Faith leaders in Japan have gathered on Mount Hiei for the 38th annual “Religious Summit for World Peace,” joining 450 participants in prayers and calls to end the threat of nuclear war.
The event opened with a keynote from Terumi Tanaka, 93, a Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor and representative of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Hidankyo), who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
Tanaka said Hidankyo’s recognition came “because many people are feeling the danger that a war using nuclear weapons might occur in recent years.”
According to a report released by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan, Tanaka, who was 13 when he survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, has spent his life opposing nuclear arms.
“The survivors have consistently declared that nuclear weapons must never be used, possessed, or produced,” he said.
He criticized Japan for refusing to ratify the 2017 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and for relying on the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.”
“We firmly believe that nuclear weapons can never ensure a nation’s security,” Tanaka stressed.
He recalled witnessing the devastation of the atomic bombing, describing scenes of hundreds and thousands of people burned to death.
In Hiroshima, he noted, thousands of junior high school students who had been working outdoors on the day of the bombing were killed, an experience that reinforced his lifelong conviction that nuclear weapons must never be used.
Tanaka said confronting this history is key to abolition. He said people must accept the consequences of the two bombs with “human compassion.”
“We need survivors and witnesses to continue telling what they saw and experienced. That is, in the end, the only way,” he said.
He also called for raising future generations in peace. “We must raise children from an early age to love people and to love peace,” he said, urging religious leaders to help foster such values.
Following the lecture, participants gathered outdoors for the prayer ceremony. As the “Bell of Peace” rang, faith leaders stood in silence, offering prayers for peace.
The Mount Hiei Religious Summit began in 1986 after Pope John Paul II invited religious leaders to gather in Assisi to pray for peace.
Ei-tai Yamada, then head priest of the Tendai sect, proposed holding an annual summit at Mount Hiei, a tradition that has continued since 1987.
This year, Archbishop Francis Escalante Molina, Apostolic Nuncio to Japan, and Bishop Yoshiaki Otsuka of Kyoto Diocese joined the gathering.
Archbishop Molina read a message from Cardinal George Jacob Koorakod, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, who said that amid “social unrest, conflict, division, and ecological crises,” the “Spirit of Assisi” remains “extremely important.”
