WW2 Channel (Indy and Co) Episode on Hiroshima and Nagasaki But it's a "war against humanity" special

But I'd argue at the time there was little other ways to wage war against Japan (Germany) in a manner speedy enough to limit the harm they were doing to China (Eastern Europe

I honestly know nothing about what the catholic position on war is, but regardless of that, let's take a look at Germany and Japan of the time.

These countries were genocidal warmongering dictatorships, it is no surprise they weren't treated with kid's gloves.

Even the strategic bombing over Germany was no match to what the nazis did to Poland of the atrocities they committed in the Eastern Front. If any of the axis countries had had access to nukes they wouldn't twice about using them.

The relevant counterfactuals to consider would be if they'd further pursued peace negotiations prior to an invasion/bombing campaign, and there were people involved advocating for it at the time.

TIL bishop something is speaking autoritarily for entirety of Catholic Church.

I was bringing up the historical position of Church leaders in America (one of condemnation) but here are some quotes from the Popes since WW2:

"The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral…"

But since Pope Francis is famously "not based" here's Pius XII:

The atomic bomb, as Pope Pius XII pointed out on 8 February 1948, is "the most terrible weapon that the human mind has ever conceived." On 24 December 1955, in his Christmas radio message to the world, Pope Pius forcefully described "the spectacle that would be presented to the horrified eye" after the use of nuclear weapons: "Entire cities, even the largest and richest in history and art, annihilated; a black blanket of death over the pulverised matter, covering countless victims with limbs burnt, twisted, scattered, while others groan in spasms of agony."

and here's the Catechism:

Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation [cf. Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, 80 §3]. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons—especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons—to commit such crimes (CCC 2314).

Are you seriously arguing that the Church has ever been in favor or unclear on a position regarding the use of the atom bombs? !Catholics since I'm talking to three of you now lol

I think the main claim is the view of the atomic bomb as an indiscriminate weapon versus a "directed" strategic bombing campaign on key military industries of an enemy i.e. bombing Dresden to knock its rail lines out of existence versus bombing Hiroshima to knock it out of existence. Of course, when you then consider something like the firebombing of Tokyo the issue turns into one of its total "success" versus one of the actions itself i.e. assuming all bombs that hit Tokyo are always successful in doing the most damage individually you'll get a wiped out Tokyo much the same.

Of course again, this all falls under the very idea of a strategic bombing campaign in the first place, in whether it was successful and to what degree in the first place.

For Hiroshima and Nagasaki while I don't think they've ever been condemned due to the fact that even in popular culture they're viewed, quite frankly, as terror bombings (surrender as you can see what weapons we have at our disposal) I think it's hard to support them without resorting to some sort of lesser of two evils as even the smallest terror weapon no matter how small is condemned by the catechism.

Why?