Pope St. John Paul II taught us:
“Peace is not a utopia, nor an inaccessible ideal, nor an unrealizable dream.
War is not an inevitable calamity.
Peace is possible.
And because it is possible, peace is our duty: our grave duty, our supreme responsibility.
Certainly peace is difficult;
certainly it demands much good will, wisdom, and tenacity.
Peace, entrusted to the responsibility of men and women, remains even then a gift of God.”i
Let us pray,
Christ, who is Lord and Prince of Peace,
May your peace reign in our hearts and in the hearts of all people,
that we may work for a culture of life, a culture of trust, and a culture of peace,
so that we never again experience the “incandescent burst of nuclear war”ii that the world saw in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which left behind only shadows and silence where life was once abundant.
May your mercy be upon us as we solemnly remember all whose lives have felt the tragic imprint of nuclear weapons.
We pray through the same Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Copyright © 2025, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. All rights reserved. Vatican quotes are Copyright © 1982, 2019, Libreria Editrice Vatican. This text may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration for nonprofit educational use, provided such reprints are not sold and include this notice.