Washington D.C., Feb 14, 2020 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- The bishops of the United States released a statement on Friday calling for the United States and other nuclear powers to dismantle their arsenals and praising Pope Francis for drawing the world’s attention to nuclear weapons.
“The Committee on International Justice and Peace is grateful to the Holy Father for this renewed effort to bring about a world of peace and justice that is not based upon fear or the threat of nuclear annihilation but justice and human solidarity,” said the statement released Feb. 14.
The statement was co-signed by the eight bishops who comprise the committee, as well as the two bishop consultants to the committee. The chairman of the committee is Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford.
The bishops referenced Pope Francis’ November visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki while he was in Japan. Both cities were attacked with atomic bombs at the end of World War II. The bishops said the pontiff “spoke forcefully” on the issue.
“Speaking at Nagasaki, he emphasized the need for a wide and deep solidarity to bring about security in a world not reliant on atomic weapons,” said the bishops.
They quoted the pope calling on “individuals, religious communities and civil society, countries that possess nuclear weapons and those that do not, the military and private sectors, and international organizations” to work together to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
In Hiroshima, the bishops recalled, Pope Francis stated that the use of nuclear weapons is always immoral, as is their possession.
“The words of Pope Francis serve as a clarion call and a profound reminder to all that the status quo of international relations, resting on the threat of mutual destruction, must be changed,” they said.
The bishops noted that the continued existence of nuclear weapons “weighs on the consciences of all to find a means for complete and mutual disarmament based in a shared commitment and trust that needs to be fostered and deepened.”
“As such, we also call upon our own government to be part of and indeed renew its primary responsibility in that effort.” they said. In addition to the United States, the other nations possessing nuclear weapons “must take the lead in mutual reduction” of their stockpiles.
“The international community [has] recognized the need to move away from the threat of mutual destruction and toward genuine and universal disarmament,” said the bishops.
Currently, eight countries–the United States, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and the United Kingdom–are known to possess nuclear weapons. Israel is also believed to have nuclear weapons, but has refused to confirm the matter.
The former Soviet states of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, along with South Africa, have all disarmed themselves of nuclear weapons.
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A Vatican flag, with the incorrect design likely drawn from Wikipedia, and the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. / Bohumil Petrik/ACI
St. Louis, Mo., Apr 8, 2023 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
The flag of Vatican City, with its distinctive yellow and white, is instantly recognizable to many Catholics. Likely far fewer people, though, have scrutinized the papal coat of arms on the right-hand side, instead taking the intricate design — which includes famous crossed keys — for granted.
As it turns out, there’s a good chance that the coats of arms on many of the Vatican flags you’ve seen out in the world are rendered incorrectly. And it took until 2023 for the internet to start taking notice.
Imagine you wanted to print your own version of the Vatican flag. Where would you go to find a high-quality picture of one? If you’re like most internet users, your first stop would probably not be the Vatican’s official (but admittedly outdated) vatican.va website. You’re probably going to pull up Wikipedia, one of the world’s most visited websites and an endless storehouse of free image content. Flagmakers the world over appear to have done so over the years.
Imagine many people’s surprise, then, to discover that the image of the “Flag of Vatican City” displayed on Wikipedia has been wrong several times over the years, most recently from 2017 to 2022. (It was also wrong from 2006–2007.)
What is “wrong” about these flags, you might ask? It’s a small detail in the grand scheme of things but easy to spot once you know about it. The erroneous Wikipedia file includes a red disk at the bottom of the papal tiara as well as a different shade of yellow on portions of the coat of arms.
The anonymous Wikipedia editor who changed the look of the flag in 2017 wrote that he or she did so for “color correction” purposes, noting that the Vatican’s coat of arms includes the red at the bottom of the tiara. The only problem? The Vatican’s official flag design renders the coat of arms differently, with the circular bottom of the tiara in white.
The image was reverted to the correct one in 2022, but the damage was done. A casual internet search will turn up dozens of Vatican flags for sale that clearly used the incorrect image downloaded from Wikipedia. The incorrect flag has even made its way into emojis. (This whole situation gained attention last month after a Reddit user made a post about it.)
An inexpensive Vatican flag available for sale on Amazon that makes use of the incorrect Wikipedia flag design. Amazon/Screenshot
Father William Becker, pastor at St. Columbanus Parish in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, read the Reddit post with interest and amusement. Becker, a self-described “flag guy,” has studied the Vatican flag for years and even wrote an entire book about it. He has fond memories of raising the yellow and white colors over his alma mater, the North American College in Rome.
