Reflection by Giulia Bordin, PCI Advocacy officer

For generations, the Japanese tradition of floating lanterns has honoured the memory of those who have died, while offering prayers for peace and hope. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this ritual has come to embody the world’s promise to remember the victims of the atomic bombings and to ensure that such suffering is never repeated. And this is why as Pax Christi International we are carrying this year the campaign “Lanterns for Peace: From Hiroshima to the World” in collaboration with the Hiroshima Coventry Club and the students of Hiroshima.

Each lantern carries a memory.

Each lantern carries a promise.

A promise that humanity will never again accept the unacceptable.

This year, as we commemorate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are invited not only to remember the past, but to recognise its echoes in our present.

In their 2026 Ten Days of Prayer for Peace message, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan reminds us that the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not only about looking back. It is a call to conversion, a call to reject the logic of war, to uphold the dignity of every human person, and to become artisans of peace in a world still marked by violence. The light of the lanterns reminds us that remembrance is never passive. It must become a commitment to peace.

That commitment could not be more urgent today.

We live in a world where genocidal rhetoric and practices are once again tolerated, where the earth itself is treated as expendable and ecosystems are destroyed by conflict, where nuclear threats have returned to political discourse, and where new technologies are rapidly transforming the way wars are fought. 

Darkness takes many forms.

The lantern reminds us that peace begins by refusing to accept any of them.

The Hibakusha have spent decades asking the world to remember not only what happened to them, but what must never happen again. Their witness is not only about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is about every place where life is destroyed in the name of security, power, colonisation, domination.

The testimony is also carried by the Hibakujumoku, the trees that survived the atomic bombing. As the generation of hibakusha slowly dies, these living survivors will continue to bear their testimony, reminding future generations that nuclear war wounds the whole creation.

Pope Francis reminded us that our world needs integral human disarmament. Disarmament is not only about dismantling weapons. It is about dismantling the fear, hatred, injustice, and systems of violence that make weapons appear necessary. It is also about healing our relationship with creation, recognising that the same mentality that justifies endless militarisation too often justifies the exploitation of the earth. 

Pope Leo XIV has likewise warned that emerging technologies, especially artificial intelligence, must never distance human beings from moral responsibility. As warfare becomes increasingly automated, our ethical responsibility becomes even greater.

Today, nuclear weapons remain the ultimate expression of this false logic. They promise security through the capacity for indiscriminate destruction while placing all creation under a permanent threat of annihilation with humanitarian and environmental consequences.

This December, governments will gather at the United Nations for the Review Conference of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The conference must become another lantern.

A light pointing towards a world where every state rejects nuclear deterrence, where all nuclear arsenals are dismantled, and where governments and societies choose courage over fear by becoming a stronger advocate for nuclear abolition rather than renewed militarisation.

For Pax Christi International, the abolition of nuclear weapons cannot be separated from a just peace.

We cannot oppose nuclear weapons while accepting violence that dehumanise entire peoples.

We cannot condemn Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings while remaining silent before today’s devastation.

We cannot honour the dignity of life while turning our common home into a casualty of war and exploitation.

As we commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims, we invite churches, communities, schools, peace movements, and people everywhere to join the Lanterns for Peace: From Hiroshima to the World Campaign.

Carry a lantern.

Become its light.

Because peace is built by those who dare to illuminate the darkness together.

Find more on how to join here.