We, the women of the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston, take this stand regarding nuclear arms:

• We lament the reality of nuclear weapons.
• We recognize the sinful situation, which enables their existence.
• We condemn the creation of any first-strike weapon.
• We believe, nevertheless, that this situation is already a redeemed one.
• We deplore the cruel results of the proliferation of nuclear arms.
• We grieve the suffering of those countless women, men and even children who at this very moment are hungry.
• We sorrow with those persons, especially the young, who endure ever increasing anxiety and who move to hopelessness and despair.
• We sorrow with those who are deprived of beauty and art and all good gifts that lift the human spirit to that supreme Beauty “ever ancient and ever new.”
• We believe, nevertheless, that the power of good is stronger than the force of evil.

We resolve, then, not from fear of death, but from love of life, to focus our energies more intensely on peace-making:

• by confronting the demon of world hunger,
• by protesting a national prodigality that denies justice to the poor,
• by seeking relentlessly forms of systemic change,
• by making peace studies an essential component of our educational system,
• by being steadfast in the process of inner conversion,
• by remaining faithful to the task of reconciliation and to non-violence.

By the grace of God we determine

• to bend swords into ploughs,
• to remodel spears into pruning hooks,
• to reshape instruments of death into instruments of life,

to turn the mushroom cloud into a rainbow of justice and peace.