Vatican News is reporting on the Pope’s departure from Rome this morning for the 15 hour flight to Chile and Peru. He will spend three days in Chile and three days in Peru while visiting six different cities where he will meet with civil and religious leaders and celebrate Mass for thousands of the faithful.
While en route to his first stop on the journey, the Chilean capital of Santiago, the Pope held an impromptu press conference with reporters where he spoke about his fears of the outbreak of nuclear war.
“I think we are at the very limit. I am really afraid of this. One accident is enough to precipitate things,” he said, according to Reuters.
Each reporter was given a photograph taken in 1945 that contained the image of a young Japanese boy carrying his dead brother on his shoulders to a crematorium after the U.S. bombing of Nagasaki. The back of the photo contained the words, “The fruit of war.”
“I wanted to have it reprinted and distributed because an image like this can be more moving than a thousand words. That is why I wanted to share it with you,” the pope said.
While addressing a conference in November, Pope Francis said nuclear weapons “exist in the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict but the entire human race.”
He went on to firmly condemn not just their use, but their very possession, and said the existence of weapons that could result in the destruction of humanity “are senseless, even from a tactical standpoint.”
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