Posted on 08/6/2025 15:14 PM (CNA Daily News)
A copy of the Holy Shroud is displayed in the sacristy of the Church of St. Lawrence in Turin, Italy. / Credit: Geobia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
CNA Staff, Aug 6, 2025 / 11:14 am (CNA).
Few religious artifacts have been studied and debated as extensively as the Shroud of Turin.
Countless Catholics and other Christians across the world believe it is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus Christ, wrapped around his body after his crucifixion and marked by his unmistakable visage and form.
Critics, meanwhile, have for years alleged that it is nothing more than a forgery — a clever work of religious art and an impressive technical feat that carries no more or less religious significance than a painting or statue.
Those claims were made most recently by Cicero Moraes, a Brazilian 3D artist who in the scholarly journal Archaeometry last month claimed that the depiction of Christ’s body on the shroud was likely made by a “low-relief model” such as a statue rather than a human body.
The imagery on the shroud is “more consistent with an artistic low-relief representation than with the direct imprint of a real human body, supporting hypotheses of its origin as a medieval work of art,” the study alleges.
The Brazil study has generated widespread coverage in the media, with mainstream outlets such as the New York Post and the New York Sun reporting on the study’s findings. Internet outlets such as Gizmodo and Live Science also touted the conclusions of the study.
Moraes’ study has already been criticized for its methodology. The International Center of Sindonology — the Turin-based organization that leads studies of the shroud and promotes its status as a venerated object of Christian devotion — said the findings of the study were disputed more than 100 years ago.
“There is nothing new in this conclusion of the article,” the center said on Aug. 4.
The Vatican has never officially pronounced on the shroud’s authenticity, though popes have held it up as an object of veneration.
Pope Francis in 2015 said the cloth “attracts [us] toward the martyred face and body of Jesus,” while in 2010 Pope Benedict XVI said its depiction of Christ points to the days that the Lord’s body rested in his tomb, a time “infinite in its value and significance.”
Extensive secular studies, meanwhile, have suggested the shroud is authentic at least as a first-century object that came into contact with the body of an executed man.
In 2024 a study from an Italian researcher that analyzed the blood on the shroud argued that the stains are consistent with the torture and crucifixion of Jesus Christ as described in the Gospels.
University of Padua mechanical and thermal measurement professor Giulio Fanti said the bloodstains on the side and the front of the shroud show blood flowing in three different directions, indicating the likelihood that the corpse was moved at some point when wrapped in the shroud.
The three distinct colors of blood on the shroud, meanwhile, suggest three “different types of blood,” which are “postmortem blood leakage” from moving the body, “premortem bloodstains” that likely occurred “when Jesus was still nailed to the cross,” and “leaks of blood serum.”
Fanti’s study indicated that the stains appear to show scourge marks consistent with the scourging at the pillar and that the quantity of blood matches the amount of blood that would have resulted from the wounds described in the Gospels.
Nanoparticles in the blood samples on the shroud, meanwhile, were marked with the organic substance known as creatinine, indicating “very heavy torture” suffered by whomever the shroud enveloped.
Cheryl White, a professor of history at Louisiana State University Shreveport and author of the upcoming book “The Shroud in the Third Millennium: Confronting the Limits of Human Knowledge,” disputed Moraes’ historical research and his scientific methodology.
In his study, Moraes indicates that there is no historical evidence for the shroud prior to the 14th century, but White pointed out that some scholars have argued for the shroud’s appearance in the historical record even hundreds of years before that.
“That’s the type of historical reductionism that I don’t think has any place in serious scholarship,” she said. “You can’t selectively choose the historical data you want.”
Beyond that, she argued, while Moraes places “very heavy emphasis” on the technical aspects of the 3D model he used, he “doesn’t really engage with the complexity of the image” on the shroud itself.
“There’s an information transfer that takes place in the image formation that directly embeds a body-image in the top microfibers of that linen,” she said. “It’s a direct distance-to-body spatial mapping that’s in there.”
