13 September
The Vatican will announce on Friday the schedule for Pope Francis's visit to Japan in November.
The Pope is expected to make a four-day trip to Japan from November 23, when he will arrive in Tokyo from Thailand.
The next day, he will visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to remember the victims of the 1945 atomic bombings of the two cities.
He will also hold a Mass in Nagasaki.
On November 25, he is scheduled to meet Emperor Naruhito and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo before celebrating Mass at Tokyo Dome.
He will leave for the Vatican the following day.
He will be the first pope to visit Japan since John Paul II in 1981.
Francis, who assumed his position six years ago, is known as an advocate for the abolition of nuclear arms.
The Holy See ratified the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017.
Attention is focused on what anti-nuclear messages the pontiff will deliver from the atomic-bombed cities.
NHK
