
Truman’s conflicting accounts of his decision and rationalizations, are now a matter of bulky record—but it is also true that 600,000 were killed in Eastern Europe by conventional saturation bombing, and 75,000 in France. Twentieth century warfare was an unimaginable catastrophe. As an aside, the Target Committee zeroed in reprehensibly on the “center of (a) selected city,” not the cathedral per se.
General Eisenhower was among those in high places who actually advised not to use the bomb (later: “It was not necessary to hit them with that awful thing…I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.  It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’ . . .”  The post-war Strategic Bombing Survey reinforces this view. General Spaatz refused to carry out the mission without orders delivered in writing rather than orally.
The feared loss of face translated into retaining their cultural Emperor, a sticking point that was later conceded by the West despite our war-prolonging slogan of “unconditional surrender.”  The power of mere words!  And then, to end it all, the Navy cruiser that carried the Hiroshima warhead across the Pacific (the Indianapolis) was torpedoed on its return voyage.  The secrecy of its mission was so successful that the SOS call was dismissed as a likely Japanese trap.  Most of the 900 survivors were consumed by sharks before the delayed rescue. Somebody’s children.

In considering this question, I feel like Forrest Gump pondering the question of divine sovereignty and human destiny: Who’s right? Is it Mama, or Lt. Dan? Is it Mark Shea, or his first interlocutor Kevin? I don’t know. Maybe both . . .  maybe both.

Mr. W - Thomas Merton! I thought we were arguing what position is the most orthodox - not the least!

Billy

Look to the Church. There is your answer. Not people trying to justify sin the Church declared to be sin.

So, most commenters here would have opted for a longer, bloodier, more brutal war resulting in the deaths of many more, possibly millions more people, soldiers and civilians alike. Because that’s what we would have had if not for the atomic bomb. I personally would appreciate it if you all would have the guts to say that you would have chosen a longer war that involved sending millions of American men over the Pacific and into Japan. Say it. Say it, say it, say it. All this cheap moral grandstanding of armchair moral theologians is making me sick.

Mark,

I’d like to quote your closing words:

“Bottom line:  There is never, under any circumstances whatsoever, a justification for deliberately murdering innocent human beings.  Ever.  Invoking divine wrath as a justification for murder is blasphemous.”

I don’t want to talk about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I’d like to talk about the conquest of Canaan. As a Catholic, I’m asking you: do you believe God had the right to command the Israelites to kill not only men, but also innocent women and children? Before you answer that, you might want to read what Aquinas has to say in his “Summa Theologica”, I-II, q. 96, art. 5, reply to objection 2:

“All men alike, both guilty and innocent, die the death of nature: which death of nature is inflicted by the power of God on account of original sin, according to 1 Samuel 2:6: ‘The Lord killeth and maketh alive.’ Consequently, by the command of God, death can be inflicted on any man, guilty or innocent, without any injustice whatever. In like manner adultery is intercourse with another’s wife; who is allotted to him by the law emanating from God. Consequently intercourse with any woman, by the command of God, is neither adultery nor fornication. The same applies to theft, which is the taking of another’s property. For whatever is taken by the command of God, to Whom all things belong, is not taken against the will of its owner, whereas it is in this that theft consists.”

St. Augustine also defended the slaughter of the Canaanites, on the grounds that “the abominations of the Chanaanites merited the punishment which God, as Master of the world, meted out to them by the hand of Israel” (In Hept., III, 56; P.L., XXXIV, 702, 816).

And here’s the Catholic Encyclopedia, in its article on Natural Law:

“As the Sovereign Lord of all things, He [God] could withdraw from Isaac his right to life, and from the Egyptians their right of ownership, with the result that neither would the killing of Isaac be an unjust destruction of life, nor the [Hebrews’] appropriation of the Egyptians’ goods the unjust taking of another’s property.”

I’m looking forward to hearing from you, Mark.

Despite the highly emotional arguments that have been made here against my post, no one has denied—because no one CAN deny—that Hiroshima was a heavily militarized city and was in fact a major center of the Imperial defense establishment. This is a fact, and it would be tedious for me to recite chapter-and-verse details when those details are on the historical record and easily obtainable on the web. The moral imperative not to target innocent civilians in war does NOT mean that the aggrieved victim of an unjust and evil aggressor may not carry out any act of war where it is foreseeable that innocent civilians will perish as the result of attacks upon military targets. Otherwise, the aggressor will simply locate all his important military targets among his own civilians, on the theory that the victim will feel constrained not to do anything at all in his own defense. Suicide is not commanded by Catholic just war teaching. We must also remember that unlike in the 1990 Gulf War and subsequent wars, bombs could NOT be precisely targeted to individual buildings (unless the buildings were huge) in World War II, so the combatants in 1945 were not able to avoid civilian casualties to the degree that we are today able—which imposes different circumstances upon us than prevailed upon the combatants of World War II. That must be kept in mind when we feel tempted to judge the people of 1945 by the standards of 2013.

David,

Yes. If a longer war resulting in more allied casualties is the price for a just and moral war, as opposed to grave immorality, yes, I prefer the longer war.

There are no shortcuts to holiness.

I have pondered the issue that Mark brought up for years, and on the one hand, i feel that the true path of a Christian is one of peace, sacrifice and humility. That said, the reality of the world as it is today forces me to confront the use of the Just War philosophy. I believe the world wars were allowed by God , Our Mother told us it would happen in several apparitions if we didnt repent. We, all of us in the world, were responsible for the wars through our territorial ambitions and fear of one another. Bombing cities to destroy industrial strength is part of war, and in the past, whole cities were wiped out , men women and children, when they didnt open their gates and surrender, but chose seige instead. It isnt something new. The firebombings of Tokyo, Dresden and other cities on both sides, killed almost as many as the Atomic Bombs did. Keep in mind that Japan’s history books and their govt has not confronted their participation in atrocities during ww2, neither the medical experiments on POWs, the rape of Nanking, or the forced prostitution of Korean “comfort women”, for example. If the two bombs shortened the war, and saved hundreds of thousands of lives , if not millions, then , as a military decision, it’s justified. The defence of Okinawa gave us a great insight into what we faced if we were forced to invade Japan itself. Bottom line, war is horrible, and I pray it will become extinct, but i sure am not gonna second guess people that “had boots on the ground” so to speak, and were forced into a Just War response. I know this is all over the place, and I apologize for that, its early.

David

The thing is, first, that is consequential in answer. For example, if a crazy person said if you commit one abortion I won’t murder 100 people, would you commit an abortion? I hope not!  Secondly, all evidence is that Japan was ready to exit the war. They wanted peace. Even Truman got US Generals saying he was wrong for this reason. The idea that it would be a long war is false: it was already over.

@Timothy - Thank you, it is just this straightforward answer I was hoping (though not expecting) to receive.
@Henry - No I accept that it was immoral to drop the bomb, no contest there. I can’t stand listening to people talk about a decision like this like they’re discussing whether they will go to the mall today or the grocery store instead. As another person said it is easy to sit here and judge from the comfort of our homes; we are lucky we will never have to face this choice.

I personally would appreciate it if you all would have the guts to say that you would have chosen a longer war that involved sending millions of American men over the Pacific and into Japan.

