On the night of Friday, August 8, the city of Nagasaki entered a period of unceasing prayer. Urakami Cathedral, fully rebuilt after being annihilated by the second atomic bomb on August 9, 1945, became the center of a 24-hour vigil gathering the faithful, religious leaders, and pilgrims from around the world, united in a call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Erected anew on its original site and completed in 1959, the church preserves the memory of the thousands of parishioners who perished in the explosion.
On this anniversary, the Archbishop of Nagasaki, Most Rev. Peter Michiaki Nakamura, welcomed an international delegation including four senior American Catholic leaders: Cardinal Blase Cupich (Chicago), Cardinal Robert McElroy (Washington), Archbishop Paul Etienne (Seattle), and Archbishop John Wester (Santa Fe). Their visit is part of a "Pilgrimage for Peace" organized from August 5 to 10, in connection with the Jubilee of Hope celebrated by the Church.
Friday's ceremonies included an interfaith memorial service for the victims at the Hypocenter Park, located very near the detonation point of the plutonium bomb nicknamed Fat Man, dropped at 11:02 a.m. The cathedral bells rang during the commemoration, reminding all of the journey from destruction to becoming a global symbol of peace.
Cardinal Cupich, in an address on August 7, described the 1945 atomic bombings as "deeply flawed," as they contravened the principle of a just war which forbids the deliberate targeting of civilians. He urged the formation of consciences so that the intentional killing of innocents would be deemed unthinkable.
For his part, Cardinal McElroy reaffirmed the Church's clear position, recalling Pope Francis's words condemning without reservation the use of nuclear weapons. He warned against the illusion that deterrence is a step toward disarmament, calling it instead a "dead end."
The pilgrimage program included continuous Eucharistic adoration at the cathedral, a Mass for Peace on August 9, and a torchlight procession linking the cathedral to the Hypocenter Park, a sign of the union between the city's spiritual reconstruction and the memory of the tragedy.
Concurrently, Japanese and American universities, including Georgetown, Notre Dame, Loyola Chicago, Sophia (Tokyo), and Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University, participated in a symposium titled "Encounters and Hope," dedicated to Catholic ethics and the nuclear question. This initiative is part of the "For a World Without Nuclear Weapons" partnership, which links the dioceses of Santa Fe, Seattle, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.