Quezon City kids fold paper cranes for peace

MANILA, Philippines — Amid the Middle East war, children at the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Quezon City are folding close to 2,000 paper cranes as they call for world peace.

Within the week, the children will seek an audience with Apostolic Nuncio Charles Brown, “to help us bring the message to Pope Leo XIV with the paper cranes.”

“We will pray not only for ourselves, but for every child in every place where there is fear and violence,” the children said in a letter to Pope Leo XIV.

Parish priest Fr. Robert Reyes said the pontiff might receive the letter and paper cranes in two weeks.

Aside from flowers, children’s offering of paper cranes in May, a month dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary, will be proposed by Reyes in a letter to Lipa, Batangas Archbishop Gilbert Garcera, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

Reyes expressed hope that US President Donald Trump would listen to Pope Leo XIV, a fellow American.

“The weapons you have created are enough to destroy the entire world,” Reyes said, referring to Trump.

Japanese girl Sadako Sasaki, a victim of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, had folded over a thousand paper cranes in hopes of being granted a wish.