"For the love of the world and in obedience to the God of life": with these words, the Christian churches of the whole world, met in Porto Alegre for the IX Assembly of the Ecumenical Council of the Churches (14-23 February), said no again to the use of nuclear weapons, because "human beings have no right to unleash a nuclear holocaust". The document which is one of a series of resolutions that are to be passed in Porto Alegre by the Churches about some topical issues criticises the position taken by five countries, which, although having signed the Treaty of Non Proliferation (TNP), possess nuclear weapons: they are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Churchs ask these countries to "solemnly promise that they’ll never be the first to use nuclear weapons or ever threaten to use them". Then, the Ecumenical Council makes an appeal to the "three countries that have never signed the Treaty (India, Israel and Pakistan)", to North Korea, which withdrew, and to Iran, which threatens to withdraw, to "sign up to the Treaty". The Declaration ends by repeating what had been stated in 1948 by the Ecumenical Assembly of Amsterdam, which, in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, defined the use of nuclear weapons "a sin against God". Another document is eagerly awaited from Porto Alegre, the one about the future of the ecumenical journey, with the title "Called to be one Church".
