Yesterday, North Korea purportedly test-detonated a hydrogen bomb, raising the tension in the region, and raising the prospect of yet-again the use of nuclear weapons in combat. I have posted today an article I recently had published in Crisis magazine, on the morality of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945, to end World War II. Regardless of the consequences of this action, the central question is whether the act was an intrinsic evil, and, by extension, whether such weapons can ever be used validly in war in any practical way.
And a blessed Labour Day to all, a day to commemorate the dignity of work, and the rights of workers, specifically the ‘8 hour day’, with enough time for rest and recuperation.
So take time today to ponder and reflect human labour, a sign of God’s own work. Catholics should all read Pope Saint John Paul II’s 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens, his meditation on this theme, which will really change how you might think of ‘work’.
Pax et gaudium ad omnes.