Becker told CNA that the saga of the Vatican flag on Wikipedia demonstrates a need for the Vatican to step in and clarify exactly what its flag should look like, especially considering the fact that Catholic churches all over the world display the Vatican flag.
It was precisely this lack of clarity on the official design of the Vatican flag that led Becker to create a website detailing, as best as he could, the correct design for the flag.
“Cultural communities in general have turned to flags in a stunning way,” Becker commented, citing in part a proliferation of cheaply made, mass-produced flags. And, anecdotally, there seems to be an ever-increasing interest in the Vatican flag as a way for Catholics to claim an identity, whether by flying a flag at home, waving it at a papal event, or by putting one in their social media profile picture.
The Vatican flag. Bohumil Petrik/CNA
Perhaps surprisingly, the Vatican flag is less than 100 years old, as is Vatican City itself. For more than a millennium before 1870, the pope ruled over the Papal States, large regions mainly within present-day Italy. After the Vatican lost control of the Papal States, it found itself a tiny island surrounded by an acrimonious Italy. It took nearly 60 years until the ratification of the Lateran Accords of 1929 ushered in harmony between the Vatican and Italy, and the creation of the world’s smallest sovereign country.
In the days of the Papal States, many different flags were used, but the yellow and white color scheme was a common feature. Becker said the modern design was first used by the merchant fleet in the Papal States from 1825 to 1870. In 1929, that design was chosen as the new flag of Vatican City, the sovereign country.
“It took a while in 1929 to get some flags made. The techniques of mass production weren’t available yet, and so it would have been a matter of sewing up some flags and fitting out buildings with flag staffs,” Becker noted, saying that during this time and for years afterward there was quite a bit of variation between the Vatican flags people flew, perhaps even more so than today.
“That’s kind of common with other countries too, especially those that don’t really take pains to standardize their design. [Nowadays] a flagmaker is likely to go to a source like Wikipedia, and it may vary in its accuracy,” Becker told CNA.
The same flag chosen in 1929 was reconfirmed in a revised Vatican constitution, issued by Pope John Paul II in 2000. The original Vatican flag was actually square, as indeed the official version is today. Since roughly the 1960s, though, buildings began to fly oblong state flags that followed Italy’s flag proportions, probably because most Vatican flags at the time were mass-produced there.
The flag has special significance beyond the walls of Vatican City as a marker for the Vatican’s extraterritorial properties, of which there are more than a dozen. These properties, which include major basilicas such as St. Paul Outside the Walls and St. Mary Major, are marked as the Vatican’s through their flying of the papal flag.
Becker said he hopes his website will serve as a helpful resource for anyone looking for the exact Vatican flag design, at least until the Vatican issues some kind of clarification on what exactly the flag should look like.
“The papal flag is interesting because on the one hand, the Vatican is such a small state, but the papal flag is seen all over the world. Anywhere there’s a Catholic church, you might be likely to run into a papal flag,” he said.
“It would be nice if somebody at the Holy See could, through their website or wherever, make some design specifications more available … design specifications that manufacturers could rely on a bit more.”
Denver, Colo., Jan 11, 2018 / 07:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Boulder abortion clinic is accused of malpractice, after allegedly leaving nearly two inches of a fetus’ skull inside a patient’s uterus during a late-term abortion, apparently forc… […]
Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback speaks to EWTN News Nightly Anchor Mark Irons on Friday, April 11, 2025. / Credit; EWTN News
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1 Comment
We read, “In Hiroshima, the bishops recalled, Pope Francis stated that the use of nuclear weapons is always immoral, as is their possession.”
Not new is the difficulty is in CONFLATING the (1) deterrent (?) “possession” of nuclear weapons with (2) the actual use of nuclear weapons (which today include precision versions unknown in 1945). Without detracting from the insanity of enormous nuclear stockpiles, we might reflect on the mix of moral imperatives defended by the Church and the realm of prudential judgment(s) as this mix was articulated in earlier and different circumstances during the final decades of the Cold War…
In 1965, while condemning the indiscriminate targeting of populations, the Second Vatican Council also still ACCEPTED “deterrence” (“possession”) IF this was at least a step toward nuclear disarmament. The Council stopped short of demanding a “freeze” (Gaudium et Spes, 78-82). Ever on mind were the overwhelming risks of slippery-slope escalation into nuclear Armageddon.
In the 1980s tactical and mobile battlefield-level missiles (offensive/ defensive?) with targeting precision, were deployed by the West to offset the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact’s massive superiority (3:1 ration) in conventional armaments/tanks. Also, at this time, President Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative—the high cost of which is said to have helped achieve the collapse the economically non-viable and Marxist Soviet Union.
