Pilgrims to Japan: Inspired by faith and hope for nuclear disarmament

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

Faith in God in the face of destruction – and hope for nuclear disarmament – were major experiences of local Catholics on a pilgrimage to Japan this month.  

Japanese prelates worked with American archdioceses to sponsor the pilgrimage, coordinated by the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons and supported by Japanese and U.S. universities, Catholic News Agency reported.  

The pilgrimage commemorated the 80th anniversary of the United States dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and one on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, during the Second World War.

“It’s been a remarkable time in Japan, especially here in Nagasaki, with Catholic reckoning with nuclear weapons,” Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, co-founder of the Saints Francis and Therese Catholic Worker House in Worcester, told The Catholic Free Press Saturday by telephone.
She and two other members of St. Peter Parish in Worcester, and a Japanese Worcester resident, took turns speaking to The CFP from Japan at that time.

“There is a long-suffering faith amongst Catholics that are living in Nagasaki,” Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy said. She mentioned a “torture stone” upon which Christians were forced to squat in inclement weather, to get them to renounce their faith during a period of persecution. She also talked about venerated religious articles damaged by the atomic bomb, including a headless crucifix and “the bombed Mary” (the head from a statue of the Blessed Mother).
“Yet,” she said, “here the church has been physically rebuilt.” The crucifix and statue remnant are examples of the Nagasaki Catholics’ conviction that the God of life can transform complete destruction, she said.

Another example of that conviction, she said, was the tolling of the new bell in a bell tower of Nagasaki’s rebuilt Immaculate Conception Cathedral (also called Urakami Cathedral) – at the same moment that Nagasaki was bombed 80 years ago. For Catholics, a bell is a reminder of God’s presence and a call to prayer, she said.

The bell, a gift from American Catholics, replaced the cathedral’s bell rendered unusable by the bombing, and was rung for the first time as the pilgrims attended Mass there Aug. 9.

Rung with it was the cathedral’s other bell, which had been recovered from the rubble.  

“You could feel the energy … around those bells ringing,” commented St. Peter’s parishioner Frances Anthes. The cathedral had a banner, in Japanese and Latin, that mentioned both the 80th anniversary of the bombing and the universal Jubilee Year of Hope, she said.

Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy spoke more about absolute devastation – and faith that transforms it.

“I think to address nuclear disarmament requires many levels of engagement,” she said.

Practical levels include education and asserting “that we will not build” nuclear weapons.
“At the deepest level, it requires the conviction that God wants life and not death,” she added.

“And you see that in Nagasaki,” through the example set by Catholics there and through their history of persistence in the faith.

She also spoke of unequivocal calls for nuclear disarmament. One was the Japan Catholic Bishops’ Declaration on the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons 2025 from this past June, which was reasserted during a symposium on the pilgrimage, she said.

She said the bishops asserted that they would stand in solidarity with domestic and international movements for the abolition of nuclear weapons, would promote actions to achieve this goal and would urge Japan’s government to ratify the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as soon as possible.  

“I think we suffer, in our own society, from a death addiction,” she added. “We’re invested in things that harm people.”

“The most remarkable part of the experience was the sense I had after we floated the lanterns,” said her fellow parishioner Charlie Washburn, speaking of thousands of lanterns representing participants dedicating themselves to keeping nuclear weapons from destroying the earth.

“It was the first time in my life that I became convinced that the forces committing themselves to nuclear disarmament will prevail,” he said.

Asked what made him feel that, he said it was hard to explain. It was “kind of a spiritual energy, the power of peace, the power of the Prince of Peace, the power of positive human beings,” he said. “Peace was palpable and felt unstoppable.”

Asked how this challenges him, he spoke of learning about Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality, a process of listening and dialogue that included people in the pews, which was introduced to young people on the pilgrimage.

“That’s what I’m bringing back – a commitment to listen to people … and to find a way to help the Church deliver on the promise of global peace and nuclear disarmament,” he said. “I think it’s the mission of the Church. I think it’s what Jesus told us to do: ‘Love your neighbor. Love your enemies.’”

Ms. Anthes talked about thousands of people making lanterns from recycled paper, collected later to recycle and use next year out of concern for the environment. Candles were fitted into the lanterns, which people floated on a river to say they want an end to destruction like that which devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she said.

She talked about visiting museums and learning about children, who had nothing to do with the war, being turned into something like lumps of clay, their remains found by their parents.
“The peace museums are very sad,” she said. “The ability to move from that to … setting the lanterns into the water – it’s kind of a … resurrection moment.”

Mihoko Wakabayashi, the Japanese Worcester resident who helped the St. Peter’s parishioners with their journey, said her family and friends in Japan were surprised that Americans came for the 80th anniversary of the bombings. She said Japanese people assume Americans don’t want to face that unpleasant reality, and that the majority of Americans are not in favor of nuclear disarmament.  

The lantern floating involved Hiroshima residents, “normal people, not just religious people,” she said. “Most Japanese people say they are not religious,” but they come together to pray for peace.  

“That’s my observation and experience,” she said. “No more war. ... Nagasaki should be the last city in the world affected by [an] atomic bomb.”