CNA Newsroom, Aug 8, 2025 / 16:53 pm (CNA).
As night fell over Nagasaki, Japan, on Friday, the reconstructed Urakami Cathedral — once destroyed by the world’s second atomic bomb — became the focus of a 24-hour prayer vigil that bridged continents, generations, and faiths in a unified call for nuclear disarmament.
Survivors rebuilt the cathedral on its original site, completing reconstruction in 1959; local histories record that thousands of parishioners perished on Aug. 9, 1945.
Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura of Nagasaki welcomed an international delegation including four U.S. Catholic leaders: Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago; Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C.; Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle; and Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Their visit formed part of an Aug. 5–10 “Pilgrimage of Peace” aligned with the Church’s Jubilee of Hope.
Sacred ground, sacred witness
Friday’s commemorations included the Interfaith Memorial Service for Atomic Bomb Victims at Hypocenter Park, near the 11:02 a.m. detonation point of the plutonium device known as “Fat Man.”
Bells from Urakami Cathedral tolled during the memorials, a sonic reminder of the passage from devastation to a global symbol of peace.
Cupich, speaking in Nagasaki on Aug. 7, called the 1945 atomic bombings “deeply flawed” because they abandoned the just-war principle of noncombatant immunity.
The cardinal emphasized the importance of finding “people who are so committed to moral limits to warfare that acts of intentionally killing innocents is unthinkable.”
Earlier in the week, McElroy underscored the Church’s stance, reiterating Pope Francis’ categorical rejection of atomic weapons and warning that deterrence “is not a step on the road to nuclear disarmament but a morass.”
Global prayer network
The pilgrimage program in Nagasaki included perpetual adoration at Urakami Cathedral, a peace Mass on Aug. 9, and a torch procession from the cathedral to Hypocenter Park — symbolically linking the city’s spiritual rebuilding to its ground zero.
Universities from Japan and the United States — including Georgetown, Notre Dame, Loyola Chicago, Sophia (Tokyo), and Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University — joined an “Encounters and Hope” symposium examining Catholic ethics and nuclear policy. These elements were coordinated through the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons, a collaboration among the dioceses of Santa Fe, Seattle, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
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We read: “Earlier in the week, McElroy underscored the Church’s stance, reiterating Pope Francis’ categorical rejection of atomic weapons and warning that deterrence ‘is not a step on the road to nuclear disarmament but a morass’.”
Thinking about the “morass,” but also thinking how exactly to unwind a world with now seven nuclear powers—a few big ones and the rest at least capable of nuclear blackmail. Mostly Russia and then the United States, but also China, France, United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea (but no longer Iran, yet).
In 1965 and in a not entirely different context, right after the 1963 Cuban Missile Crisis and speaking for the Church as a whole, the Second Vatican Council stated that the Church has “admiration” for those who individually forego violence—without harm to others, but also asserted the right and duty for defense, and accepted “deterrence” if (!) this was a step toward nuclear disarmament, and therefore in the end stopped short of demanding a “freeze” in ownership of weapon arsenals (Gaudium et Spes, nn. 78-82).
Later in 1982, Pope John Paul II sent a compatible address to the Second Special Session of the United Nations dedicated to disarmament (Negotiation: The Only Realistic Solution to the Continuing Threat of War [Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1982]): “In current conditions ‘deterrence’ based on balance, certainly not as an end in itself (!) but as a step on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable” (p. 10). We’re still stepping through the morass, maybe, of the technocratic/military 20th Century—where two thirds of all deaths in both World War I and II were civilians. Yes, an “unthinkable” situation all around.
Here’s an uplifting link for the reported Nagasaki Bell Project which reached its financial donor goal on July 15 of this year, just in time for the second bell’s installation.
Yes.
Suppose you were hiking in, say, Cyprus, and you discovered you were deep inside a minefield. You phone your bishop, and condescendingly explains to you that, according to the last several Popes and articles he has read in America magazine, land mines are Bad Things and you should not linger next to them; therefore he advises you to leave by the fastest route, which is of course a straight line.
His conclusion that land mines are Bad Things was not exactly in question, and his advice to just leave in a straight line is on par with what you might expect from a 4-year-old, though not as cute. Sometimes there is no easy way out of a bad situation, and there is no substitute for dangerous work carried out by thoughtful people who have been trained for precisely this kind of situation.
Where was the article commemorating the bombing of Dresden? Oh, yeah, only nukes are sexy. More died in the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9-10, 1945, but those were only conventional bombs, and those are passé. And let’s not get into the siege of Leningrad at all, nor the sack of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. If it ain’t atomic, it’s not worth thinking about!
My point is that there is no MORAL difference between isolated atomic bombing and other ways militaries have destroyed cities — conventional bombings, sieges, or even “putting the city to the sword”.
There is at minimum a practical difference with nuclear weapons as they have existed since about 1950. What is unprecedented is the ability — and the temptation — to destroy many cities quickly. Also new is the ability to create EMPs that would eliminate power grids and most civilian equipment with an electronic component (including cars and trucks). Also, there is a real risk of nuclear winter. https://www.sciencealert.com/a-nuclear-winter-could-destroy-much-of-the-worlds-food-supply https://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/IndiaPakistanBullAtomSci.pdf
But these considerations are for TODAY and for the future; they really have nothing to do with 1945. The only actual, historical uses of atomic weapons were not morally different from other forms of terror bombing.
Bishops raising their voice against bombing is a good sign. Sensitizing and conscientizing fellow mortals from refraining from mischief is a long felt need. Long live peace and harmony.