Scotland: Church leaders hold vigil outside nuclear base

Vigil outside Clyde Naval Base

Most Rev William Nolan, Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, and President of J&P Scotland together with the Moderator of the Church of Scotland General Assembly Rt Rev Gordon Kennedy and Rev Sarah Brown, convener of the Public Life and Social Justice of the Church of Scotland, led an ecumenical peace vigil on Saturday, outside HM Naval Base on the River Clyde to make a fresh call for a world free of nuclear weapons.

At a time when conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe rage, the threat posed by these soon-to-be upgraded and expanded stocks in the UK is greater than in recent memory.

The No To Nuclear Weapons ecumenical peace gathering was organised by Justice & Peace Scotland.

Eighty-one years ago tomorrow, an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima, Japan, were killed and at least 74,000 people died in Nagasaki a few days later, leading to the Japanese government surrendering on 2 September of that year, ending the Second World War.

The current generation of warheads - held by nine nations - is understood to be 80 times more powerful than those dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Praying for a world that turns its back on nuclear weapons and embraces justice and peace was the central theme of the Moderator's address to the vigil.

"Praying is not talking to the wall, praying is striving against all the enemies of justice and peace," he said.

"We make peace when we act for reconciliation, not just with those that we like but with any other.

"If we walk in the way of peace with all our God, with all our neighbours, it might be that God will grow from our walking in his ways and nations will no longer desire to keep and deploy weapons of mass destruction."

Patsy Thomson, a lay preacher from the Scottish Episcopal Church, and representatives of the Quakers in Scotland, the United Reformed Church, the Iona Community and Pax Christi Scotland also attended.