(Aaron Bateman) In June 1982, Pope John Paul II broke with over three decades of Vatican policy when he emphatically stated in front of the United Nations General Assembly that nuclear deterrence could be judged as “a morally acceptable step on the way toward a progressive disarmament.” This statement stood in marked contrast to his predecessors, who rejected peace based on the threat of mutual annihilation. Since the beginning of the nuclear age, the Vatican has placed nuclear issues at the top of its foreign policy agenda. Though the Cold War superpowers were very concerned with the Vatican’s position on nuclear arms, it has, nevertheless, received little scholarly attention in historical analyses of the arms race. For example, when President Ronald Reagan decided to pursue his Strategic Defense Initiative (...)