Moraes’ study “does not account for complexity in that image,” she said. “It’s a 3D relief in that image. If you haven’t explained that, you haven’t explained the image.”
Others have argued that the imagery would have been beyond the capabilities of medieval artists. Father Robert Spitzer, a Jesuit priest and president of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith, told CNA last year that a medieval forger would be unlikely to have anticipated the highly technical inquiries to which the shroud would be subject in the 21st century.
A forger “certainly would not have used the hematic serum of a victim who experienced a heavy polytrauma,” he said.
Critics have also argued that scientific tests have proven that the shroud dates from the medieval period. Radiocarbon experiments in 1988 suggested that the cloth dates to Europe sometime after the 12th century rather than the first-century Middle East.
Yet other studies have pointed to much older dates, including a 2022 X-ray study at the Italian Institute of Crystallography, which suggested the cloth was around 2,000 years old.
Liberato De Caro of the Italian National Research Council told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, that radiocarbon studies can produce errors in dating.
“About half the volume of a natural fiber yarn is empty space, interstitial space, filled with air or something else, between the fibers that compose it,” he said.
“Anything that gets in between the fibers must be carefully removed. If the cleaning procedure of the sample is not thoroughly performed, carbon-14 dating is not reliable.”
De Caro’s team developed “a method to measure the natural aging of flax cellulose using X-rays and then convert it into time elapsed since fabrication,” he said.
That methodology, he said, “show[s] that the sample of the Shroud of Turin … should be much older than the approximately seven centuries indicated by the radio-dating carried out in 1988.”
Other studies have shown similarly compelling evidence of the shroud’s ancient provenance, including examinations of pollen grains that indicate the cloth came from the Middle East, not Europe.
Still other arguments have turned on the stunning level of detail in the shroud’s depiction, including blood flows and depictions of wounds that would seem to be beyond the abilities of medieval painters.
Disputes about the shroud will surely continue, particularly in light of the Holy See’s continued ambivalence on its true authenticity, even as many reliable sources point toward its first-century origins.
What is also doubtlessly true is that the cloth will continue to serve as an object of devotion and focus for Christians around the world — allowing man, as St. John Paul II said, to “free himself from the superficiality of the selfishness with which he frequently treats love and sin.”
“Echoing the word of God and centuries of Christian consciousness, the shroud whispers: Believe in God’s love, the greatest treasure given to humanity, and flee from sin, the greatest misfortune in history,” he said.
Posted on 08/6/2025 14:44 PM (Catholic News Agency)
The European Parliament building in Brussels, Belgium. / Credit: Ala z via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
CNA Deutsch, Aug 6, 2025 / 10:44 am (CNA).
The European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights in June released a report linking Christian pro-life organizations to “religious extremism.”
Posted on 08/6/2025 14:44 PM (CNA Daily News)
The European Parliament building in Brussels, Belgium. / Credit: Ala z via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
CNA Deutsch, Aug 6, 2025 / 10:44 am (CNA).
A leading Christian human rights organization has rejected accusations of extremism in a controversial report by a European abortion advocacy group.
The European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights released “The Next Wave” in late June, a report linking Christian pro-life organizations to “religious extremism,” reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
The document claimed a “new alliance of religious extremists, far-right populists, and oligarchic funders” was infiltrating mainstream politics.
Felix Böllmann, the director of European advocacy of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, called the report “a thinly veiled attempt to silence ideological opponents under the guise of academic research” in an interview with Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost.
Despite presenting itself as neutral, the forum operates as a “well-funded activist network,” Bölmmann said, adding it received nearly 3 million euros (approximately $3.4 million) annually from donors including the Gates Foundation, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, Merck Sharp & Dohme, UNFPA, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
“It is remarkably hypocritical for such an organization to accuse others of ‘dark money’ when it itself relies on opaque and ideologically driven funding,” Böllmann told Die Tagespost.
The report labeled ADF International as extremist alongside Catholic organizations including Poland’s Ordo Iuris and the Netherlands’ Civitas Christiana.
