Pope Francis has a message of Aloha for Hawaii: “I think we are at the very edge”
“Let the Aloha Spirit prevent a Nuclear war. This is the hope many have here in Hawaii for the last two days.Looking at the beautiful surf this morning the question is why can’t we all get along?” These are the words of an associate at eTN when walking into the Haleiwa, Hawaii based office.
Tourist is a peace industry, but this wonderful world can be destroyed in a matter of 20 minutes. The people in Hawaii and the 240,000 tourists visiting the Aloha State on Saturday morning got a taste of it. This false alarm on Saturday morning was a big wake up call for everyone in this travel and tourism paradise. It was also a wake-up call for many others in the world, including the pope.
“I think we are at the very edge,” the pope told reporters aboard his plane flying from Chile to Peru, when asked about the threat of a nuclear war in the wake of a recent string of tests by North Korea and a false missile alert last week that sparked panic in the US State of Hawaii.
His comment, made as he flew off for a visit to Chile and Peru, came after Hawaii issued a false missile alert that provoked panic in the U.S. state and highlighted the risk of possible unintended nuclear war with North Korea.
Asked if he was worried about the possibility of nuclear war, Pope Francis said: “I think we are at the very limit. I am really afraid of this. One accident is enough to precipitate things.”
As reporters boarded his plane bound for Chile, Vatican officials handed out a photograph taken in 1945 that shows a young Japanese boy carrying his dead brother on his shoulders following the U.S. nuclear attack on Nagasaki.
“I was moved when I saw this. The only thing I could think of adding were the words ‘the fruit of war’,” Francis said, referring to a caption put on the back of the image.
“I wanted to have it reprinted and distributed because an image like this can be more moving than a thousand words. That is why I wanted to share it with you,” the pope said.
