Catholics today approve of President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You do find fellow Catholics opposed to the bombing, but perhaps as many as half of U.S. “We owed ’em for Pearl Harbor.” “Do you know what the Japanese did in Nanking?” “My Great-Uncle Henry was on a troop ship bound for the land invasion of Japan,” a man argues. “What about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945?” (If there is no beer or roast pig at your parish picnic, you need to find a new parish.) The conversation lags for a moment, but because you enjoy some good verbal sparring you know just how to get it going: You ask a question. There you are, beer in hand, watching the pig turn on its spit at the parish picnic.
