Immaculate Conception Cathedral
Nagasaki, Japan
4th November 2025
Homily of Archbishop Dermot Farrell
Readings: Rom 12:5-16; Ps 130; Luke 14:15-24
One cannot come to this place, this Cathedral, and the church of which it is the centre, without thinking of the horrific suffering that was inflicted on the people of this city when the atomic bomb was dropped here, on August 9th, 1945. The events here, and in Hiroshima a few days before, were a tragedy that belie description, a horror that must never be repeated.
But to come to this place, and to this country, is also to come to a place that is utterly different: it is to come to a culture that looks at the world in different optic. Our sisters and brothers in Japan put life together in another way. And yet, as Saint Paul says to the Romans in today’s First Reading, “we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” As the Second Vatican Council taught exactly 60 years ago: One is the community of all peoples, one our origin, for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the earth. (§1)
These are the words of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, a document that might well be described as a declaration of hope. In the wake of the horrors of two world wars, and a mere twenty years after the end of the Second World War, the Council Fathers could declare:
In our time, when day by day humankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions. In her task of promoting unity and love among people, indeed among nations, the Church… reflects on what people have in common and what draws us into fellowship.
In the polarised age in which we live, it is certainly more difficult to have the same quiet confidence in “the ties between different peoples becoming stronger,” but we might do well to take seriously that in this declaration our Church speaks with its true voice, and to hear in its values and sentiments the voice of Christ, “who is our peace, the one who has broken down the wall of hostility between us.” (see Eph 2:14).
On our journey to Japan we have come to appreciate many things. At a very material level, I have been quite taken by the levels of precision and planning evident in the cities of this land. On a human level, the importance of relationship with others and being in harmony with creation. On the level of the faith, the respect for Christian values, and the importance of baptism as a vocational choice in the life of the faithful have given me cause for reflection. Let me explain.
The Catholic mission experience in Asia, and particularly in Japan, has been notably different to our mission experience in other parts of the world. While there existed a very venerable Christian community founded by the Jesuit missionaries of the mid to late 16th century, there has been a keeping of respectful distance from the faith and praxis that Christian missionaries have proposed. It has brought many of those in mission over the last century—some of them from our own shores—to consider afresh both the character of their mission and witness. Many have asked whether someone who is fully committed to Christ—“God with us,” the full and authentic revelation of God—has something to discover in dialogue with those who have a praxis of seeking God who is ineffable and other, and who in the words of Nostra Aetate, “realises the radical insufficiency of this changeable world” (see §2, referring to “Buddhism in its various forms”).
I have been very struck by the importance of baptism in the life of the faithful here in Japan. In Ireland, our faith imagination sees baptism as something one has done: “I was baptised.” “Was she baptised?” we ask. In Japan, people are more likely to say, “I am baptised.” Baptised and being sent, they know who they are. It is another way of perceiving who we are, and how we are, in relationship to Christ. We might also do well to reflect on what we might learn from Christian mission here, not just in terms of missio ad extra, but equally in terms of how all who minister in the Church—both lay and ordained—might be nourished and sustained in a society and culture where we have little influence, less power, and no control. The Church in Ireland is rapidly being thrust into a radically new situation where the pastoral reflexes and strategies of former generations are proving grossly inadequate, and will bear little, if any, enduring fruit.
However, we cannot turn to the altar of this cathedral, to, in the words of today’s Gospel, “eat bread in the Kingdom of God,” without returning to the horror that was visited upon this city in 1945. Since the bombing of Hiroshima and here, nuclear arms have thankfully not been used in warfare. But now, in recent days, after the détente of the 1980s and 90s, we see the threat of nuclear warfare being made anew.
Both experience and history teach us that war and violence never truly solve disputes. They are born of hatred and, while violence born of hatred may gain the upper hand, it never brings the healing and unity we call peace. In the horror and injustice that were visited upon this place and its people, and that are still being visited in devastating ways, this very day, on the people of Gaza, Ukraine, South Sudan, and countless other places, there is a cry for justice and healing.
Our Lord teaches us that the way to justice and healing is not the way of violence and settling of scores. No! The way to true justice and lasting healing is the long, hard road of forgiveness, lived out in the love of those who are our enemies (see Matt 5:38–48). In the words of Pope Leo XIV on this day last week “peace is a constant journey of reconciliation. … The human heart must be open to peace.” (Address at the Meeting for Prayer for Peace at the Colosseum on October 28th, 2025 – below) And while each of us must work in peace and for peace with all our might, we need also to recognise our “radical insufficiency” (cf. Nostra Aetate §2) to do this on our own. True reconciliation demands that we go beyond ourselves, and journey with the other. All authentic religion recognises the necessity of prayer in that journey: “the human heart must be open to peace,” continued Pope Leo last Tuesday: “It is through meditation that we open our hearts, and in prayer that we go beyond ourselves. We recollect ourselves in order to go beyond ourselves.”
That prayer—coming from the depths of our hearts, in the words of today’s Responsorial Psalm, has endless forms: be it in the words of Wilfred Owen, words born from the awful trenches of the First World War:
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
(from “Strange Meeting”)
Or, in the prayer of Saint John Paul II in his address to the General Assembly of the UN back in 1979:
May there be peace in justice and in love.