I wouldn’t have insisted on unconditional surrender.

you can prefer the longer war as a moral stance, but if it was you, your sons or grandsons being drafted into that war of horrendous casualties, would you go willingly? Perhaps volunteer? Ask the same question of any mother that had their children at risk. Wars are evil, they entail horrendous events and i would pray they cease to exist , but when you are enmeshed in one, you either decide to win, or surrender. If you think that our killing of 50 million innocents thru abortion is going to go ignored by God, and that our day is not coming, then think again. God is a just God. ( and yes, i pray He will be merciful). I grew up in a military family, and my parents endured the Blitz in London, among other things, and im pretty sure they would agree that the war is evil, but once you are in it, you either win or surrender. If the Atomic Bomb shortened the war that we were forced into, and saved millions of lives overall, then who am I to second guess the people back then that had to make those decisions?

Some interesting thoughts on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfib/courses/Fussell.pdf

http://www.pajamasmedia.com/2007/08/a_worldchanging_anniversary.php

I don’t seem to be able to get my comment past the spamguard, perhaps because it is too long. I’ll forgoe most of what I wanted to say to make the point that Merton’s unwillingness to incinerate women and children en masse puts him way ahead of David and other pro-Bombers here in the orthodoxy stakes.

Scott

Exactly. “Unconditional surrender” was the wrong objective.

Whether an event is a divine judgement or not is independent of whether it is a morally good act or a morally evil one. Japan had officially rejected the Gospel and adopted an idolatrous solar religion centred upon the Emperor. God is slow to anger, but His justice does not sleep forever.

Michael

You think divine judgment means “God destroys the center of Catholicism” as a result? What?!

@Mr. W—

Let’s be fair. David explicitly said, “No I accept that it was immoral to drop the bomb, no contest there.” His issue is with impugning bad motives to the people who dropped it, which is a fair point even if not a particularly illuminating one because even with good intentions, we all know where those pave.

“imputing” not “impugning”

“‘Unconditional surrender’ was the wrong objective.” That, too, is difficult if not impossible to judge from the comfort of an easy chair in 2013. The government of Japan at the time had amply demonstrated its utter depravity.

Despite the highly emotional arguments that have been made here against my post, no one has denied—because no one CAN deny—that Hiroshima was a heavily militarized city and was in fact a major center of the Imperial defense establishment. The moral imperative not to target innocent civilians in war does NOT mean that the aggrieved victim of an unjust and evil aggressor may not carry out any act of war where it is foreseeable that innocent civilians will perish as the result of attacks upon military targets. Otherwise, the aggressor will simply locate all his important military targets among his own civilians, on the theory that the victim will feel constrained not to do anything at all in his own defense. Suicide is not commanded by Catholic just war teaching.

We must also remember that unlike in the 1990 Gulf War and subsequent wars, bombs could NOT be precisely targeted to individual buildings (unless the buildings were huge) in World War II, so the combatants in 1945 were not able to avoid civilian casualties to the degree that we are today able—which imposes different circumstances upon us than prevailed upon the combatants of World War II. That must be kept in mind when we feel tempted to judge the people of 1945 by the standards of 2013.

Lastly, we must also remember that throughout the summer of 1945, U.S. Army Air Force bombers were raining death and destruction all over Japan in the form of conventional and incendiary bombs. The death toll was already huge. What we did NOT understand AT THE TIME was that the atomic bomb was qualitatively different from conventional bombs—it wasn’t just bigger. We did NOT realize that its fireball could inflict horrible flash burns on the flesh of thousands of people some distance away from the blast. Nor did we know that it would spread a unique sickness that would continue to take a toll years and decades later. We NOW know these things BECAUSE of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

OK, my bad. Sorry, David.

I know there is nothing to match the expertise of the Combox Commentariat when it comes to the need to ignore firm and unequivocal Church teaching on crimes against God and man.  Still and all, it is worth knowing what ignorant chuckleheads like Eisenhower, Nimitz, MacArthur and a whole host of, y’know, actual military leaders thought of the bombings.

Obviously, they are no match for a guy named Larry with a keyboard, but for those who think Holy Church’s firm and unequivocal condemnation of a crime against God and man actually matters and should be accepted, their opinion may carry some weight.

Let’s be clear: what is being argued and apologized for is the moral equivalent of saying “If we could have ended that war by performing a few thousand abortions, then so be it!”  The “Hiroshima was a military target” excuse is large scale way of saying, “If a cop faces a hostage situation, he should fire through the body of the pregnant hostage in order to kill the kidnapper.  He doesn’t *mean* to kill the hostage.  He just means to kill the kidnapper.  So it’s all good.”  He also means, by the way, that in order to win a war, he is willing to deliberately incinerate Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.  Because the Cathedral was the what they used to sight the bomb at Nagasaki.  Let us be extremely clear about what is being argued for here.

“We did NOT realize that its fireball could inflict horrible flash burns on the flesh of thousands of people some distance away from the blast.”

Factually false statement, the physics of the reaction were well understood by any and all of the Manhattan physicists even before the Little Boy detonation, and the yield as well as output profile of both devices were as modeled. In addition the instrumentation of the Alamagordo test would have empirically verified this even prior to Nagasaki in the case of Fat Man. Radiation sickness was also already known, thanks in no small part to Marie Curie.
In addition the fission products were well known both for Uranium and Plutonium even by the Japanese physicists, allowing them to accurately ascertain the content of both devices within 24 hours of detonation.

Mark, I posted a comment which was spammed because I used the term “yellow-skinned,” I think.  Not that it was so important, but it addresses the rampant jingoism on display here.  Ad sequitor.

My earlier comment was filtered out.  As another poster stated above, it contained to foul language, name calling or spam yet it was rejected.
Nevertheless,  it is very, very easy to sit at a comfortable desk sixty years on and five thousand miles away and criticise those who were responsible for the lives of our fathers and grandfathers.  This was a gut wrenching, horrible decision to make and it was made by serious men in serious positions of responsibility in time of war.
Thank you, President Truman, for sparing my father and uncles the horror and debacle of fighting a land war on mainland Japan.  Thank you, again, for having the spine to make this imperfect choice, you are not a murderer and in no way conspired to murder anyone.

A reply by the writer of the article, no less. This is quite an honor. Mr. Shea, I in no way deny the authority of the teaching contained in CCC#2314—but you and I seem to disagree on the interpretation of “DIRECTED TO” in regards to the “indiscriminate destruction…(etc)” of cities and populations. You, in effect, interpret “directed to” meaning that any act of war which in fact RESULTS in such large scale destruction and loss of life must be prohibited. I have already refuted this notion above—such a proposition would render self-defense effectively immoral. The only reasonable interpretation of “directed to” is where such bloodshed is an UNintended result of the intentional destruction of military targets and groups of armed combatants.

Mark (and other rationalizers): You keep repeating falsehoods because the people who dropped the bomb told you lies to convince you that they were heroes who saved your fathers.  In fact, however, the president who made the decision did not even consult with MacArthur and a very impressive array of military leaders thought it was a very bad idea.  The real reason for the nuking was geopolitical.  Read and learn.  Acts of deliberate cold-blooded murder can never, under any circumstance, be justified.  You are arguing, in essence, that if a few thousand babies had to be aborted to save American skins then so be it.  That is deeply American.  It is also profoundly anti-Catholic.  The blasphemous claim at the bottom of all this is as follow: God *is* the author of evil and he *does* force us to commit grave sins worthy of the fires of hell. He *makes* us commit murder of children in their beds, so it was not only necessary, but virtuous of us to do so.  Be ashamed.

