Nagasaki's bomb-scarred Virgin Mary statue head to tour U.S. for nuclear disarmament talks
The surviving head of a wooden Virgin Mary statue damaged in the Nagasaki atomic blast will be taken to the United States for the first time in 16 years, arriving ahead of a November conference on nuclear weapons.
A Catholic clergy delegation will bring the surviving head of a wooden Virgin Mary statue, shattered when the U.S. bomb destroyed Nagasaki, to the United States for the first time since 2010. The relic, now kept in Urakami Cathedral, is slated to arrive in New York before a November conference examining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, highlighting the bombing’s legacy amid a slowdown in nuclear-disarmament efforts.
The statue’s head was recovered from the ruins of the old Urakami Cathedral and spent years in Hokkaido before returning to the church. The group intends to exhibit the fragment at United Nations headquarters and in churches across the country during November and December, as well as share it with civic organisations. Its symbolism has appeared in literature and music as a reminder of the atomic tragedy.
Why it matters
The exhibit uses a powerful relic to remind global leaders of nuclear war’s human cost as disarmament stalls.
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