The threat from nuclear weapons is as great now as ever, and their destructive power is more immediate than climate change, said Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe at a Mass that remembered activist and Servant of God Dorothy Day Wednesday, November 30, in Manhattan.

Archbishop Wester was visiting New York for the United Nations’ second Meeting of the States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), held from November 27 to December 1 at United Nations headquarters in Manhattan. The Mass also coincided with the 42nd anniversary of Day’s death.

The visit also came four years to the week of Pope Francis’s visit to Japan, when he declared that the possession, construction, and use of nuclear weapons are immoral.

Following a reading from Daniel 6, best known as the story of Daniel in the lions’ den, Archbishop Wester stated at the beginning of a long homily that “Our important work on nuclear disarmament requires perseverance, a perseverance that will truly save our lives.”

“In 1965 at the height of the Cold War, Dorothy Day denounced the idea of arms being used as deterrents to establish a balance of terror. She supported the Second Vatican Council when it taught that nuclear warfare was incompatible with the then-Catholic theory of ‘just war,” Archbishop Wester said, recalling Day’s anti-violence and anti-war activism.

“Catholics should establish disarmament as a critical pro-life issue,” Archbishop Wester said, referring to his own Archdiocese of Santa Fe as “the birthplace of nuclear weapons.”

In an interview with The Good Newsroom at a reception following the Mass, Archbishop Wester said that nuclear disarmament remains a timely issue.

“The trouble with this issue is that it’s in the background. We’ve been lulled into a false sense of complacency really since the 1980s. Climate destruction is indeed very important, but this is equally important, in some ways more important, because while climate change is gradual, this would be instantaneous. This would be the destruction of human civilization within about 24 hours,” he said.

“It’s so easy for a situation to accelerate,” Archbishop Wester said, adding “things could happen intentionally or unintentionally,” adding that the introduction of artificial intelligence and hypersonic delivery systems have reduced the margin for error. 

Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, administrator of the Church of Our Savior, and Father Enzo Del Brocco, C. P., priest associate, concelebrated the Mass.

Born in Brooklyn Heights, in later life Dorothy Day had deep roots on Staten Island, one of New York’s five boroughs. She was received into the Catholic Church there and lived part of her life there.

An adult convert to Catholicism, Day was baptized at Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Tottenville, a neighborhood in the borough of Staten Island that borders New Jersey, in 1927.

Day also began a cooperative farm in Pleasant Plains in 1950, operating it for the needy and Catholic Worker members until 1964, when it was sold. She died in 1980 at age 83 and is buried in Resurrection Cemetery, also in Pleasant Plains.

It was in Manhattan where Day met Peter Maurin and started The Catholic Worker newspaper in the depths of the Great Depression, and Mary House, the first Catholic Worker hospitality house, of which there are more than 250 worldwide today.

Day is a candidate for sainthood and was given the title “Servant of God” when her cause was officially opened in 2000.

— Our Sunday Visitor contributed to this report.