Here’s reality: “We didn’t have to hit them with that awful thing.” - Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower

When reports of “atomic bomb sickness” first began to be spread, U.S. military occupation authorities in Japan angrily denied there was any such thing as atom bomb sickness. The Japanese were only trying yet another treacherous ploy to gain sympathy, they said. It wasn’t long before they were forced to eat their words. In addition, when Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki was awakened in the early hours of August 7 by his bedside telephone and told that President Truman had announced that the previous day’s destruction of Hiroshima had been done by an atomic bomb, Suzuki decided to ask Emperor Hirohito to intervene and break the cabinet deadlock over whether to accept the Potsdam Declaration (the surrender demand.)

Military members of the cabinet insisted that Japanese scientists verify Truman’s claim that a nuclear weapon was used at Hiroshima before any further discussion of surrender. By the time they did verify it, the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The Emperor then personally spoke to the cabinet, ordering that the war be ended. It is you, Mr. Shea, who keeps “repeating falsehoods.” Frankly, I find your ignorance and arrogance rather astonishing and offensive. I will stand by the “heroes” who saved my father (who was serving with the 27th Infantry Division in Saipan.) You can continue slandering them, if you wish.

Larry:  You are a masterful sophist.  What your argument boils down to is “So long as there are enemy troops somewhere in the city limits, we drop an H bomb on a city and murder 200,000 people.  We’ll just explain afterwards that they were collateral damage. It’s exactly the same sort of moral reasoning behind the Catholic for a Free Choice who explains that “abortion doesn’t mean to kill a child, but to free its mother from dangers to her health, liberty, prosperity, etc.”  In short, good ends justify profoundly evil means. Meanwhile, you avoid what actual military leaders said about the military necessity of the bombs.

The cafeteria is wide open.

Mr. Shea—you are obviously a pacifist—which is the ultimate in sophistry. Under your reasoning, the victim of an unjust aggressor would be forestalled from offering any defense at all, on the grounds that innocent people might be killed. Since an unborn child is not an unjust aggressor, abortion cannot be compared to legitimate self-defense in wartime. And dropping an H-bomb on a city? I would not advocate ANY use of nuclear fusion bombs—such overwhelming power is far more than any military objective would require. Since we now have “smart” bombs which our ancestors did not, much, if not all, of the justification for the Hiroshima bomb would no longer exist in today’s world. Today, however, is not 1945

I think the last sentence of my March 16 3:30 p.m. post needs some editing-it should read: “The only reasonable interpretation of ‘directed to’ would involve incidents where such bloodshed cannot possibly be considered as an UNintended result of the intentional destruction of military targets and groups of armed combatants—because there are not sufficient military targets in that area.”

Mr. Shea—you are obviously a pacifist

You obviously haven’t been reading Mark very long.

Mr. Shea:

Let’s take it to an absurd extreme and try to work backwards from there.

City A contains ten thousand Japanese soldiers, all veterans of the rape of Manchuria and former guards at the Bataan Death March - and three innocent newborn children.
City B contains three Japanese soldiers of like character, and ten thousand innocent newborn children.

May City A be hit with a nuclear bomb, but not city B?

Suppose it’s not a nuclear bomb, but a massed incendiary attack as per Tokyo, Dresden and Hamburg?  Does that change the equation?

Mark, why do assume that God has anything to do with this analysis?  Your interlocutors need only defer their judgment until a device goes off in Cleveland or Chicago, motivated by the same arguments as found on this page.  This is not a matter for sophisticated theological arguments, but rather an exercise in ox-goreing.  I don’t want to google it, but the “nuclear club” is probably going on 10 nations and - unofficially - a few asymettrical entities.  A note to short sighted rationalists: spittling in the wind was never good logic; and you don’t need a four-star general to tell you that.

Your interlocutors need only defer their judgment until a device goes off in Cleveland or Chicago, motivated by the same arguments as found on this page.

No wei. When we do it, clearly it is because the target country is full of backwards people in which every six-year old with a sharpened bamboo stick will fight to the death, and thus they can all be considered combatants. When they do it, it’s a war crime.

Mr. Shea—you are obviously a pacifist

Um, no.  The portion of the Catechism I am quoting comes from the Church’s teaching on Just War.  I accept Just war teaching as a useful synthesis of the Church’s tradition on the fifth commandment.  I *respect* pacifists (as the Church does), but I’m no pacifist.  It is not pacifism to say, with the Church, that you cannot deliberately murder innocent human life.  It’s elementary obedience to the fifth commandment—obedience you are specifically rejecting.

Suppose it’s not a nuclear bomb, but a massed incendiary attack as per Tokyo, Dresden and Hamburg?  Does that change the equation?

No.  What part of

CCC 2314 “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.”

...do you not understand?

The history of wars are written by the victors.  That’s why Truman is lionized, or is he?  Maybe this antipathy towards nuclear deployment in 1945 shows a “reverse” in the tide of war, which has continued unabated since then.  Maybe we are not winning after all.

In war and in all lifes vicissitudes, people struggle to make sense of it all.  Luckily, we have Revelation to guide and instruct us.  This is our consolation as faithful, and the reason we will ultimately prevail: against atom bombs, and all the more vigorous test we are assigned.

Scott - about your bamboo sticks: who is more culpable - a man who commandeers a commercial airliner and flies it with no piloting experience into a target hundreds of miles away; or a trained pilot sitting behind a computer console flying an unmanned bomb into a wedding party thousands of miles away?

I’m just trying to put into context your remark about what constitutes a “combatant” as opposed to an “innocent victim.”

I hear you, Mr. Shea, but you are not hearing me. Here is the official Latin text from #2314 describing the type of acts of war that constitute a “crime against God and man,” namely: “Omnis actio bellica quae in urbium integrarum vel amplarum regionum cum earum incolis destructionem indiscriminatim tendit…(etc)”

The crucial word is “tendit,” a conjugation of “tendere,” which means “to stretch, stretch out, hold out, strain..to direct one’s course, go, aim (for), tend, to aim, strive, be directed or inclined…” “Tendit” is translated in the English as “directed to.” Clearly, the slaughter MUST BE THE OBJECTIVE, not merely the unwanted result of an attack on military targets. The passage you quote identifies the INTENT as crucial.

The victim of unjust aggression cannot help it if the aggressor has located his military centers among civilians. He must destroy those military targets if the aggrieved country is to survive—and in 1945, it would have been impossible to do so without killing and wounding civilians, whether by conventional OR nuclear weapons. Like a Myna bird you repeat #2314 over and over again, but you refuse to acknowledge it’s clear meaning. You ask—what don’t we understand about it? Sir, what don’t YOU understand about “directed to…?” as opposed to “resulting from?” The Hiroshima bombing was NOT “directed to” civilian slaughter—but to destruction of military targets.