May the praying voice of all those who believe in God—Christians and non-Christians alike—bring it about that the moral resources present in the hearts of men and women of good will be united for the common good,
and call down from heaven that peace which human efforts alone cannot effect.
(October 2nd, 1979)
Or, in the words of today’s Responsorial Psalm:
Out of the depths we cry to you, O Lord, Lord, hear our voice!
With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption,
His people indeed he will redeem, from all our iniquity.
(see Psalm 130: 1–2a, 7b–8)
May the Holy Spirit come upon us (see Luke 1:35), and open our hearts, to each other, and to God’s undying word of hope planted deep in every human heart. May the Holy Spirit come upon us! May the word take flesh in our lives! (cf. John 1:14)
Immaculate Conception, Queen of Peace, pray for us.
Saint Paul Miki and companions, pray for us
Saints of Nagasaki—known and unknown, pray for us.
Address of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV in the Presence of Religious Leaders
Colosseum, Tuesday, 28th October 2025
Your Holiness,
Your Beatitudes,
Distinguished Authorities representing the Christian Churches and the great World Religions,
We have prayed for peace according to our diverse religious traditions, and we are now gathered together to proclaim a message of reconciliation. Conflicts are present in all parts of life, but war is no help in dealing with them or finding solutions. Peace is a constant journey of reconciliation. I thank you for coming here to pray for peace and for showing the world just how important prayer is. The human heart must be open to peace. It is through meditation that we open our hearts, and in prayer that we go beyond ourselves. We recollect ourselves in order to go beyond ourselves. This is our witness: offering the immense treasures of ancient spiritualities to contemporary humanity.
The world is thirsting for peace. We need a true and sound era of reconciliation that puts an end to the abuse of power, displays of force and indifference to the rule of law. Enough of war, with all the pain it causes through death, destruction and exile! Gathered here today, we express not only our firm desire for peace, but also our conviction that prayer is a powerful force for reconciliation. Those who practice religion without prayer run the risk of misusing it, even to the point of killing. Prayer is a movement of the spirit and an opening of the heart. It is not shouting words, displaying behavior or religious slogans against God’s creatures. We have faith that prayer changes the course of history. May places of prayer be tents of encounter, sanctuaries of reconciliation and oases of peace.
On 27 October 1986, Saint John Paul II invited religious leaders from around the world to Assisi to pray for peace, imploring them: let us never again go against each other, but stand alongside each other. This historic event marked a turning point in interfaith relations. Year after year, these meetings of prayer and dialogue have continued in the “spirit of Assisi,” creating a climate of friendship among religious leaders and welcoming many appeals for peace. Today, it seems that the world has gone in the opposite direction, but we embrace the challenge of Assisi and the awareness of our shared task and responsibility for peace. I thank the Community of Sant’Egidio and all the Catholic and non-Catholic organizations, which keep this spirit alive, even going against the tide.
For the Catholic Church, prayer in the “spirit of Assisi” is based on the solid foundation set out in the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Nostra Aetate, namely, the renewal of the relationship between the Catholic Church and other religions. Today we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the promulgation of this Declaration, which took place on 28 October 1965.
Together we reaffirm our commitment to dialogue and to fraternity, a commitment desired by the Council Fathers that has borne much fruit. In the words of the Council: “We cannot truly pray to God as Father of all if we treat any people as other than sisters and brothers, for all are created in God’s image” (Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions Nostra Aetate, 5). All believers are brothers and sisters. And religions, as “mothers,” must encourage peoples to treat each other as family, not as enemies. For “humanity forms but one community. This is so because all stem from one stock” (ibid., 1).
Last year, when you met in Paris, Pope Francis wrote to you, stating: “We must keep religions from giving in to the temptation to become a means of fueling forms of nationalism, ethnocentrism and populism. Wars only escalate. Woe to those who try to drag God into taking sides in wars!” I would like to make these words my own and firmly repeat them: war is never holy; only peace is holy, because it is willed by God!
In the power of prayer, with hands raised to heaven and open to others, we must ensure that this period of history, marked by war and the arrogance of power, soon comes to an end, giving rise to a new era. We cannot allow this period to continue. It shapes the minds of people who grow accustomed to war as a normal part of human history. Enough! This is the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. Enough! Lord, hear our cry!
The Venerable Giorgio La Pira, a witness to peace, wrote the following to Saint Paul VI while serving in politics during challenging times: “We long for a different era of world history: the era of negotiation, the era of a new world without war.” Today, more than ever, these words can serve as a guide for humanity.
The culture of reconciliation will overcome the current globalization of powerlessness, which seems to tell us that another era is impossible. Yes, dialogue, negotiation and cooperation are capable of addressing and resolving the tensions that arise in situations of conflict. They must do so! The necessary forums and people exist. “To put an end to war is a solemn duty before God incumbent on all those holding political responsibilities. Peace is the priority of all politics. God will ask an accounting of those who failed to seek peace, or who fomented tensions and conflicts. He will call them to account for all the days, months and years of war.”
As religious leaders, this is the heartfelt appeal that we make to those in positions of government. We share the desire for peace for all peoples. We are the voice of those who are not heard and the voiceless. We must “dare peace”!
Even if the world turns a deaf ear to this appeal, we are certain that God will hear our prayer and the cries of so many who suffer. God wants a world without war. He will free us from this evil!