Even Hungary Helps, a charity supporting persecuted Christians, was classified as an “enemy of sexual rights.”
Böllmann characterized this as a “5D strategy”: “Disrobe, disarm, dislocate, demonetize, and defend — a plan to deprive Christian and conservative voices of legitimacy, financial support, and access to public debate.”
The approach aims at “enforcing a socio-political agenda through the instrumentalization of a misunderstood concept of human rights,” he said.
Böllmann challenged the forum’s undefined use of “religious extremism.” Unlike official EU anti-terrorism documents focusing on violence, the group applies the label to organizations that “invest financially in conservative movements and question constructed codes, such as a ‘right to sexual and reproductive health.’”
“Such a self-definition is clearly based on ideological premises, not on objective, legal standards,” he said.
The alliance actively shapes EU political processes despite its NGO (nongovernmental organization) status, influencing European Parliament reports, hearings, and resolutions. It organizes inter-party parliamentary networks and provides lawmakers with expert briefings, “effectively creating a lobbying infrastructure within the EU Parliament.”
The forum group emerged in 2000 as a spinoff of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which traces its origins to Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and eugenics advocate, CNA Deutsch reported.
The group’s 2023 budget totaled $2.38 million, with 45% from public donors, 31% from foundations, and 20% from pharmaceutical companies.
“The more they try to silence us, the clearer it becomes: Our work is having an impact — in our commitment to fundamental freedoms in Europe and beyond,” Böllmann told Die Tagespost.
This story was first published by CNA Deutsch, CNA's German-language news partner, and has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 08/6/2025 14:14 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Pope Leo XIV speaks to thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Wednesday catechesis on the Jubilee theme “Jesus Christ Our Hope” on Aug. 6, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Aug 6, 2025 / 10:14 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV during his Wednesday catechesis on the jubilee theme “Jesus Christ Our Hope” said the gift of the Eucharist prepared by God reveals that his great love “always precedes us.”
Speaking to thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Aug. 6, the Holy Father said St. Mark’s Gospel shows us that Jesus’ love for his disciples “is not the result of chance but of a conscious choice.”
“It is not a simple reaction but a decision that requires preparation,” he said. “Jesus does not face his passion out of fatalism but out of fidelity to a path freely and carefully accepted and followed.”
Just as God made preparations to show his love for people, the pope said, in turn, people are free to choose God and prepare their own hearts to receive his love.
“He has already thought of everything, arranged everything, decided everything,” Leo said. “However, he asks his friends to do their part.”
“This teaches us something essential for our spiritual life: Grace does not eliminate our freedom but rather awakens it,” he explained. “God’s gift does not eliminate our responsibility but makes it fruitful.”
Noting the significance of the Eucharist for Jesus’ followers, the Holy Father said its celebration should not be “only at the altar” but also lived in “daily life” as a continual offering of love and thanksgiving.
“True love, the Gospel reminds us, is given before it is reciprocated,” he said. “It is an anticipatory gift. It is not based on what is received but on what one wishes to offer.”
In order to make space in the heart to receive God’s love, particularly in the Eucharist, the pope asked his listeners to consider: “What does it mean for me today to ‘prepare’?”
“Perhaps to renounce a demand, to stop waiting for others to change, to take the first step,” he suggested. “Perhaps to listen more, to act less, or to learn how to trust in what has already been prepared.”
Following his catechesis, Pope Leo asked those gathered to pray for the people of Japan who “suffered ... physical, psychological, and social effects” of the atomic bomb dropped during World War II.
“Despite the passing of the years, those tragic events constitute a universal warning against the devastation caused by wars and, in particular, by nuclear weapons,” he lamented.
“I hope that in the contemporary world, marked by strong tensions and bloody conflicts, the illusory security based on the threat of mutual destruction may give way to the tools of justice, to the practice of dialogue, and to trust in fraternity,” he said.
