Cardinal: Hiroshima is where Christ renewed his sacrifice

Source: Fides

Hiroshima, site of the world’s first atomic bomb on 6 August 1945 which killed between 90 and 146,000 people, "is the place where Christ renewed his sacrifice in the twentieth century" Cardinal Fernando Filoni told a large gathering of priests, religious and lay persons in the Archdiocese of Hiroshima yesterday.

Speaking on the fourth day of his visit to Japan, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples said that for the Catholic Church, Hiroshima "today means a city of peace, in which God has not forgotten man, he is not hidden but lives there.”

"Here, Christ crucified continues, from above of this new Golgotha, to admonish all people" including those who in the name of religions "foment hatred, divisions and wars.”

The call to Christ's presence in world affairs offered the Cardinal the occasion to also suggest the Catholics of the Archdiocese ways to give space to "a renewed missionary impulse just as the Pope Francis urges in the Evangelii gaudium.”

The Archdiocese of Hiroshima extends over a territory of seven million inhabitants. There are about 20,000 baptised Catholics there.

"Is Christ known here? Does he have a place? Does he have a salvation to propose? Is the kingdom of God announced here? "These are the questions to answer. As we admire the past missionary work, we cannot be the simple administrators of those results. If there is no motivation for missionary life, there will also be no generosity and apostolic zeal; there will be no joy of evangelising.”

He said: “The people of Japan cannot be excluded from the glory, grace and truth brought by Christ. God has not stopped at the doors of this “noble and cultured” country… Say to the blind, to the deaf, to the sick, to the poor, to those who are hopeless, or suffer from the division of families or drug addict, or who thinks suicide is the only way to end the desolation and desperation that there is Good News for them.”

In his visit to Hiroshima, Cardinal Fernando Filoni prayed at the Monument of Peace and of the Atomic Bomb.