CHRG Seminar series: 12th August Gwyn McLelland

CHRG Seminar series. 

Seminars are held via Zoom at 11am. To register please contact Jacqui Baker ([email protected]). 

12th August- Gwyn McClelland.  

Title: Seventy-five years after the Nagasaki bomb: Listening to the Catholic survivors 

Abstract: I will introduce my new monograph, and my oral history work with Catholic survivors of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. In 2019, I visited Nagasaki at the time of Pope Francis’s visit and observed the community’s response. I will discuss the changes since the 1981 visit of Pope John Paul II, who began a speech at Hiroshima, “War is the work of humanity” and how these comments have supported a transformation of the community’s previous interpretation of the atomic bombing as a part of God’s providence. The narratives of recently outspoken survivors demonstrate the resilience of a surviving community, for many years persecuted by the Japanese authorities.