Catholics in Nagasaki, Japan, have replaced a bell in a cathedral bell tower there almost exactly 80 years to the day after it was destroyed by the atomic blast that leveled most of the city at the end of World War II.
An international effort to fund the construction and installation of the bell at Urakami Cathedral raised $125,000 in just over a year, with the funds coming from over 600 individual donors, according to Williams College Professor James Nolan.
Nagasaki was one of the two Japanese cities, along with Hiro-shima, largely destroyed by the U.S. atomic bombings at the close of World War II. The city was bombed on Aug. 9, 1945, marking the second and last time an atomic bomb was used as an act of war.
Nolan told CNA last year that parishioners at Urakami Cathe-dral managed to dig up one of the original bells after the bombing and save it; the bell was installed in the cathedral’s right bell tower after it was rebuilt in 1959.
The remaining bell, however, was destroyed, with the second rebuilt tower remaining empty for decades.
Nagasaki Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura blessed the bell on that date and named it the “St. Kateri Bell of Hope,” accor-ding to the Associated Press.
The bell will be officially installed on Aug. 9, eight decades after the parish was leveled by the atomic bomb. Nolan said it will be rung at 11:02 a.m., the exact moment in 1945 when the bomb detonated around 1,600 feet west of the church.
At the bombing location, a section of wall from the old, destroyed cathedral sits in Nagasaki Peace Park. At the rebuilt parish to the east, meanwhile, Nolan said he hopes the bell “will bear the fruit of fostering hope and peace and solidarity between American and Japanese Catholics.”
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