Letter
Letter to U.S. Senate Regarding Support for New START Treaty, September 17, 2010
September 17, 2010
[Text of letter sent to Senators John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, Robert Menendez, Benjamin Cardin, Robert Casey, Jr., Jim Webb, Jeanne Shaheen, Ted Kaufman, Kirsten Gillibrand, Richard Lugar, Bob Corker, Johnny Isakson]
Dear Senator:
Thank you for supporting the resolution of ratification of the New START Treaty in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 16. Now that the Treaty has been acted on in the Committee, please urge the leadership of the Senate to bring it up for a vote on the floor of the Senate as soon as possible.
As Cardinal Francis George, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote in an April 8, 2010, letter to President Obama: we “urge members of the U.S. Senate to come together across party lines to ratify the new START Treaty. … The horribly destructive capacity of nuclear arms makes them disproportionate and indiscriminate weapons that endanger human life and dignity like no other armaments.”
The New START Treaty will make our nation and world safer by encouraging other nations to meet their nonproliferation responsibilities and control nuclear materials. This will reduce the likelihood that a nuclear weapon will fall into the hands of terrorists.
You have the gratitude of our Conference of Bishops for strengthening national security by supporting the New START Treaty. We sincerely hope the full Senate will ratify the New START Treaty in the near future.
Sincerely yours,
Most Reverend Howard J. Hubbard
Bishop of Albany
Chair, Committee on International Justice and Peace