Shigemi Fukahori, Catholic atomic bomb survivor and peace advocate, dies at 93

Catholic Shigemi Fukahori stands in front of the former bell tower of the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture, on July 17, 2013. / Credit: Kyodo via AP Images

CNA Staff, Jan 6, 2025 / 12:50 pm (CNA).

Shigemi Fukahori, a Japanese Catholic who survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 and who was an advocate for peace late in his life, died on Friday, Jan. 3, at age 93. 

Fukahori died at a hospital in Nagasaki, according to the Urakami Cathedral located in that city. The AP reported on his death on Sunday. 

The Urakami cathedral was itself destroyed in the atomic blast on Aug. 9, 1945. It was rebuilt in 1959. Peace activists have lately been working to fund a replacement for one of the cathedral’s bells destroyed in the blast. 

For much of his life Fukahori “prayed almost daily” at the cathedral, the AP reported. 

The Japanese citizen was just 14 years old when the bomb fell on the city. He had worked at a shipyard several miles from the bomb’s hypocenter and for years did not talk about the experience.

 A chance encounter with a victim of the 1937 Guernica bombing “helped [him] open up,” the AP said. 

“On the day the bomb dropped, I heard a voice asking for help. When I walked over and held out my hand, the person’s skin melted. I still remember how that felt,” he told the Japanese broadcaster NHK in 2019.

Fukahori, whose funeral was scheduled for Monday at the Urukami Cathedral, met Pope Francis that same year when he presented the Holy Father with a wreath of flowers when the pope visited Japan.

In 2020, at a ceremony in Japan, the peace advocate said: “I am determined to send our message to make Nagasaki the final place where an atomic bomb is ever dropped.”

He told NHK that the effects of the bomb were “not just that single moment — we are still suffering.”

“Humans are weak, so we tend to be greedy,” he said. “But being selfish doesn’t bring peace.”