Falsane, Scotland, Apr 18, 2011 / 09:09 am
The U.K.’s most senior Catholic clergyman is calling upon the British Government to give up its “shameful” nuclear weapons program.
“Do the right thing and give it up,” Cardinal Keith P. O’Brien of St. Andrews & Edinburgh said at an April 16 demonstration outside the British Royal Navy’s nuclear base in Faslane, Scotland. He also quoted Pope Benedict XVI’s saying: “In a nuclear war there would be no victors, only victims.”
In 2006 the British government, under Prime Minister Tony Blair, committed itself to replacing its entire submarine-based nuclear weapons system. That policy is currently being continued by the new British government under Prime Minister David Cameron. The present system, code named Trident, is headquartered at the Faslane naval base on the west coast of Scotland. The replacement system will also be berthed there.
Cardinal O’Brien told demonstrators, “Here at the gates of Faslane, there is no better place to say that it is not courageous of Britain to have these dreadful weapons of mass destruction. It is shameful to have them.”