“What is your point?”
From a secular standpoint, there are overwhelming arguments to show that dropping the bombs saved millions of lives. Further, it came at the end of a war in which the bombing of civilians had become commonplace. I have always supported Truman’s decision.
As a Catholic, I believe that intrinsically evil means may *never* be used, no matter how laudable the goal.
I wish I could ask Bishop Sheen how to resolve this conflict.
First, I agree that nuclear bombs saved millions of lives, both in Japan (by ending the war before (1) Allied and Japanese troops and civilians died during combat, and (2) Japanese civilians died of starvation and disease), but also postwar by discouraging, for example, Soviet and Chinese military expansion.
Second, it appears your dilemma is rooted in a faulty presumption: that nuclear arms are "intrinsically evil means," for which I faulted the Vatican for its knee-jerk "shallow, uninformed" reaction. To be consistent, your presumption requires arguing that all weapons are intrinsically evil, because the nuclear variety is simply on a larger scale. How, then, did God oversee the arming of the Israelites, or Jesus advocate carrying a sword? Thus, it is not the inert weapon that is evil, but rather the intrinsically evil humans who wield them. It is noteworthy that none has been used in the intervening seventy years.
A necessarily related question is whether God ever condones mass death, whether nuclear or otherwise. Clearly, the answer is a resounding "Yes." Indeed, He has actually perpetrated it Himself on many occasions, either personally (e.g., the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah), or through His agents (e.g., Israel's many military conquests, but also those God permitted against Israel by way of punishment and lessons, by Pharaoh, Salmaneser, Nebuchadezzar, Caesar, etc.). And He has promised to do so again, during the soon-coming Great Tribulation. He uses these mass deaths as only He can, for good, in love: to limit evil, as in the Flood and Sodom--and Hiroshima/Nagasaki; and to scare people enough, by reminding them of their frailty and mortality, and their need to rely on Him as their only Rescuer, that as many as possible will turn to Him as their Savior and Lord.
If you still wish to discuss Nanking, so indicate.