Posted on 08/6/2025 14:14 PM (CNA Daily News)
Pope Leo XIV speaks to thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Wednesday catechesis on the Jubilee theme “Jesus Christ Our Hope” on Aug. 6, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Aug 6, 2025 / 10:14 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV during his Wednesday catechesis on the jubilee theme “Jesus Christ Our Hope” said the gift of the Eucharist prepared by God reveals that his great love “always precedes us.”
Speaking to thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Aug. 6, the Holy Father said St. Mark’s Gospel shows us that Jesus’ love for his disciples “is not the result of chance but of a conscious choice.”
“It is not a simple reaction but a decision that requires preparation,” he said. “Jesus does not face his passion out of fatalism but out of fidelity to a path freely and carefully accepted and followed.”
Just as God made preparations to show his love for people, the pope said, in turn, people are free to choose God and prepare their own hearts to receive his love.
“He has already thought of everything, arranged everything, decided everything,” Leo said. “However, he asks his friends to do their part.”
“This teaches us something essential for our spiritual life: Grace does not eliminate our freedom but rather awakens it,” he explained. “God’s gift does not eliminate our responsibility but makes it fruitful.”
Noting the significance of the Eucharist for Jesus’ followers, the Holy Father said its celebration should not be “only at the altar” but also lived in “daily life” as a continual offering of love and thanksgiving.
“True love, the Gospel reminds us, is given before it is reciprocated,” he said. “It is an anticipatory gift. It is not based on what is received but on what one wishes to offer.”
In order to make space in the heart to receive God’s love, particularly in the Eucharist, the pope asked his listeners to consider: “What does it mean for me today to ‘prepare’?”
“Perhaps to renounce a demand, to stop waiting for others to change, to take the first step,” he suggested. “Perhaps to listen more, to act less, or to learn how to trust in what has already been prepared.”
Following his catechesis, Pope Leo asked those gathered to pray for the people of Japan who “suffered ... physical, psychological, and social effects” of the atomic bomb dropped during World War II.
“Despite the passing of the years, those tragic events constitute a universal warning against the devastation caused by wars and, in particular, by nuclear weapons,” he lamented.
“I hope that in the contemporary world, marked by strong tensions and bloody conflicts, the illusory security based on the threat of mutual destruction may give way to the tools of justice, to the practice of dialogue, and to trust in fraternity,” he said.
Posted on 08/6/2025 14:00 PM (U.S. Catholic)
If Jesus were living in our modern world, would he have had the chance to go to college? Jesus wasn’t born into privilege. In Luke 2:24, we learn that Mary and Joseph brought two doves to the temple. This sacrifice was not just a spiritual practice but also a significant marker of class. Jesus grew […]
The post Why all Catholics should care about HBCUs appeared first on U.S. Catholic.
Posted on 08/6/2025 11:00 AM (Catholic News Agency)
The jar that was miraculously refilled after the priest had anointed the heads of 500 faithful. / Credit: Courtesy of Monsignor Pasquale Silvestri
ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 6, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
St. Ferdinand Church, located in the historic heart of Naples, Italy, was the scene of a July 24 event that many are already calling miraculous.
Posted on 08/6/2025 11:00 AM (CNA Daily News)
The jar that was miraculously refilled after the priest had anointed the heads of 500 faithful. / Credit: Courtesy of Monsignor Pasquale Silvestri
ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 6, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
St. Ferdinand Church, located in the historic heart of Naples, Italy, was the scene of an event that many are already calling miraculous, attributed to the intercession of St. Charbel, a Lebanese hermit, devotion to whom has transcended borders.
On July 24, in the context of his liturgical memorial, Monsignor Pasquale Silvestri, parish priest at the Neapolitan church, celebrated a Mass in honor of the saint attended by more than 500 people, many of them ill.
At the end of the Eucharist, the priest proceeded to anoint the faithful who approached the altar with blessed oil — sent especially for the occasion by the Maronite Curia in Rome. It was then that something unexpected happened.
“I didn’t imagine there would be so many people, so there came a time when the jar was almost empty, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to satisfy everyone,” the priest explained in a letter published July 27 and addressed to Father Elias Hamhoury, former postulator of the cause for canonization of St. Charbel.
