'WALK FOR PEACE'

You could hear the drums coming from down the road. 

The sound of rhythmic thumping of traditional Buddhist drums turned heads as marchers made their way down the sidewalk in Lansingburgh on Aug. 9. Some carried brightly colored posters calling for the end to nuclear war, and everybody chanted the opening line of the “Lotus Sutra,” the recognized prayer for peace.  

On Aug. 9 - the 77th anniversary of the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan - over 60 people gathered at St. Augustine’s Church in Troy for a Prayer Service and Walk for Peace. The day was dedicated to remembering the terrible aftermath left on the people of Japan - the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6. 1945 - while also praying for peace in Ukraine, Yemen and in all places in strife.

Father Liam O’Doherty, parochial vicar at St. Mary of the Assumption in Waterford and St. Augustine's in Troy, worked with members of the Grafton Peace Pagoda to organize the prayer service for his parish and the local community. Father Desmond C. Francis, pastor of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Lansingburgh, Father Jim Kane, director of Interfaith and Ecumenical affairs for the Diocese of Albany, and two Buddhist nuns, Clare Carter Anju-san of the New England Peace Pagoda and Yasuda Jun Anju-san of the Grafton Peace Pagoda, also attended the service. 

“I was very encouraged to see so many people both from my own parishes and from many other houses of worship as well,” Father O’Doherty said. “It is edifying to see that so many people are concerned about peace and so many nations continuing to rely on nuclear weapons when we know that they cause such cruel death and so many decades of suffering for those who survive.”

The service included a reflection on the “Hibaku Maria” (a revered statue of Mother Mary that survived the second atomic bombing) and the people of Nagasaki, a reading on working for peace, a prayer for peace led by Father Francis, and a poem on the Nagasaki bombing sung by Father O’Doherty.

For Father O’Doherty, the fight to end nuclear arms is one close to his heart. From 1980-88, Father O’Doherty served as a missionary priest at Shiroyama Catholic Church in Nagasaki. Thirty-five years after the dropping of the atomic bomb, the effects of the radiation and sickness that resulted were still present in the city. 

“I probably buried 25 to 30 people for whom the cause of death was ‘Genbaku-byo’ or ‘Atomic bomb disease,’” Father O’Doherty said. “The parish I was assistant pastor of was adjacent to the area where the bomb fell.” 

At the time, Nagasaki was known as “the city of bells” due to the high concentration of Catholic and Christian churches in the area, whose church bells would toll for Mass twice a day. The Japanese friary where Father O’Doherty lived was exactly one mile from the center of the blast. The area encompassed by his parish in Nagasaki was part of the Urakami Cathedral parish, which at the time was the largest Catholic Church in Asia. 

“It was not until a couple of years ago when I read Susan Southard’s 2015 book ‘Nagasaki: Life after Nuclear War’ that I realized the intensity of the sufferings endured by the people of Nagasaki in the years immediately after the war, and continuing now up until the present time,” said Father O’Doherty of the bombing that was estimated to kill 35,000 people, mostly civilians, instantly and upwards of 80,000 in the months and years that followed. 

After the service at St. Augustine, attendees gathered outside the church and began the 1.3-mile prayer walk through Lansingburgh to St. Peter and St. Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church. The group reconvened in the church where prayers for peace were offered to end the war in Ukraine, followed by a lantern ceremony at the riverfront for all those affected by the war. 

“I hope the people who attended left with a deeper understanding of what is at stake and the importance of prayer in all this,” added Father O’Doherty. “That, and hoping that they liked the experience of so many people from so many different faiths coming together united for a single cause.”