In 1983 THREE national episcopal conferences (synods?) produced non-identical (!) and non-doctrinal pastoral letters.
In addition to (1) the AMERICAN The Challenge to Peace (which highlighted the slippery slope into Armageddon; and which eventually clarified/separated its moral message from and appendix for prudential judgments), there were also (2) the GERMAN Out of Justice, Peace (which highlighted the imbalance in battlefield weaponry in a vulnerable Eastern Europe), and (3) the FRENCH Winning the Peace (which highlighted the overall threat to humanity of international Marxism). (The latter two pastorals were combined and edited by Fr. James Schall, S.J., and PUBLISHED by Ignatius Press, 1984).
But, PRIOR to all three conference reflections, in 1982, Pope John Paul II already had delivered a nuanced papal address to the Second Special Session of the United Nations dedicated to disarmament (Negotiation: The Only Realistic Solution to the Continuing Threat of War, Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1982). At that time the pope CONCLUDED, in part, that: “In current conditions ‘deterrence’ based on balance, certainly not as an end in itself but as a step on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable” (p. 10).
So, today—-regarding “possession” versus potential use—-FIRST, what has been and is the morally-required progress, if any, toward disarmament; and SECOND, globally, what is the “current condition” in 2020, politically and technologically?
Pope Francis (now joined by the American bishops) is speaking to the possession of still-enormous nuclear stockpiles, plus the proliferation of such weapons to more nations in hair-trigger situations—all in a real (or unreal?) world where negotiation is both barely possible and absolutely necessary. May the Church continue to reestablish its moral voice, and to leaven a sustained trend in determined and even creative negotiation.
We read, “In Hiroshima, the bishops recalled, Pope Francis stated that the use of nuclear weapons is always immoral, as is their possession.”
Not new is the difficulty is in CONFLATING the (1) deterrent (?) “possession” of nuclear weapons with (2) the actual use of nuclear weapons (which today include precision versions unknown in 1945). Without detracting from the insanity of enormous nuclear stockpiles, we might reflect on the mix of moral imperatives defended by the Church and the realm of prudential judgment(s) as this mix was articulated in earlier and different circumstances during the final decades of the Cold War…
In 1965, while condemning the indiscriminate targeting of populations, the Second Vatican Council also still ACCEPTED “deterrence” (“possession”) IF this was at least a step toward nuclear disarmament. The Council stopped short of demanding a “freeze” (Gaudium et Spes, 78-82). Ever on mind were the overwhelming risks of slippery-slope escalation into nuclear Armageddon.
In the 1980s tactical and mobile battlefield-level missiles (offensive/ defensive?) with targeting precision, were deployed by the West to offset the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact’s massive superiority (3:1 ration) in conventional armaments/tanks. Also, at this time, President Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative—the high cost of which is said to have helped achieve the collapse the economically non-viable and Marxist Soviet Union.
In 1983 THREE national episcopal conferences (synods?) produced non-identical (!) and non-doctrinal pastoral letters.
In addition to (1) the AMERICAN The Challenge to Peace (which highlighted the slippery slope into Armageddon; and which eventually clarified/separated its moral message from and appendix for prudential judgments), there were also (2) the GERMAN Out of Justice, Peace (which highlighted the imbalance in battlefield weaponry in a vulnerable Eastern Europe), and (3) the FRENCH Winning the Peace (which highlighted the overall threat to humanity of international Marxism). (The latter two pastorals were combined and edited by Fr. James Schall, S.J., and PUBLISHED by Ignatius Press, 1984).
But, PRIOR to all three conference reflections, in 1982, Pope John Paul II already had delivered a nuanced papal address to the Second Special Session of the United Nations dedicated to disarmament (Negotiation: The Only Realistic Solution to the Continuing Threat of War, Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1982). At that time the pope CONCLUDED, in part, that: “In current conditions ‘deterrence’ based on balance, certainly not as an end in itself but as a step on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable” (p. 10).
So, today—-regarding “possession” versus potential use—-FIRST, what has been and is the morally-required progress, if any, toward disarmament; and SECOND, globally, what is the “current condition” in 2020, politically and technologically?
Pope Francis (now joined by the American bishops) is speaking to the possession of still-enormous nuclear stockpiles, plus the proliferation of such weapons to more nations in hair-trigger situations—all in a real (or unreal?) world where negotiation is both barely possible and absolutely necessary. May the Church continue to reestablish its moral voice, and to leaven a sustained trend in determined and even creative negotiation.