Nagasaki

An effort is underway through nongovernmental channels to bring U.S. and Russian negotiators together to discuss new reductions in the countries' nuclear weapons arsenals, an official with the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development said during a visit to The Catholic University of America.

Pope Francis began his first full day in Japan Nov. 24 with a somber visit in the pouring rain to Nagasaki's Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park, a memorial to the tens of thousands who died when the United States dropped a bomb on the city in 1945. In the evening, he visited the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, honoring the tens of thousands killed by an atomic bomb there, too.

Potential sensitive issues include the government's plan to restart Japan's nuclear power generation capability, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's attempts to revise the postwar pacifist constitution.

With the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the bishops of Japan are renewing calls and prayers to build peace by abolishing nuclear weapons worldwide and promoting integral human development.

Commentary: The anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of two Japanese cities is a time of remembering the horror, repenting the sin and reclaiming a future without nuclear weapons.

Around 65 people joined the memorial in Kansas City, to hear talks, sing, take a vow of nonviolence, and get the latest status of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

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