The Supreme Court also declared that a 20-year statute of limitations could not be applied, paving the way for compensation claims from victims after years of legal battles.

"For the state to evade responsibility for damages payments would be extremely unfair and unjust, and absolutely intolerable," the court in Tokyo said.

Japan's government acknowledges that around 16,500 people were forcibly sterilised under the law that aimed to "prevent the generation of poor quality descendants."

An additional 8,500 people were sterilised with their consent, although lawyers say even those cases were likely "de facto forced" because of the pressure individuals faced.

Read More

In Shingo, the Greatest Story Ever Told is retold like this: Jesus first came to Japan at the age of 21 to study theology. This was during his so-called "lost years," a 12-year gap unaccounted for in the New Testament.

Every year, 20,000 or so pilgrims and pagans visit the site, which a nearby yogurt factory maintains.

Some visitors shell out the 100-yen entrance fee at the Legend of Christ Museum, a trove of religious relics that sells everything from Jesus coasters to coffee mugs.

Some participate in the springtime Christ Festival, a mishmash of multidenominational rites in which kimono-clad women dance around the twin graves and chant a three-line litany in an unknown language.

The ceremony, designed to console the spirit of Jesus, has been staged by the local tourism bureau since 1964. Read more

According to the country's Immigration Services Agency, more than three million aliens were living in Japan at the end of 2022.

In fact, the agency's count of 3,075,213 is lower than the actual number because there are undocumented aliens in the country in addition to those who have been processed and recorded officially.

It has been projected that in half a century, nearly 11 percent of the population will be non-Japanese while the overall population will drop from 126 million to 87 million.

The largest groups of foreign residents are from China, Vietnam and South Korea.

Others from the Philippines, Brazil and other countries of Latin America are reshaping the Catholic Church as they have become the majority of Japan's Catholics.

For decades, Japan has resisted welcoming immigrants.

Almost all the three million are in the country as students, trainees or specialists of one kind or other. However, many of them are in fact immigrants in all but name and legal status. They will remain legally or illegally in Japan, and increasingly are starting families there, sometimes with Japanese partners.

Japan's population is declining and the country desperately needs more people to maintain its economy and, as the population ages, the national health insurance system.

Speaking at a press conference, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said, "Time is running out to procreate."

"Japanese society is not yet ready to welcome newcomers as potentially a part of a new Japanese people".

In fact, the number of births in 2022 dropped below 800,000 for the first time, eight years earlier than had been projected. Each year, about 50 schools are closed because of a shortage of children.

The number of residents aged 65 and over is expected to increase from 28.6 percent to 38.7 percent of the population by 2070.

Even with an unlikely increase in procreation Japan still needs millions of other people, immigrants. An "imported" three million is nowhere near the number the country needs.

However, even though it needs them Japanese society is not yet ready to welcome newcomers as potentially a part of a new Japanese people, one with a variety of ancestries and races.

The shortage of people is affecting all parts of Japanese society.

Besides recording a record number of foreign residents, 2022 saw a record decline in the number of yakuza, organised crime gang members.

According to the Japan Times, "The number of members and associate members investigated by police in 2022 fell below 10,000 for the first time since Japan enacted the anti-organized crime law in 1991."

Overall, the number of gangsters was 22,400 — a drop of 1,700 from the previous year.

Like the yakuza, Japanese members of the Catholic Church in their country are more and more becoming fewer and fewer.

In fact, the majority of Japan's Catholics are not Japanese.

And given the decline in the Japanese population, the ageing of congregations and disaffiliation from the Church by the shrinking pool of Japanese young people, the Catholic Church in Japan will remain a community of immigrants at least until the country finds some way to accept outsiders as a real part of Japanese society and culture.

How are those responsible for the management of the Catholic Church responding to this inevitability?

They are not, at least not in any way that indicates a creative long-term response.

"The formation of Japanese clergy does not include training in the languages and cultures of immigrants"

In the past, foreign missionaries were sought after and welcomed as agents for the evangelization of Japanese society. Linguistic and cultural training were essential prerequisites for engaging in that.

Today, bishops recruit clergy and religious from overseas to provide pastoral service to immigrant groups.

They are not expected to acquire linguistic or other skills that would advance the integration of non-Japanese Catholics — either themselves or their congregations — as an evangelising presence in Japanese society.

On the other side, the formation of Japanese clergy does not include training in the languages and cultures of immigrants for the provision of pastoral care and an introduction to evangelising membership in Japanese society.

With some local exceptions, the result is the presence of parallel Catholic Churches in Japan.

One is a fading community of mostly aged Japanese and the other is a growing community of generally young immigrants who live their faith without reference to the evangelisation of Japan.

The pastoral agents in neither Church are able to bridge the linguistic and cultural differences because neither the imported agents nor the native clergy is expected or trained to do so.

This delays the integration of newcomers into the Japanese Church and the revivification of that Church.

As is the case in many Asian societies, the Catholic Church in Japan is frequently viewed as an alien presence and shall in fact become one.

