Blaming America on God's Behalf -- 51 Years Later
By Mark D. Tooley
FrontPageMagazine.com
August 8, 2006

The outgoing chief bishop of The Episcopal Church, having presided over that 2 million member denomination’s spiraling schism over homosexuality, squeezed time into his schedule this week for an apologetic visit to Hiroshima.

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold expressed “repentance” over the U.S. atomic strike on the Japanese city 61 years ago. He is also very worried about current U.S. foreign and military policies, of course.

“I express my own profound sorrow, regret and repentance for the suffering the citizens of this city bore on August 6, 1945, and those in Nagasaki on August 9,” the presiding bishop told worshippers at Hiroshima’s Church of the Resurrection. “I further issue a call to continuing mutual repentance and reconciliation.”

According to Griswold, the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima does a terrible dishonor to both” of Jesus commands to love our Creator and our neighbor. The bishop also noted the “terrible suffering inflicted [by the U.S.] elsewhere” in Japan during the war. He specifically cited Okinawa, where the continuing presence of U.S. military bases remains a “continuing difficulty” that affects the “daily lives” of the Okinawan people. the rest