Japan: Francis said that nuclear weapons were not the answer to humanity's desire for peace when visiting Nagasaki today.

"The world is being divided by the stubborn notion that peace and stability are guaranteed by the false sense of security sustained by fear and distrust," Pope Francis said on November 24. at the Monument in Peace Park in Nagasaki amid heavy rain.

This is a memorial to the victims of the American atomic bomb dropped on August 9, 1945, killing 27,000 people. "Having nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction is not the answer to the desire for peace, security and stability," the pope said. "In fact, they always threaten to ruin those things."

The Pope condemned the countries' withdrawal from anti-proliferation agreements, insisting international peace and stability were incompatible with efforts to threaten mutual destruction or the elimination of all humanity.

Pope Francis arrived in Japan yesterday for a 4-day visit. After giving a speech in Nagasaki, he plans to visit Hiroshima, a city that had suffered nuclear bombs at the end of World War II. In a video addressed to the Japanese people before leaving the Vatican, he condemned the use of nuclear weapons as "immoral".

The Pope will travel to Tokyo tomorrow to meet victims of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.