COVID-19 has put a damper on a lot of things the last few months. Add to that list eternity.

VATICAN CITY -- For peace to flourish, weapons of war must be set aside, especially nuclear weapons that can obliterate entire cities and countries, Pope Francis said on the 75th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.

Setsuko Thurlow, 88, isn’t just disappointed. She’s choking back tears of frustration and grief as she describes the response she’s had from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on nuclear disarmament over the last four years.

HIROSHIMA, Japan -- Saying it is "perverse" to think the threat of nuclear weapons makes the world safer, Pope Francis urged a renewed commitment to disarmament and to the international treaties designed to limit or eliminate nuclear weapons.

April 22 marks the birthday of Robert Oppenheimer, born 104 years ago and famously destined to become known as “the father of the atomic bomb” because of his work on the secret Manhattan Project during the Second World War. When news of the weapon of mass destruction became public with the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, theologians jumped in on the moral debate over its use. Here is a report from the Aug. 18, 1945 issue of The Catholic Register:

I was reading Dennis Bocks’ The Ash Garden for English class last semester. The book follows the story of three main characters affected by the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima during the Second World War.

TORONTO – The war over Toronto’s peace garden ended in sunshine, spring flowers and paper cranes from Hiroshima.

VATICAN CITY - Seventy years after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, Pope Francis on Aug. 9 described the bomb as a “lasting warning to humanity.”

HIROSHIMA, Japan - For a long minute on a sunny morning, silence fell over the memorial park that commemorates the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of the city.