However, he managed to anoint each sick person until the jar was empty. “When I finished,” he added, “I closed the jar and put it back in its case. But when I put it back in the safe, I realized it was full again. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
When contacted by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Silvestri confirmed the events: “I was very surprised, because the jar was empty. In fact, I was afraid because there wouldn’t be enough to anoint everyone, and I turned the jar upside down several times” to get the last few drops.
Upon realizing that the vessel was indeed full again and that it “weighed more than before,” the priest approached the altar to tell the faithful what had happened: “Everyone applauded when they saw it.”
“I’m not a miracle worker, absolutely not, but in this case there was a production of matter; this is a very serious thing,” he emphasized. Given what happened, he assured he acted in accordance with canon law: “When one learns of a miracle, it must be communicated to the saint’s postulator.”
The next day, July 25, a group of Lebanese pilgrims arrived at the church. “They asked me if they could smell the oil, and when they did, they assured me it gave off the aroma of the cedars of Lebanon,” one of the symbols of St. Charbel’s homeland. “The oil is fragrant, something that seems impossible,” the Neapolitan priest pointed out.
St. Charbel, whose original name was Youssef Antoun, was born May 8, 1828, in Beqaa-Kafra, a village near the famous “Cedars of God,” one of the last natural reserves of these 1,000-year-old trees that in ancient times covered much of the Lebanese mountains.
“The bottle is safely stored away and at the disposal of the authorities, in case anyone wants to come and inquire and study the contents,” Silvestri added.
The priest told ACI Prensa that his devotion to the saint began almost by chance. “I didn’t know him; I heard about him recently, and I really liked his story. So I put up a picture in my church out of devotion,” he explained.
Although he assured that he has never “believed in dreams,” he shared — still amazed — a personal anecdote: “When I put up this picture, one night I dreamed that St. Charbel was looking at me and was laughing. This really struck me because the photo of St. Charbel is always that of a very serious man, but he was smiling at me.”
Since that providential episode, he decided to dedicate the Masses on the last Friday of June and July to the Lebanese saint.
It was on July 24, a few hours before the “miracle” of the oil, when a young woman from the parish, about 20 years old, approached him. “She told me that that morning she had been cured of a breast tumor thanks to St. Charbel. It was completely clear, and the doctors thought it would be impossible.”
“That happened on the morning of the 24th, and in the afternoon an impressive number of people came to Mass. We weren’t prepared; in fact, we ran out of sacred hosts. And then what happened happened,” he recalled.
Since then, he said, many faithful have shared testimonies of physical or spiritual healing after participating in the Mass. “I’ve received about five or six similar accounts, and I’ve asked them to write them all down.”
The priest emphasized that “miracles are recounted in the Gospel and in the word of God.” For Silvestri, what happened in his church “is a confirmation of what we already know.”
St. Charbel is known for obtaining miracles from God not only for Catholics but also for Muslims and followers of other religions. The Catholic Church has recorded and investigated thousands of miracles attributed to his intercession.
In fact, even during his lifetime, he enjoyed a notable reputation for miraculous healings among those who came to him for help.
The Lebanese saint, a priest and hermit monk of the Maronite rite, has become a spiritual bridge between East and West. He died on Dec. 24, 1898. He was beatified by Pope Paul VI on Dec. 5, 1965, and canonized by the same pontiff on Oct. 9, 1977.
ACI Prensa contacted the Italian Bishops’ Conference to learn its position on the matter but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 08/6/2025 10:00 AM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
The Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan. / Credit: Oilstreet via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.5)
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 6, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
In a message on the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Pope Leo XIV is calling on the international community to renew its commitment to lasting peace and an end to nuclear weapons.
“True peace demands the courageous laying down of weapons — especially those with the power to cause an indescribable catastrophe,” Pope Leo said in a letter addressed to Bishop Alexis M. Shirahama of Hiroshima. “Nuclear arms offend our shared humanity and also betray the dignity of creation, whose harmony we are called to safeguard.”
