Petition to call on Government to forego replacement of Trident
-27/11/06
By Ed Thornto
Petition to call on Government to forego replacement of Trident
-27/11/06
By Ed Thornton
A delegation representing churches in Scotland will this week deliver a 20,000-signature petition to the Ministry of Defence calling on the UK Government not to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system.
Leaders of the Church of Scotland, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Scottish Catholic Church will present the petition this Friday 1 December. It calls on the Government to begin decommissioning the weapons and divert the funds to aid and development projects.
The three denominations will be represented by Right Rev Alan McDonald, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Most Reverend Idris Jones of the Scottish Episcopal Church and Richard McCready of the Scottish Catholic Church.
Rev McDonald said: ìThe statistics about Trident are chilling. One Trident submarine can carry the equivalent of 750 Hiroshima bombs. The potential for indiscriminate destruction of countless men, women and children is almost beyond belief.î
The current fleet of nuclear weapons is due to reach the end of its working life in 2024 but Prime Minister Tony Blair last week told Parliament that a White Paper on replacing Trident would be published before Christmas. A White Paper is an indication of an intent to act by a Government, inviting comments on the best way to do it.
The Scottish churchesí petition was launched in May and followed a statement made the previous month by Scotlandís eight Roman Catholic bishops voicing firm opposition to replacing Trident. ìThe use of weapons of mass destruction would be a crime against God and against humanity [and] it must never happen,î the bishops said.
Last year, British church leaders wrote a letter to the Guardian newspaper urging the Government to spell out the conditions under which it might forego a replacement of Trident.
The Rev McDonald has long been a vocal critic of nuclear weapons and in September was joined by religious leaders, campaigners and trade union activists on The Long Walk for Peace, an 85 mile trek from Faslane to the Scottish Parliament that aimed to highlight the issue of nuclear weapons. Four Trident nuclear submarines have been based at Faslane on the Clyde as part of Britainís nuclear deterrent.
The opposition of Scotlandís churches to a Trident replacement follows similar moves by other UK church groups in recent months.
Earlier this month, the Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB) passed a resolution opposing Tridentís replacement and calling on the Government to play a lead role in disarmament negotiations. The debate, which took place at The Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire, highlighted ëthe fundamental moral and ethical reasonsí for not replacing the nuclear weapons as well as pointing to financial concerns. The resolution encouraged local churches to contact MPs to express their opposition.
Meanwhile, in June the Methodist Conference voted to oppose the replacement of Trident and urged the Government to take the lead in disarmament negotiations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
However, in the same month UK Chancellor Gordon Brown, whose commitment to issues such as cancelling debts in the developing world has made him popular among Christians, said in a speech that he was committed to ensuring Britain retained its independent nuclear weapons.
Petition to call on Government to forego replacement of Trident
-27/11/06
By Ed Thornton
A delegation representing churches in Scotland will this week deliver a 20,000-signature petition to the Ministry of Defence calling on the UK Government not to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system.
Leaders of the Church of Scotland, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Scottish Catholic Church will present the petition this Friday 1 December. It calls on the Government to begin decommissioning the weapons and divert the funds to aid and development projects.
The three denominations will be represented by Right Rev Alan McDonald, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Most Reverend Idris Jones of the Scottish Episcopal Church and Richard McCready of the Scottish Catholic Church.
Rev McDonald said: ìThe statistics about Trident are chilling. One Trident submarine can carry the equivalent of 750 Hiroshima bombs. The potential for indiscriminate destruction of countless men, women and children is almost beyond belief.î
The current fleet of nuclear weapons is due to reach the end of its working life in 2024 but Prime Minister Tony Blair last week told Parliament that a White Paper on replacing Trident would be published before Christmas. A White Paper is an indication of an intent to act by a Government, inviting comments on the best way to do it.
The Scottish churchesí petition was launched in May and followed a statement made the previous month by Scotlandís eight Roman Catholic bishops voicing firm opposition to replacing Trident. ìThe use of weapons of mass destruction would be a crime against God and against humanity [and] it must never happen,î the bishops said.
Last year, British church leaders wrote a letter to the Guardian newspaper urging the Government to spell out the conditions under which it might forego a replacement of Trident.
The Rev McDonald has long been a vocal critic of nuclear weapons and in September was joined by religious leaders, campaigners and trade union activists on The Long Walk for Peace, an 85 mile trek from Faslane to the Scottish Parliament that aimed to highlight the issue of nuclear weapons. Four Trident nuclear submarines have been based at Faslane on the Clyde as part of Britainís nuclear deterrent.
The opposition of Scotlandís churches to a Trident replacement follows similar moves by other UK church groups in recent months.
Earlier this month, the Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB) passed a resolution opposing Tridentís replacement and calling on the Government to play a lead role in disarmament negotiations. The debate, which took place at The Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire, highlighted ëthe fundamental moral and ethical reasonsí for not replacing the nuclear weapons as well as pointing to financial concerns. The resolution encouraged local churches to contact MPs to express their opposition.
Meanwhile, in June the Methodist Conference voted to oppose the replacement of Trident and urged the Government to take the lead in disarmament negotiations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
However, in the same month UK Chancellor Gordon Brown, whose commitment to issues such as cancelling debts in the developing world has made him popular among Christians, said in a speech that he was committed to ensuring Britain retained its independent nuclear weapons.