In short, the moral law commands that we never DELIBERATELY TARGET civilians—but it does NOT command that we refrain from any act which might as a result harm civilians—otherwise, legitimate defense would be impossible and pacifism would be the only moral response to unjust aggression. If a huge military plant is located next to a neighborhood, and the blowing-up of the plant results in the destruction of much of that neighborhood—that is an unfortunate result of the fact that the plant has to be destroyed so that the enemy nation can be made to stop the aggression and halt the threats to the peace and security of its opponent. Why do you refuse to answer this clear point?

Larry - consider this: all the people who have formerly been considered by you and others as “enemy combatants,” are reclassified as “innocent civilians,” and a whole new rubric applies. 

This could be accomplished in one of two ways: 1) Their purported hostile designs are rendered innocuous; or 2) Their actually hostile designs are coopted into a mutual benefit.  In either case, the former “enemies” are now rendered amicable allies. 

Which allies would you rather have: dedicated, vigorous and assiduous ones; or pusillanimous, flatulent and lazy ones?  Sometimes the worst enemy makes the best friend.

The Hiroshima bombing, like the bombing of Dresden was *absolutely* directed to civilian slaughter.  It’s purpose was to shatter the will of Japan (and to scare the Russians).  It’s not like we suddenly had no conventional weapons to attack the military targets.  It is you who keep refusing to acknowledge that a huge number of military leaders like Eisenhower were saying, “We didn’t have to hit them with that awful thing.”  It was deliberate calculated mass murder of civilians.  And we know it, which is why, in subsequent wars, we never said, “Oh! There are soldiers in that city, so it is morally acceptable to nuke it.”  It’s an excuse only trotted out for H and N.  Be ashamed.

In short, the moral law commands that we never DELIBERATELY TARGET civilians—but it does NOT command that we refrain from any act which might as a result harm civilians—otherwise, legitimate defense would be impossible and pacifism would be the only moral response to unjust aggression. If a huge military plant is located next to a neighborhood, and the blowing-up of the plant results in the destruction of much of that neighborhood—that is an unfortunate result of the fact that the plant has to be destroyed so that the enemy nation can be made to stop the aggression and halt the threats to the peace and security of its opponent. Why do you refuse to answer this clear point?

Larry - to directly answer your question, you must find other means of accomplishing the mission. You could blow up a rail junction that is critical to the delivery of raw materials to, and finished products from, the factory. You could send in fewer planes, but flying low to increase accuracy. You could arrange for the employment of saboteurs, and so on.

Just war teaching can be summarized as follows: The cause and the means must be just, and there must be a reasonable chance of success. Deliberately targeting civilians (or, if you like, taking actions that could reasonably be expected to kill and maim large numbers of innocents along with whatever legitimate target is being attacked) are unjust means, and church teaching is pretty unequivocal about that.

Whoa, now! Be “ashamed”? Why should I? That’s an awfully snotty remark, Mr. Shea. Be ashamed of what? Disagreeing with you? You’ve quoted Eisenhower over and over—well, I don’t agree with Eisenhower, okay? And I don’t agree with YOU! Is that okay, or are you God Himself? You say Hiroshima was “absolutely” directed to human slaughter. I say it absolutely wasn’t.

We have an impasse, and your insulting comments don’t reflect well on you—they just show you as someone utterly lacking in Christian charity. I don’t think I’m going to stoop to engaging with you any more. You’re obviously the kind of person who must resort to personal insult when challenged. YOU be ashamed, sir!

I’ve really gotten to you, haven’t I? Whenever someone stops engaging the point and starts hurling tomatoes, then I know I’ve got him completely frustrated. I’ve made my point and you’re obviously out of gas. Good night and goodbye.

@Larry - I dispute your interpretation of the Catechism. It is simply not the case that intent is the sole determinant of the morality of killing. I can’t make a bad action good simply because my intentions are good. I cannot commit adultery or blaspheme God with the intention of saving my own skin (or anyone else’s), for example. The Catechism clearly groups killing innocent people along with adultery ad blasphemy as actions that can NEVER be justified - not by good intentions, desirable results, or anything else. 
The goal of stopping the war was certainly a good end, but that does not justify the means of killing civilians.

And what means would you have used to stop the war, Mr. Shea?

There’s always soapy bubbles, Larry.

Can the civilian populations of Hamburg and Dresden, which overwhelmingly endorsed Nazi rule (up until the war began to go against them), which (with a few brave exceptions) enthusiastically joined in the looting and de-housing of their Jewish neighbors, and which provided all the financial and industrial backing needed to support the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in their campaigns of death, in any valid sense be considered “innocent”??

Larry, the principle of double-effect does not rest solely on intention.

“Thomas Aquinas is credited with introducing the principle of double effect in his discussion of the permissibility of self-defense in the Summa Theologica (II-II, Qu. 64, Art.7). Killing one’s assailant is justified, he argues, provided one does not intend to kill him. Aquinas observes that “Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. … Accordingly, the act of self-defense may have two effects: one, the saving of one’s life; the other, the slaying of the aggressor.” As Aquinas’s discussion continues, a justification is provided that rests on characterizing the defensive action as a means to a goal that is justified: “Therefore, this act, since one’s intention is to save one’s own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in being as far as possible.” However, Aquinas observes, the permissibility of self-defense is not unconditional: “And yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered unlawful if it be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore, if a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful, whereas, if he repel force with moderation, his defense will be lawful.””

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/

If disproportional means are employed, it becomes increasing difficult to argue that the evil effect is not intended.  Proportionality is not always black-and-white, but when we weigh the expected death-toll against the direct military objective of bombing legitimate enemy targets, it seems difficult to accept the bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo.

Consider this: many credit the bombings of H&N with ending the war and saving lives. But by what means? Surely not by the loss of the specific military targets in those cities? ‘We have lost the port of Hiroshima, all is lost’? There is much debate over the exact reasons for the Japanese surrender, including the more recent claim that the wartime leaders were hoping to draw the US into a bloody, suicidal battle, but that the prospect of nuclear annihilation would rob them even of that satisfaction.  I’m not aware of any who argue that it was the loss of military installations in Hiroshima that ended the war.

To clarify the issue of indiscriminate targeting, bear in mind that the tactic of saturation bombing against civilian targets was used by both sides in the war, including by the Japanese against China, the Germans against England, but most successfully, thoroughly, and destructively by the Allies against Germany and Japan.  Much like the use of gas in the first world war, it is perhaps more laudable to see it as a terrible tactic wrongfully employed by all parties,and hopefully one that we will never witness again.

Larry, the principle of double-effect does not rest solely on intention.

“Thomas Aquinas is credited with introducing the principle of double effect in his discussion of the permissibility of self-defense in the Summa Theologica (II-II, Qu. 64, Art.7). Killing one’s assailant is justified, he argues, provided one does not intend to kill him. Aquinas observes that “Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. … Accordingly, the act of self-defense may have two effects: one, the saving of one’s life; the other, the slaying of the aggressor.” As Aquinas’s discussion continues, a justification is provided that rests on characterizing the defensive action as a means to a goal that is justified: “Therefore, this act, since one’s intention is to save one’s own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in being as far as possible.” However, Aquinas observes, the permissibility of self-defense is not unconditional: “And yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered unlawful if it be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore, if a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful, whereas, if he repel force with moderation, his defense will be lawful.””

