The eighth annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki Day prayer vigil Aug. 3 at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Claremont not only remembered the victims of nuclear bombs dropped at the end of World War II, but also called for a renewed commitment to end the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

"In the 62 years since those terrible days, there has been continual effort worldwide to ban these weapons, to create a process for their gradual elimination," said Rosemary Ruether, a professor at Claremont Graduate School. "And this process has failed. On August third of 2007, we have to recognize that these weapons are still proliferating, and the world is still hostage to their possible us.

"The reason for this failure, I believe, is that the United States has never wanted to eliminate its own stockpile of these weapons," she noted. "But rather it has continually created new generations of such weapons and has always wanted to hold in reserve its right to use them at its own discretion."

Organized by the Peace With Justice Center of the Pomona Valley and Pax Christi, the Catholic grass-roots peace group, the evening event was an eclectic stew of readings, prayers, meditations and music. The nearly two-hour interfaith vigil, which drew about 40 individuals, was held outdoors on the parish's grassy schoolyard.

It featured a Sufi chant, balloons embossed with white doves, a cantor playing a Native American flute, paper cranes, African drums and, finally, hand-held candles at dusk.

East Los Angeles City College professor Ramon Posada, a member of the Los Angeles Archdiocese's Peace and Justice Commission, retold the story of David and Goliath, pointing out how the giant warrior was the Philistines army's ultimate destructive weapon, their "big bomb," while his counterpart relied only on God's power. Yet Goliath was destroyed by his own sword.

"How David was responding to destruction is insightful to what's happening in the world today, the nuclear buildup," Posada said. "To those things that actually are weapons of mass destruction, those things that actually eat at the human heart that distract us from our ultimate blessings that we have in life, that bind us to the beauty of seeing the divine in the person that's next to us. And we all fall short."

Professor Bill Cook of the University of LaVerne recalled being nine when the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, killing some 214,000 people, with the overwhelming number of dead being civilians. He reported how photos taken by planes that accompanied the B-29 bombers to those sites August 6 and 9, 1945, were kept secret and only released to the public 30 years later.

He compared the 15 miles of total destruction caused by the bomb called "Little Boy" on Hiroshima with the four acres of carnage done by the 9/11 terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York City that resulted in more than 3,000 deaths.

"We are still suffering the same as the Japanese did then," he observed.

Cantor Steve Puzarne of the Breeyah Center in Los Angeles said he hoped the vigil was a positive happening, not only commemorating the evils of the past but fostering a commitment to a better future for people of all faiths.

"Every human being is created in the image of God," he said. "So when we strike out either verbally or physically against our brother or sister, we literally tear a piece of God's image from ourselves and from our human kind."