Organized under the theme of the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year, “Pilgrims of Hope,” the Pilgrimage of Peace to Japan took place from August 5-10 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It followed a 2023 pilgrimage that led to the formation of the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons.
The US delegation was led by Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, DC, Cardinal Blaise Cupich of Chicago, Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle, and Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe. Bishop Alexis Mitsuru Shirahama of Hiroshima and Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura of Nagasaki hosted the pilgrimage. It also included faculty, students, and senior administrators from a dozen U.S. and Japanese universities. Several institutions involved in the Catholic Peacebuilding Network's Project on Revitalizing Catholic Engagement on Nuclear Disarmament helped plan the pilgrimage.
Statements and reflections from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan, Bishop Shirahama, Cardinal McElroy, Cardinal Cupich, Archbishop Etienne, Archbishop Wester, and Robert Dowd, CSC, President of the University of Notre Dame, are online. Also see a statement from Pope Leo XIV on the anniversary of the bombings, and a joint statement from the four participating US bishops, twelve Japanese bishops, three Korean bishops, and several atomic bomb survivor organizations. This program for one of the several events during the pilgrimage contains texts of talks, in English and Japanese, of several other major addresses.
Additional follow up on the pilgrimage has included the University of Notre Dame producing a video featuring the Notre Dame students who traveled with the US delegation, an episode of "The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast," hosted by John Dear, featuring a conversation with Archbishop Wester, and an interview by Global Sisters Report with Sr. Kumiko Sakamoto, president of Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University, which held a student symposium as part of the pilgrimage.
Representatives from the following universities and associations were involved in the pilgrimage: the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities in North America, the Catholic University of America, DePaul University, Georgetown University, Gonzaga University, Loyola University Chicago, Marquette University, Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University, Northwestern University, Sophia University Tokyo, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Notre Dame.