On August 6, 1945 Pedro Arrupe, S.J., the future General of @JesuitsGlobal, was stationed on the outskirts of Hiroshima.

At about 8:15 am, Arrupe was meeting with another Jesuit when he saw what he described as a ‘flash of magnesium.’

The windows and doors shattered, and he was thrown to the ground.

Arrupe recorded the following in his diary:

“I shall never forget my first sight of what was the result of the atomic bomb: a group of young women, eighteen or twenty years old, clinging to one another as they dragged themselves along the road.”

“One had a blister that covered nearly her entire chest. She had a cut on her head… and a great quantity of blood was flowing, coursing down her face. On and on they came, a steady procession numbering some 150,000. This gives some idea of the horror that was Hiroshima.”

“We did the only thing that could be done in the presence of such mass slaughter: we fell on our knees and prayed for guidance, destitute for all human help.”

Arrupe, who had trained as doctor before entering the Society, had the community setup a makeshift hospital where they treated about 150 people.

He went on to continually remind the world of the horrors of Hiroshima, as seen here at a press conference in 1947.

Arrupe, who is now on his way to canonization, couldn’t let the world forget this evil and he was further galvanized toward creating a more peaceful & just society.

For a dramatization of this diary entry, @americamag produced this great video a few years ago:

For those who may be interested, @americamag @LC_Institute @GUberkleycenter & @CatholicUniv’s Institute for Human Ecology are hosting ‘Pondering Hiroshima: ‘The Bomb’ at 75’ today at 1 p.m./12 p.m. CT.

Register here: http://lumenchristi.org/event/2020/08/ponding-hiroshima-andrew-j-bacevich-archbishop-timothy-broglio-drew-christiansen-s-j-joseph-capizzi

HAPPENING NOW: