NEWS RELEASE
Local Faith Groups To Host an Interfaith Vigil Marking the
Anniversary of the Trinity Nuclear Detonation
Impacted Communities and Religious Leaders Call for Nuclear Abolition
SANTA FE, NM – Wednesday, June 12, 2024– IMMEDIATE RELEASE – To commemorate the anniversary of the first detonation of an atomic weapon in 1945 at the Trinity Test Site, “From Reflection to Action: An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test” will be held at the St. John XXIII Catholic Community, 4831 Tramway Ridge Dr. NE in Albuquerque, featuring music, speakers, exhibitions, and moments of reflection and prayer. The free public event is Sunday, July 14; doors open at 2 p.m. Pre-registration is encouraged, and the event will be live-streamed.
Seventy-nine years ago, the government did not warn or evacuate the estimated tens of thousands of people living within a 50-mile radius of the Trinity Test blast. “We don’t ask IF we’ll get cancer; we ask WHEN it will be our turn,” says Tina Cordova, event co-organizer and founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.
In 1990, Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which only compensates downwinders in a limited area near the Nevada Test Site. Survivors of the world’s first atomic bomb in New Mexico, who are disproportionately Native and Hispanic, have never been eligible. The benefits provided by this program ended June 7, 2024.
On March 7, 2024, the U.S. Senate passed S.3853 to expand and extend the RECA program. If passed in the House and signed into law by the President, the RECA Amendment would finally recognize and compensate previously excluded downwinders in New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Guam, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona and the Post 71 uranium workers. Event organizers are asking concerned citizens to call House Speaker Mike Johnson (202-225-4000) and urge him to allow a vote on S. 3853. This bill has been endorsed by 15 national faith communities, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Among the scheduled speakers for the anniversary commemoration is Most Reverend John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, who supports the RECA Amendment and action to prevent nuclear war from ever happening again. “We can no longer deny or ignore the extremely dangerous predicament of our human family,” says Wester. “We are in a new nuclear arms race far more dangerous than the first, and I believe we need to rejuvenate a sustained, serious conversation about universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament.”
New Mexico is at the center of the U.S. government’s $1.7 trillion nuclear modernization plan, specifically with the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores at the Los Alamos Lab and disposal of resulting radioactive wastes at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Attendees will learn about actions they can take to deliver justice to impacted communities and work toward a world without nuclear weapons.
The event is organized by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Interfaith Power and Light (NM-EP), New Mexico Conference of Churches, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Soka Gakkai International-USA, and Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. For more information, call the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s Office of Social Justice at 505.831.8205. Pre-register at form.jotform.com/241400030658141.
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