“The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possession of atomic weapons is immoral,” he said. “We will be judged on this.”

This is Francis’ second visit to Japan. He came here in October 1987 to visit Jesuit missionaries as provincial. 

The pope reminded priests, religious and seminarians that the fervor of evangelization “is nurtured by a double encounter: with the face of the Lord and with the faces of our brothers and sisters.”

To be “a missionary disciple is not a mercenary of the faith,” Pope Francis told the Catholics of Thailand, but rather “a humble mendicant” who longs to bring missing family members to the Sunday table.t

Pope Francis spent his first full day in Thailand meeting with the country’s prime minister and supreme patriarch of Buddhists.

On the eve of Pope Francis’ visit to Japan, an exclusive interview with Yoshio Kajiyama, S.J., the Hiroshima-born former provincial of the country’s Jesuits.

Pope Francis is coming to “the land of interreligious dialogue” when he visits Thailand from Nov. 20 to Nov. 23 as “a pilgrim of peace.

“Wearing the label ‘Christian’ or ‘Catholic’ is not enough to belong to Jesus. We need to speak the same language as Jesus: that of love,” Pope Francis said as he celebrated the third World Day of the Poor.

It will be his fourth trip to Asia since becoming pope.

Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, S.J., a Spanish Jesuit with a degree in economics as well as considerable administrative and international experience, will take over as the new prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy on Jan. 1, 2020.