Atom-bombed Mary

After the persecution of Christians in Japan ended in 1873, Japanese Catholics purchased land in the Urakami Valley district of Nagasaki, where fumi-e interrogations had taken place.

Three years later, a wooden altarpiece depicting Mary was constructed, inspired by a painting by the Spanish artist Bartolomé Murillo.

Later, the Trappist monk Kaemon Noguchi entered the ruins of the chapel to pray, and found the remains of the statue of Mary, burned and damaged.

[2][5][6] In 2005, Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, visited the statue in Japan, and said that seeing it "strengthened [his] determination to see the end of all nuclear weapons".

In 2010, Archbishop Joseph Mitsuaki Takami brought the statue with him to the United Nations headquarters in New York City, where he pleaded for the global elimination of nuclear weapons.