If disproportional means are employed, it becomes increasing difficult to argue that the evil effect is not intended.  Proportionality is not always black-and-white, but when we weigh the expected death-toll against the direct military objective of bombing legitimate enemy targets, it seems difficult to accept the bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo.

Correction—to fiatlux, not Mark Shea—what means would you have used to stop the war? And in answer to your post—in the case of ACTS OF WAR in which civilians are killed and civilian property destroyed, item #2314 of the Catechism clearly states, as I have demonstrated, that the question of whether the civilian deaths are or are not murder is determined by the attacker’s INTENT—which in turn is inferred by his actions in view of what he knew or thought he knew at the time.

Let’s take the example given by Vicq Ruiz in his March 16 4:20 p.m. post: if the attacker strikes city A with a nuclear weapon, we can infer that his intent was NOT to target civilians. If he strikes city B, we can infer the exact opposite—assuming the attacker KNEW what Mr./Ms. Ruiz lays out as his premise. As for whether we should have attacked the military targets in Hiroshima with conventional weapons—there were so many such targets located all over the city that such an attack likely would have killed thousands of civilians and destroyed much of the city. Would you say that 10-thousand dead civilians would have been acceptable, instead of 200,000? Or would that only mean there were fewer murders?

The Japanese govt. is responsible morally for the collateral damage…
Period!!
Blaming the US for murder during ww2 for the 2 bombs is debatable but
Ultimately every Japanese that died only has the evil actions of their govt to blame
I’m lucky to be here
My grandfather was a pearl harbour survivor…
Mark Shea your view is extremely naive.

A quick question: what was the response to the bombings of Pope Pius XII? What did he say and when did he say it?

I’m glad we’re covering the moral dimensions of nuclear weapons (which I thought was completely played out in the ‘80’s).  That’s because we’re more than likely to start seeing more incidents of the use of nuclear weapons, either through strategic threats or actual deployments.  I know this will thrill the readers of Mark Shea, who will have an intellectual advantage over columnists and pundits.  The pertinent elements which have escaped the discussion include: nuclear deployment as genocide; technological enhancements which will blur moral distinctions; underground nuclear deployments; blackmail for money or political advantage; destruction of landmarks and symbolic buildings; large-scale poisoning of water, food and other natural resources; environmental tipping.  Look for these coming to a drugstore near you!

Mark,

You are exactly correct. My mother was a forced laborer in Germany during World War II. She almost died during an Allied air raid. My father was a vet. Those atomic bombs were entirely unnecessary. As a World War II history specialist, I know the Russians were moving on Japan before the surrender. The Americans just wanted to beat them to the occupation.

If I recall, WRATH is one of the seven deadly sins, the actual “flowering” of the deadliest sin of them all (“PRIDE”). Note:

[Aside: Under OT rules, a 20KT bomb drop or two might be considered fair play in the light of Pearl Harbour, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, etc., etc.. Under NT rules, both become equally reprehensible and subject to, broadly speaking, similar judgments in the long run. It would be easier to face the judgement seat as an incinerated child or innocent adult of Nagasaki or Hiroshima for that matter, than a crew member of the famous B-29s who did their duty deceived to a certain extent (cf: Rev 20:3)]. It’s tough. It’s rough. But that’s the Gospel I’m afraid].

So yes, Larry, I think Matt is right in the long run.

Beg pardon Larry. “Mark Shea is right in the long run”.

It was a war. Things like wars have a way ending up with violence. The government of Japan has culpability as well. Hindsight is an exact science.

On the bright side, everyone has nuclear weapons today making global scale conflict unthinkable. What irony. An ecclesiology wrought in fear of mutually assured destruction. Should we call this LOVE, too?

I am sick to death of handwringing over these two bombings, as if this were something qualitatively morally different from other forms of total warfare, or as if it were unnecessary at the time, or as if the dead in these were somehow more innocent and more pitiable than other dead in other acts of war. Enough! The American moral character and inclination to charity to enemies was never in clearer evidence than in this nation’s conduct in the closing days of WWII. This was not a war crime, it was an act of grisly mercy to an aggressor nation. If there be a charge of murder to lodge from it, it would be against the Japanese military leadership, who refused to admit being beaten and prolonged the bloodshed they themselves had treacherously begun.

John and Larry,

The Mosaic injunction of an eye for an eye was put in place thousands of years ago for a reason. That reason was not to encourage further violence, but to reduce it. “An eye for an eye” was a prohibition against causing any MORE harm to one’s enemy than the enemy had caused them. The parenthetical in the injunction was, “(Take no more than) an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth.”

Jesus then took on human flesh several hundreds of years after this injunction and raised the bar to “turn the other cheek.”

Would you have us turn the clock all the way back past Moses to primitive, unbridled vengeance, or have we learned a thing or two over the past few millenia about how to justly respond to injustice?

Being selective about who one kills in a time of war is certainly much easier said than done at times. But, seriously, you guys…An atomic bomb dropped into a city?

What if the U.S. government did the same to New Jersey to rid the country in one fell swoop of the Italian mob? “All’s fair in love and war”? Or morally outrageous overkill?

@Ed West:
Oh, and the occupation would have been so much better for Japan under Stalin…

“Mass murder can be justified.”

If you think that, you have some serious moral issues to work through.

Ending a war and stopping the killing can be justified. Would you have preferred a nice conventional invasion and the 3-5 million lost as its result? There are no clean, comfortable answers here. Truman saved 10x the lives he lost. Have you no pity for him?

“The bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki operated on principles similar to those that drive the Sun. The Japanese had no choice but to surrender when they saw that the Americans had discovered how to control the forces of nature which they worshipped.”

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were Japan’s most Catholic Christian cities.  The Franciscans and other orders had strong presences there.  St. Maxillilian Kolbe led a group of Franciscans in Nagasaki before returning to Poland to be slaughtered by the other war machine.  But what do we care about those Christians, we don’t care about the ones in Iraq either.  Too bad for our brother Christians if they happen to be standing in a US target.  Theyre just unfortunate collateral damage.

We did not nuke Tokyo which was much less Christian.

Mr. Shea:

Kurt Peterson’s question upthread - what did the Pope say at the time? - is well worth looking into.

And in a similar vein - am I correct in that the catechism’s language which you quote is a product of the second Vatican Council and therefore postdates the dropping of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs by close to twenty years?  To what extent can people be expected to subject themselves to Church teachings that have not yet been published??

Mark Shea: I am totally with you on the /fact/ (not an opinion, which some commentators here seem to think) that total war and the abominable crimes of nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki are reprehensible beyond words. It is a sin that cries to Heaven for vengeance, to say the least.

Where I don’t follow is how this fact would preclude the possibility that it is also a means of divine judgement on those cities. As the first commentator said, and which I haven’t seen addressed by you so far, the fact that an act is morally repugnant does not imply it does not also involve an element of divine wrath. The example given was that of the Assyrians in the Old Testament. Many other examples could be given, for instance the seers of Fatima who clearly said that war itself is a punishment for sin. The French Revolution can also in some sense be construed as a punishment for outspread vice and heresy in France, as well as the Protestant Revolt in countries as England and Scotland. This view of things is commonplace among the saints. As nothing down here happens outside the directing Providence of God, we can’t categorically exclude punishment as a reason for God to /allow/ the bombings, even if we aren’t really in a position to know if that is the case or not.