The apostolic nuncio to Japan, Archbishop Francisco Escalante Molina, read the Holy Father’s message during a Mass in Hiroshima, according to Vatican News.
“Though many years have passed, the two cities [Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bombed on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945] remain living reminders of the profound horrors wrought by nuclear weapons,” the Holy Father reflected. “Their streets, schools, and homes still bear scars — both visible and spiritual — from that fateful August of 1945.”
Referencing the phrase “war is always a defeat for humanity,” coined by his predecessor, Pope Francis, Leo further stated that “in our time of mounting global tensions and conflicts,” the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should “urge us to reject the illusion of security founded on mutually assured destruction.”
“It is thus my prayer that this solemn anniversary will serve as a call to the international community to renew its commitment to pursuing lasting peace for our whole human family,” the Holy Father concluded.
In a similar message for the landmark anniversary, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, called on the international community to renew its commitment to lasting global peace.
“As we mark this doleful anniversary, we recognize the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons and their proliferation,” said Broglio, who is also head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.
“We must renew our efforts to work for the conversion of heart required for a global commitment to lasting peace, and thus the elimination of nuclear weapons,” he said, adding: “This week, let us prayerfully remember the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and urge the United States and the international community to work diligently for nuclear disarmament around the world.”
Eighty years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, several U.S. Catholic cardinals and archbishops are visiting Japan as part of a pilgrimage coordinated by the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons.
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago; Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C.; Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle; and Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, are heading the delegation, which includes staff and students from several U.S. and Japanese universities.
The five-day visit kicked off Aug. 5 with a panel discussion at the World Peace Memorial Cathedral in Hiroshima. On Aug. 10, the pilgrimage will conclude with an ecumenical dialogue and academic symposium at Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki.
Posted on 08/6/2025 10:00 AM (CNA Daily News)
The Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan. / Credit: Oilstreet via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.5)
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 6, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
In a message on the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Pope Leo XIV is calling on the international community to renew its commitment to lasting peace and an end to nuclear weapons.
“True peace demands the courageous laying down of weapons — especially those with the power to cause an indescribable catastrophe,” Pope Leo said in a letter addressed to Bishop Alexis M. Shirahama of Hiroshima. “Nuclear arms offend our shared humanity and also betray the dignity of creation, whose harmony we are called to safeguard.”
The apostolic nuncio to Japan, Archbishop Francisco Escalante Molina, read the Holy Father’s message during a Mass in Hiroshima, according to Vatican News.
“Though many years have passed, the two cities [Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bombed on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945] remain living reminders of the profound horrors wrought by nuclear weapons,” the Holy Father reflected. “Their streets, schools, and homes still bear scars — both visible and spiritual — from that fateful August of 1945.”
Referencing the phrase “war is always a defeat for humanity,” coined by his predecessor, Pope Francis, Leo further stated that “in our time of mounting global tensions and conflicts,” the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should “urge us to reject the illusion of security founded on mutually assured destruction.”
“It is thus my prayer that this solemn anniversary will serve as a call to the international community to renew its commitment to pursuing lasting peace for our whole human family,” the Holy Father concluded.
In a similar message for the landmark anniversary, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, called on the international community to renew its commitment to lasting global peace.
“As we mark this doleful anniversary, we recognize the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons and their proliferation,” said Broglio, who is also head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.
“We must renew our efforts to work for the conversion of heart required for a global commitment to lasting peace, and thus the elimination of nuclear weapons,” he said, adding: “This week, let us prayerfully remember the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and urge the United States and the international community to work diligently for nuclear disarmament around the world.”
Eighty years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, several U.S. Catholic cardinals and archbishops are visiting Japan as part of a pilgrimage coordinated by the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons.
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago; Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C.; Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle; and Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, are heading the delegation, which includes staff and students from several U.S. and Japanese universities.
The five-day visit kicked off Aug. 5 with a panel discussion at the World Peace Memorial Cathedral in Hiroshima. On Aug. 10, the pilgrimage will conclude with an ecumenical dialogue and academic symposium at Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki.