By Michael Ippolito, Crisis Magazine, April 24, 2024
Michael Ippolito is the co-founder and president of The American Postliberal. Michael graduated from the Catholic University of America with a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and minors in History and Theology. He is published in the Daily Signal, The American Spectator, and MRCTV. …
No faithful Catholic could look at the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and be proud of that decision.
The dropping of the atomic bomb was evil. For the average conservative commentator, this comment automatically causes a knee-jerk reaction with the same old platitudes. For decades, the American Right has been the defender of our usage of the atomic bomb, with either “it saved more American lives” or “it was the lesser of two evils” being some of the strongest candidates.
Phyllis Schlafly once declared, in a 1982 New York Times article, that “the atomic bomb is a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God.” For many years, I would have championed Schlafly’s point, parroting all the appropriate conservative talking points on the subject. I believed that by defending America’s decision, I was somehow being patriotic and defending the nation. I now know I was wrong. …