Pope Francis warned against the dangers of nuclear war on January 15 before setting off on a trip to Chile and Peru, saying he is afraid of what could happen.
“I think we are at the very limit,” Pope Francis said when asked if he was concerned about nuclear war breaking out. “I am really afraid of this. One accident is enough to precipitate things.”
Pope Francis’s comments follow the mass panic caused in Hawaii by a false missile warning issued on January 13. The mistaken alert underscored the risk of potentially entering an unintentional war with North Korea. Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said on Sunday that the false alert shows the need for direct negotiations with North Korea.
While the Pope did not discuss North Korea or Hawaii, he has frequently spoken about the deadly risks of nuclear war and called for nuclear disarmament. Reporters who boarded Pope Francis’s plane for Chile received a photo of a young Japanese boy in 1945 carrying his dead brother following the U.S. nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, Reuters reports.
“I was moved when I saw this,” Francis said. “The only thing I could think of adding were the words ‘the fruits of war.’” Francis said, referring to a caption put on the back of the image.
“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,” he said.
source: Time