These brothers, Arabs and Jews alike, must face the fact that as they spill each other’s blood and destroy their own family they’re perpetuating the age-old curse of rootless dispossession down the decades. They must admit their culpability for miseries, past and present.

The Maryland Catholic Conference issued a statement Aug. 6 asking for a renewed commitment to worldwide peace on the 80th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that helped lead to the end of World War II.

Twenty-five years after World Youth Day 2000, the world watched as another pope came to meet the youth of the church, again at Tor Vergata. Leo XIV, just a few months into his pontificate, stepped onto the world stage on a summer evening in 2025.

The scars still borne by survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and still visible on the cities’ streets and buildings are a plea to pursue peace and disarmament, Pope Leo XIV said.

Pope Leo XIV visited a Spanish teenager who had to be hospitalized during the Jubilee of Youth and prayed with and spoke to the family.