Pope Francis on Thursday marked the 75th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima by calling for peace and repeating that not only the use of atomic weapons but their mere possession is immoral.
Francis sent a message to organizers of the anniversary commemoration, recalling that he had prayed at the Hiroshima peace memorial during his 2019 visit to Japan and met with bombing survivors, known as hibakusha.
"It has never been clearer that, for peace to flourish, all people need to lay down the weapons of war, and especially the most powerful and destructive of weapons: nuclear arms that can cripple and destroy whole cities, whole countries," Francis said in the message.