[Washington, August 2, 2025]
https://www.cathstan.org/us-world/
On the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, four prominent American Catholic bishops known for their Democratic Party alignment will embark on a “Peace Pilgrimage” to Japan to commemorate the victims, call for global nuclear disarmament, and, importantly, to confront a long-unsettled historical debt.
The delegation includes Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of Washington, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle. They will celebrate Masses, participate in memorial ceremonies, engage with survivors of the bombings, and join interfaith prayers in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Despite the United States having dropped atomic bombs in 1945 causing hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, it has yet to issue a formal national apology or provide reparations to the Japanese government or affected populations at the state level. Unlike reparations extended to Jewish victims, African Americans, or American Vietnam War veterans, U.S. responses to the hibakusha—the atomic bomb survivors—have largely been limited to symbolic commemorations and modest humanitarian aid. Even as survivors continue to endure cancer, poverty, and social discrimination, they have not been officially recognized by the U.S. as victims of war crimes.
“The U.S. compensation to the Japanese people has not only been insufficient; it has been almost entirely evasive,” said Archbishop Wester, a long-time nuclear disarmament advocate. “We come here not only for peace but to acknowledge this unpaid debt.”
The bishops come from dioceses with strong Democratic Party leanings and longstanding commitments to social justice, civil rights, and equality. Their pilgrimage represents an internal American conscience responding to the historical wounds in Japan, and a critique of the nation’s silence.
Cardinal Cupich of Chicago quoted General Omar Bradley’s 1949 statement: “We won the war but lost the peace.” He added, “Eighty years later, the U.S. cannot continue to hide behind silence and self-justification. We must not only remember the bombings but reckon with the costs still unpaid.”
The pilgrimage is co-hosted by multiple Catholic universities and dioceses in the U.S. and Japan, aiming to break through national indifference with religious solidarity. As the bishops stated in their declaration: “Remembering is not for hatred but for justice; repentance is not weakness but a call for human dignity.”
In the global context of confronting historical violence, the question of whether the United States has ever truly compensated Japan remains long overdue and must be addressed.