JAPAN TODAY



 

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has sent a congratulatory message on the election of Pope Leo XIV as the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church, saying he hopes to foster Japan-Vatican ties and work together for global peace.

Survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings also welcomed the first American-born pope and urged him to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Japanese government, meanwhile, is considering sending former Prime Minister Taro Aso, a Catholic, to the new pope's inaugural Mass, scheduled to be held on May 18, a source familiar with the matter said.

Aso currently serves as top adviser to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Ishiba.

The new pontiff's predecessor Pope Francis called for the abolition of nuclear weapons during his trips to the two cities in 2019.

"I hope the new pope will visit us soon, as the atomic bomb survivors are aging," said Toshiyuki Mimaki, who heads the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-bomb Sufferers Organizations.

Teruko Yokoyama, who leads a group of A-bomb survivors in Nagasaki, said the emergence of a pope from the United States, a nuclear state, marks a "big step forward for the abolition of nuclear weapons."