And only to emphasize further, the acts of nuclear bombing during WWII are awful crimes, and the perpetrators will have to face that fact sooner or later.

In Christ,
David

In the interests of fairness, I’d like to make a couple of comments.

1. Comparing the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to shooting through a pregnant woman in order to hit a terrorist is a flawed analogy. The bullet has to go through the woman and her unborn child in order to hit the terrorist. With the atomic bombings, both civilians and soldiers were killed simultaneously; neither group was killed through killing the other group.

2. Statements by MacArthur, Eisenhower and LeMay that the bombings were unnecessary should be accorded respect. However, other leaders at that time came to different conclusions. Truman’s 1955 “Memoirs” states that the atomic bomb probably saved half a million US lives — anticipated casualties in an Allied invasion of Japan planned for November. Stimson subsequently talked of saving one million US casualties, and Churchill of saving one million American and half that number of British lives. Who’s right? I don’t know.

One more thing. At the time of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Catholic teaching on the morality of bombing cities was unclear. See John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”. Here’s a quote from that book.

“...Father Siemes, who was out at Nagatsuka at the time of the attack, wrote in a report to the Holy See in Rome: ‘Some of us [Jesuits in Japan] consider the bomb in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civilian population. Others were of the opinion that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of a war against civilians. The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose… When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?’”

Mark Shea,
Not sure why you brought this article up. You are extremely disappointing in your ‘Monday Morning Quarterbacking on the accounts of WWII. As a youngster, you need to speak more about what you are qualified to speak about. I’m sure you have a working definition of God’s Wrath, if so, does it include allowing man to do to man what man does. Or, is God’s Wrath strictly from His sword. Hope this makes the filter, as apparently, protests against what you say seem to get ‘stuck’ in it.

Vincent Torley - I quite agree. 

At this point in the discussion I think it’s appropriate to list the names of all those, American, Japanese, Commonwealth, civilians and military, who died in Operations Olympic and Coronet.

Here they are:

Mr Jones & others: Mark Shea’s article is about calling a spade a spade. Moral justification is ordinarily beyond the grasp of Adam, following his banishment from paradise - a fact commemorated in the Synaxarion for Sunday of Forgiveness in the Eastern Orthodox Church, on this very day March 17th.

Hi, I am a United States Navy Sailor. I am involved in the firing of BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles. My question is am I a mass murder when the missiles I fire killed civilians near my selected target? Also a Marine buddy of mine shot a child on whom insurgents had placed an explosive vest and trained to detonate. What should he have done?

“Be ashamed”.  No, I think not Mr. Shea.
Hard choices were made by responsible people after many years of war against an enemy who would have fought to the end for their emperor. 
That you belive President Truman and his advisors did not posess your clarity of Catholic moral teaching and theoligical insight, lo these many years and many miles hence,  tells us what?  Not much.  You have a very comfortable job picking them apart at this distance. One that has no consequences for being wrong.
Mr. Truman, et al, did not have that luxury.
(hope this makes it through your filter, maybe)

Vicq Ruiz: At least 2 million people did unfortunately perish in the subsequent liberation of South Korea, Korea of course was part of the Japanese empire prior to 1945. The true figure is closer to 5 million as the North did not keep records. The saga continues.

It appears the cafeteria is open on both sides.

You’re right, Mark.  It would have been better for 1 million US soldiers to have died in the invasion of Japan.  And the children that they had to never have been born.

I might also point out that Fr. Pedro Arrupe S.J., who was in Hiroshima when the Emperor announced Japan’s surrender, wrote of the announcement: “The Japanese would not have surrendered without it; they would have fought even in hand-to-hand combat to defend their beloved Yamato from profanation by the enemy… Japan would not have surrendered; she would have been annihilated.”
Re Catholic theological opinion on the use of the atomic bomb: Fr. John Ford S.J. condemned obliteration bombing in “Theological Studies” (June 1944), but his successor Fr. Gerald Kelly S.J. defended even the first use of atomic weapons in his “Moral Notes” survey of 1951 (Vol. 12, 56-59). Pope Pius XII also said nothing against the bombing of Hiroshima. Mr. Shea might like to have a look at “Remembering Hiroshima: Was it Just?” by Francis X. Winters.

Let’s also mention that the July 26, 1945 Potsdam Declaration by the Allies warned Japan of “prompt and utter destruction” if that nation did not promptly surrender.

My question is am I a mass murder when the missiles I fire killed civilians near my selected target?

No.  Because you are not deliberately targeting civilians.  Nuclear weapons, lobbed at civilian population centers, are deliberately targeting civilians.

Also a Marine buddy of mine shot a child on whom insurgents had placed an explosive vest and trained to detonate. What should he have done?

Defend himself and the people endangered by the bomb.

God bless you both for your service!

I have another question(s): if one allows that Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered divine punishment (I don’t, however), shouldn’t He also punish the Soviets for the gulag system? The Chinese for the Mao regime? Cambodian leaders for their self-genocide, and the Rwandans? And if dropping the bombs was a crime, ought God not punish us? (For the parents in the crowd, punishment, to be effective, must be swift and sure or the point is lost.) And go back in history and ask why God demanded the deaths of the Amalekites? Men, women and children. Did that make the Israelites guilty of genocide? Did it make God guilty of genocide? Shouldn’t God abide by the rules that He sets for us?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

here is the link

As to Hap Arnold:

http://books.google.com/books?id=yYcGP53d0ngC&q=atomic#v=snippet&q=atomic&f=false

P 171.

Again, he had no problem with the use of the bomb, he just thought it was not necessary, since we could continue to bomb Japan into submission by every growing, massive B-29 raids that would destroy their cities.

If the atomic bomb was “lobbed” at Second General Army Headquarters, or Chugoku Regional Army Headquarters or the Army Marine Headquarters or the Eastern Drill Grounds or the Western Drill Grounds, or the 11th Infantry Regiment HQ or the Army Weaponry Depots or the Army Transport Division (all in Hiroshima)—and civilian casualties and destruction resulted, how would that be qualitatively different from our sailor friend Mike having accidentally killed civilians located near the target of the BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile which he fired while intending to kill enemy soldiers and damage their equipment, Mr. Shea? I understand there are fewer victims. But are the Tomahawk casualties acceptable—or do they just represent fewer murders?

As to McArthur:

Apparently the only quote anyone has been able to find indicating McArthur “opposed the use of the bomb” is from Norman Cousins book. However, Cousins was a noted “world peace” activist, opponent of military spending, etc.  And his book outlining his alleged discussion with McArthur was not published until 20 years later.

The quote attributed to McArthur in Cousins book is that the bomb was not “militarily necessary”

But McArthuer was not against the use of the bomb. His point was that, had we realized the Japanese would never surrender unless we let them keep the emperor, we might have had a surrender without the use of the bomb. However, FDR and Churchill had locked into unconditional surrender. In the end, we let them keep the emperor, so in McArthurs view the bombing was “not militarily necessary”

And, all of this assumes McArthur said such a thing, and Cousins remembered it correctly. The quote did not appear until well over ten years after McArthurs death.

