Peace vigil for Hiroshima to be virtual

Archbishop slated to speak during event marking 75th anniversary of bombing

The “Little Boy” atomic bomb designed and partly assembled at Los Alamos National Laboratory was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, killing 100,000 people and leveling the city.

A peace vigil marking the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing was set to take place in Los Alamos, where the nation’s nuclear weapons program began, but it now will be a one-hour virtual event Thursday evening due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s the first time the Hiroshima Day vigil will be held online in its 17-year history.

There’s another first that organizers think is even more significant.

Archbishop John C. Wester is expected to speak during the event, and his talk coincides this week with the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s People of God publication featuring six pages that decry nuclear weapons.

“This has never happened before,” said the Rev. John Dear, a Catholic priest and peace activist who helped organize the event.

Pope Francis has strongly denounced nuclear weaponry, most recently in Nagasaki, Japan, where the “Fat Man” atomic bomb was dropped Aug, 9, 1945.

The two atomic bombs dropped on those cities were the first and last used in a war. They are credited with ending World War II, but at a great human toll, with many as 200,000 civilians killed and thousands suffering radiation poisoning.

“It’s important to remember it so it never happens again,” Dear said. “But unfortunately we’re closer to nuclear war than ever right now.”

The 6 p.m. online commemoration for New Mexico will be the finale in a daylong series of videos in which 150 anti-nuclear groups nationwide will speak, Dear said. A conference on nonviolence, which was planned for Albuquerque, will be held online at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Dear said he spent three and a half years planning the 2020 peace gathering in Los Alamos that was expected to be much larger than previous events.

Actor Martin Sheen, an avid nuclear opponent, was scheduled to speak, and a crowd of demonstrators was going to march from Ashley Pond to the laboratory’s entrance on Diamond Drive, a deliberate correlation with Hiroshima’s 75th anniversary.

Canceling the rally was a huge disappointment, Dear

said. But now he is heartened by the potential for the online webinar to reach thousands of viewers, whereas the live gathering might have had 800 participants, he said.

“It’s going to have a greater reach,” Dear said. “Maybe it was providential.”

Evelyn Naranjo of San Ildefonso Pueblo will open the video with a Native American blessing.

Dr. Ira Helfand, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, will be the keynote speaker. He’s a member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

Helfand will discuss why it’s important to build a grassroots movement to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, will discuss the history of Los Alamos National Laboratory history and its role in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including plans to ramp up production of plutonium triggers used in warheads.

Roshi Joan Halifax, the founder of Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, will offer reflections on Hiroshima.

Wester will make the closing address.