TOKYO: Pope Francis arrived in Tokyo on Saturday, becoming the second pope to visit Japan since the February 1981 trip by the late Pope John Paul II.

During his four-day stay in Japan, Pope Francis, 82, is scheduled to visit the atomic bomb sites in Nagasaki and Hiroshima on Sunday and send out a message for peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Since his 2013 election, he has been calling for a world without nuclear weapons by repeatedly referring to the two Japanese cities, which suffered U.S. atomic bombings in August 1945 in the closing days of World War II.

The Vatican ratified the U.N. nuclear weapons ban treaty in September 2017, two months after its adoption.

In November the same year, Pope Francis went further than any predecessor by saying that not only the use, but the mere possession of nuclear weapons should be "firmly condemned."

Last year, he printed and distributed cards with a photo of a boy carrying his dead younger brother on his back while waiting for his turn at a cremation site after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

In Nagasaki on Sunday, Pope Francis will visit the bomb site and a monument to 26 Japanese and foreign Catholics crucified in the 16th century while holding a mass at a baseball stadium. He will then move to Hiroshima to attend a peace event.

In Tokyo on Monday, Pope Francis will meet with Emperor Naruhito, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and victims of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. He will also hold a large-scale mass at the Tokyo Dome baseball stadium. On Tuesday, he will give a speech at Sophia University in Tokyo.

JIJI Press