If you say that the half dozen or so Tomahawk casualties are regrettable accidents of a just war, then please explain to all of us why 200,000 Hiroshima dead are murder victims, but a half-dozen Tomahawk dead do NOT represent a half-dozen murders (a lesser sin, certainly, but still a sin which must be avoided at all costs?) Is it the number of dead which turn a regrettable necessity into a crime? If you believe this, then support your argument, because my impression is that the difference between murder and justifiable homicide lies in the circumstances of the killing, NOT the number of dead. If the crew of the Enola Gay are murderers, then so is our friend Mike. If they should have held their fire, then so should he have. Which is it, Mr. Shea? Deal with it!

Also, our sailor friend Mike asked you a question, Mr. Shea—his Marine buddy shot a child who was approaching them with an explosive vest. Mike asked you what his buddy should have done. You replied “Defend himself and the people endangered by the bomb.” But you don’t say HOW he should have defended them. Did you mean to say that he was right to shoot the child? Then SAY it! “He should have shot the kid!” SAY it! Don’t pretend you are too holy to dirty your keyboard with such messiness—too saintly to speak such impurity. I for one am sick of your holier-than-thou-ness which has filled this article and thread.

Pius XII’s view on the use of nuclear weapons. If I understand this correctly, it would allow “defensive” bombings that would stop wars that are killing large numbers of people.

1. Such use must be “imposed by an evident and extremely grave injustice;”

2. Such injustice cannot be avoided without the use of nuclear weapons;

3. One should pursue diplomatic solutions that avoid or limit the use of such weapons;
4. There use must be indispensable to and in accordance with a nation’s defense needs;

5. That same use would be immoral if the destruction caused by the nuclear weapons were to result in harm so widespread as to be uncontrollable by man.

6. Unjustified uses should be severely punished as “crimes” under national and international law.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/speeches/1954/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19540930_viii-assemblea-medica_sp.html

NOTE that this never mentions atomic bombs specifically, but refers instead to total war

Fredg299: Releasing helium balloons loaded with small bibles “somewhere south of the 38th parallel”, is always going to be the better option.

Fredg299: a document from 1954 doesn’t help Truman and the others who made that decision. Truman was faced with an estimated death toll of Americans for the invasion of Japan at over 500,000 (not counting Japanese deaths). Kill 250,000? Save more than 1/2 million Americans? It was a no-brainer. Ugly, indeed!  And we might ask again: What did Pope Pius XII say or write about it in the same time frame?

A few factoids, just to spice up and decorate this friendly debate.
 
  (1) The deaths at Hiroshima probably numbered a (mere!) 60-70,000, not 200,000 (plus 50,000 injured).  At Nagasaki: 40,000 dead (with the same number injured).A few years ago the estimate of Dresden fatalities was reduced from the much-published 135,000 to 35,000. . . we should feel better already!
    (2) The credibility of Truman’s sanitized Memoirs is shredded in the source I cited above: Gar Alperovitz’s The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb: and the Architecture of an American Myth (Harper Collins, 1995, 800 pages),based partly on documents declassified only after the mandatory 50 years.   
  (3) I recall a 1960ish interview with the still-living plane crew members of the Enola Gay.  Their views matched more-or-less the full range explored by Shea and his lively readers, including the two bookends: one who went insane, and another entered a monastery for life.
  (4) According to the post-war Strategic Bombing Survey only 150 Japanese military personnel were killed at Nagasaki (cited in Alperovitz, p.534)
  (5) After the second bombing, on August 10 Truman himself did in fact stop the bombing because “the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was to horrible.”
  (6) Larry is correct that only after Hiroshima did Emperor Hirohito break the deadlock on the War Cabinet, but sadly even while he was in this hurried session, Nagasaki was bombed.  Only a three-day interval?  Even the Strategic Bombing Survey omits mention of Nagasaki as playing even a hypothetical role in shortening a war that was already over, and known by many to be so.  The second bombing action seems gratuitous, almost as if the plutonium effort (Hanford, WA) needed to play too, once the uranium effort(Oak Ridge, TN) got its turn. I notice this angle as one who grew up in the Hanford and boomtown Richland mystique (born in July 1944 on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation,in a soon-to-be abandoned hospital,105 degrees, no time for anesthetics).
    I side with those who say the final tipping point for using the bomb(s)and for the forced timing (August 6, and then 9), was the entry of Russia on the eastern front. (The Red Army was expected to cross the border into China and Manchuria on August 15.) Truman did not want to see Asia go the way of enslaved eastern Europe, because of Yalta concessions unwisely made by Roosevelt to “Uncle Joe” Stalin.  Oh what a tangled web we weave . . .

Readers might like to have a look at this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II
The tables show that 24 German cities and 46 Japanese cities suffered at least 40% destruction because of Allied conventional bombing. The purpose of the area bombardment of cities was laid out in a British Air Staff paper, dated 23 September 1941: “The ultimate aim of an attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this, we must achieve two things: first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death.” Aiming to break morale by destroying infrastructure is not the same thing as aiming to kill human beings indiscriminately. What would Mr. Shea have done?

The Royal Air Force in 1941 was compelled to conduct area-bombing against Germany because they could only attack at night. They did not have enough fuel for fighter cover—and night-vision technology had not yet been invented. Enemy cities would, of course, be blacked out at night, so the RAF had to bomb blindly, more or less. September 1941 was before the U.S. even entered the war—so the report referred to by Mr. Torley is not directly relevant to the United States Army Air Force war against Japan in 1945, or to the atomic bombings in particular.

Mr. Shea is not a pacifist. I, however, am. This is precisely the problem with the Just War tradition: what do you do when it does not seem apparently possible to win a just war by just means? Do you return to the Christian’s default setting of pacifism, or do you engage in rhetoric that casts war in a paramoral sense (thus negating categorization of a given war as “just”, pulling the rug from under oneself). Mr. Shea: this is my one serious struggle with Catholicism (I am a pre-catechumenate). Genuine just war tradition admits that pacifism is the default setting of a Christian and then lays out a rare conscientious objection to pacifism. When just wars by just means fail, one is supposed to return to the default setting. Even if you die. Even if more innocents die. It is NOT a numbers game; objective evil must be avoided absolutely. You can’t use unjust means, end of story. Mr. Shea, this was a challenging and excellent article. Thank you for striking at the golden calf some have. As you say: the cafeteria is open on the right as well as on the left.

But you don’t say HOW he should have defended them. Did you mean to say that he was right to shoot the child?

I can’t make a moral pronouncement on a specific act since I have no idea what the particular circumstances were.  I can say that he had an obligation to defend innocents from the bomb.  If that meant shooting the child then that might (I’m not certain) be morally legitimate.  I incline to think it is.  But I don’t know that it was *necessary* to shoot the child because I wasn’t there and don’t know the specifics.  Was it possible to negotiate with the kid?  Did the even know it was a suicide vest?  Could the kid be talked into taking it off?  I have no idea.  So since I have no idea, I defer to the judgment of the soldier and assume he did the best he could in the situation as he found it.

