
Pope Francis turns to bless the rosary of a Japanese peace activist before speaking in Nagasaki on Sunday, November 24, 2019.
The leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics came to Nagasaki to deliver a sermon on nuclear weapons.
Together with Japanese colleagues working to eliminate those weapons, I waited in a steady rain as Pope Francis offered a long silent prayer in front of the black obelisk marking the epicenter of the nuclear explosion that obliterated the city on August 9, 1945. The visibly shaken pontiff then turned towards us and issued an unequivocal repudiation of the doctrine of nuclear deterrence. Read more >