Similarly, by the way, I assume Truman—as a Protestant Mason ignorant of the Catholic tradition of Just War—also acted according to his best lights.  My purpose is not to sit in judgment of Truman.  It is to remind Catholics in the present day to stop being cafeteria Catholics.

And by the way, it’s bunk to say that because the Church specifically spelled out “you shall not *mass* murder” in the documents of Vatican II, it was somehow unknown during World War II that mass murder was wrong.  Doctrinal developments in morals typically remind, not instruct.

So: be ashamed, Larry.  You are defending the deliberate abortion of hundreds of unborn babies and thousands of Japanese children because your nationalist ideology demands it.

A person always has the pacifist option to sacrifice HIM/HERSELF rather than to participate in even a just war.  But those responsible for the common good do not have the option of offering the necks of OTHERS, such as one’s family or one’s nation, to the will of well armed lunatics and armies.  So, we’re back to legitimate consideration of which defensive wars are in fact just, and under what limiting conditions.  Yes? Collateral damage (when such damage is limited . . . partly a “numbers game”), not to be confused with indiscriminate targeting, is not ruled out absolutely.

Trying to justify an unjust act of war by another potential unjust act of war doesn’t change anything. Invading Japan would have been extremely stupid because of the unimaginatively high death toll. The evil effect would by far outweigh the good effect of ensuring an unconditional surrender of Japan.

Besides, we were demanding an unconditional surrender. We created the excuse to bomb these cities and probably could have negotiated a peaceful surrender without resorting to mass destruction of civilian centers.

This was an act of America. God had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT! The pro’s and cons depend upon your point of view. If you are Japanese there is one view. If you are American another. If the japanese must own their own evil. Then the Americans must own their own. When soldiers fight eachother it is just that. When soldiers deliberately kill civilians it is an atrocity. When airmen kill civilians it is an atrocity. The Axis powers have countless atrocities to accept. America too has committed deliberate atrocities! The good and virtuous man can accept the truth. These wars were not Christian wars. Meaning Catholic vs Catholic. They were caused by the still evil and sinful impulses… the inclination to sin then find excuses for it!

Thank you Mr. Shea for your kind sentiment.

Peter: Just a correction. The lower number of casualties you note are the number immediately killed by the bomb explosion. Due to radiatino sickness, and burns, etc, many died long after the explosion, So I think higher numbers are more accurate.
Gar Alperovitz is not a good source. He is even noted in his wikipedia page as a “revisionist” historian/ this usually means truth is sacrificed for a political goal.
We live in the age of stupidity, where history seems to be written by increasingly activist types with an ax to grind. 
I have heard the “crew went crazy” stories before, and I believe they have all been successfully refuted.
Kurt Peterson: I did not say the document helped in 1945. As a matter of fact, I think the document is carefully tailored to allow the bombing under the unique circumstances that existed - millions would probably die if we did not end the war quickly.

The lady singeth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMdhrlzRNBo

Mr. Shea:

“I assume Truman—as a Protestant Mason ignorant of the Catholic tradition of Just War—also acted according to his best lights.  My purpose is not to sit in judgment of Truman.  It is to remind Catholics in the present day to stop being cafeteria Catholics.”

Sorry. Can’t go there. 

If what was done in August 1945 is mass murder and a war crime today, it was also mass murder and a war crime then.  Unless the catechism of 1945 can be parsed differently from that of 1962, an approach you appear to have rejected.

So Truman must be condemned, or alternatively we must consider that Eichmann could have been acting “according to his best lights”.

Oh, it was mass murder and a war crime all right.  The *act* remains objectively, intrinsically and gravely evil (“a crime against God and man meriting firm and unequivocal condemnation”) just as the deliberate killing of all human life is.  However, Truman’s *culpability* for the act are determined by unknowable factors such as his interior freedom and his understanding of what he was choosing.  That’s for God to judge at this point since he is past man’s judgment.  I cut him what slack I can in terms of culpability.  But I cut the act no slack at all because it is what Holy Church says it is: gravely and intrinsically evil.  My concern here is that not that people are cutting Truman slack for culpability.  In charity, they *should* do that.  They should do it for Eichmann too in the hope of his redemption.  The problem is not their charity for Truman’s culpability, but their flat denial that the act was gravely and intrinsically immoral and their blasphemous attempts to even argue that murder is good.

There is a saying that states, “the means does not justify the end”. With that being said, any taking of human life is a sin, regardless of the reason. Police are “trained” to wound if at all possible, not kill. Could we have “wounded” WWII Japan without the horrible consequences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ? WE(the world) will never know that answer fully. Our brave military were following orders. I am sure that most of them had their conscience’s “seared” and that their “personal hell” must have followed them to their graves if they had never asked for forgiveness from God and ALL of the innocent victims of WWII for their actions if they were Christians.

I come from a military Roman Catholic family,my father served in Vietnam in 1969, my youngest son was being shipped to the Persian Gulf a few years back, my sister had almost received orders to participate in Operation: Desert Storm. I cannot judge the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or ANY war, past or present. That is only for God alone to do. But what I can do now is ask for personal forgiveness for my country, the USA, and all countries who resort to extreme actions in the name of so-called “just wars” by asking for Divine Mercy for the whole world by praying the “Divine Mercy” chaplet . We are all human and sinners.

General William Tecumseh Sherman was so right in saying that “War Is Hell.” Any human with a heart and soul understands this concept.

OK, I understand where you are coming from now.

Does all America share the culpability for what Truman and his advisors did?  Do you and I owe Japan an apology??

How can you be culpable for an act you did not commit and do not approve of?  I can see culpability for, say, still approving an act.  So a white racist today who says, “Slavery was good” can be said to share in culpability for the sin of slavery, even though he never owned a slave and slavery ended 150 years ago.  We are all culpable for the crucifixion of Jesus in that my sins and yours put him on the cross (which is why attempts to blame “the Jews” as peculiarly responsible for the crucifixion are, in the end, an attempt to claim that my sins did not put them there and are therefore highly inadvisable for any Christian.  Saying, “Jesus did not die for *my* sins” is not going to be a good way to make the acquaintance of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates).  But simply a generic “You are American.  You are culpable for H and N” makes no sense.

The word of the LORD came to me again: 2* “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? 3 As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. 4* Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die. 5 “If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right—6 if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman in her time of impurity, 7 does not oppress any one, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, 8 does not lend at interest or take any increase, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between man and man, 9 walks in my statutes, and is careful to observe my ordinances *—he is righteous, he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD. 10 “If he begets a son who is a robber, a shedder of blood, * 11 who does none of these duties, but eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, 12 oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, 13 lends at interest, and takes increase; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself. 14 “But if this man begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done, and fears, and does not do likewise, 15 who does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, 16 does not wrong any one, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, 17 withholds his hand from iniquity, * takes no interest or increase, observes my ordinances, and walks in my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. 18 As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity. 19 “Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. 20* The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. 21 “But if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 22 None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness which he has done he shall live. 23* Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? 24 But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die. 25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? 26 When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die for it; for the iniquity which he has committed he shall die. 27 Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life. 28 Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. 29 Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? 30 “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. * 31* Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32* For I have no pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord GOD; so turn, and live. - Ezekiel 18