Instead, the Church could be a model of the sort of transition that Japanese society as a whole must make. Japan can become a nation with global ancestry like Australia, Canada, the United States, and other post-ethnic nations.

The Church in Japan could show the benefits of mutual integration and a way to achieve it.

To do so, however, will require much more effort, creativity and openness than it presently musters.

• William Grimm is a missioner and presbyter in Tokyo and is the publisher of the UCANews.com.
• First published in UCANews.com. Republished with permission.

Fukushima's plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), started releasing the water into the ocean on 25 August. It says it will continue to do so for several years.

Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo (pictured), president of Caritas Philippines, says Caritas is extremely concerned the move will harm nature and the population.

"We call on the Japanese government to reconsider its decision, and to find a safe and responsible way to dispose of the contaminated water," he says.

"The decision is a reckless gamble with the health and well-being of people and the environment."

Leaders divided

Caritas Philippines echoes the opposition of most, but not all, East Asian leaders, Catholic groups, opposition parties, environmentalists, scientists and fishing communities.

China calls the radioactive water dump "extremely selfish". It has summoned the Japanese ambassador to file a formal diplomatic protest.

China has also imposed a new ban on seafood imports from Japan.

But Japan says the water is safe and won't affect the environment.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol supports Japan's view.

He says "the executive found no problem in the scientific and technical aspects of the Japanese plan."

It meets international standards and the impact on the population and the environment would be "negligible" the executive decided.

Many South Koreans are worried about radioactive water and possible contamination of seafood and the oceans, however.

Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung calls the water dump "an act of terror". The Party intends to hold the Government accountable for failing to fulfil its duties, he says.

Environmental groups, student committees and civil society organisations have been demonstrating in Japan and South Korea.

Local regional governments in Korea are strengthening seafood product testing to ease consumer concerns.

This will involve daily tests on all seafood products in main markets, publishing and disseminating the results in real time.

The Korean Federation for Environmental Movements criticised Tokyo's decision. It "threatens fishery products and jeopardises the security of the Pacific countries," they said.

Catholic opposition

The Korean Catholic bishops and 42 other Catholic organisations oppose Japan's water dump decision.

In a joint statement at the end of June, they expressed their "extreme concern".

Catholic groups have rejected the Japanese government's claim that "the contamination caused by the radioactive leak is calming down and the Fukushima area is safe".

The April 2023 "Analysis Report on Radioactive Contamination of Japanese Agricultural and Livestock Products" says there is a wide range of radioactive contamination in food products.

It says 5.3 percent of marine, 21.1 percent of agricultural and 2.6 percent of animal products are affected.

The report urges precaution and prudence regarding human health and the ecosystem.

In 2021, the Korean and Japanese bishops jointly declared their opposition to the water dump. Human health and creation must be preserved they said.

Source

• CBCP News
• UCA News

"Though we Catholic Bishops of Japan and the late Prime Minister had great differences in opinion over several issues including nuclear disarmament, nuclear energy policy and the pacifist constitution, Mr Abe showed great respect to the Catholic Church, particularly to the Holy See as he must have understood the influence of the Holy Father on international society over the peace issue," said Archbishop Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo.

"That is the main reason why he put quite an energy to invite the Holy Father to visit Japan and he even appointed for the very first time a Catholic as the ambassador to the Holy See. While sending a number of envoys to meet the Holy Father to invite him to visit Japan, he himself also visited the Holy Father in the Vatican in 2014," the archbishop told Crux.

The Catholic Church makes up less than 0.5 percent of the prominently Shinto and Buddhist country, with less than 500,000 members. Continue reading

"We oppose the release of water containing the radioactive substance tritium into the ocean after purifying the contaminated water from Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant," they said this week in a letter to Japan's Prime Minister and cabinet members.

Releasing tritiated water after it goes through a purification process is wrong, the signatories say.

"We have a responsibility to hand over to future generations a global environment where we can truly live safely and with peace of mind," the bishops point out, citing Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical on a Christian ecology, Laudato Si.

"Since the world has been given to us, we can no longer view reality in a purely utilitarian way, in which efficiency and productivity are entirely geared to our individual benefit," Francis says in the encyclical.

"Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us."

The bishops' letter also noted a range of community interests are against the plan.

Local government councils of Fukushima Prefecture and of other prefectures are opposed to it. As are the local and National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives.

Then there's the Governor of South Korea's Jeju province, an island in the Korea Strait. He has also called for preparations to be suspended.

The event that caused the Fukushima nuclear plant to fail.

Back in 2011, three nuclear reactors at the plant suffered meltdowns in the massive 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami.

The damaged reactors have to be constantly cooled with water, which becomes radioactive in the process.

The plans

The current plans consider dumping over 1 million tons of partially cleared radioactive water into the ocean, as soon as 2022.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which operates the nuclear plant, says it has removed all radioactive isotopes but tritium.

An expert panel says tritium is harmful only in very large doses.

In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency says if properly filtered, the water could be diluted with seawater and safely released into the ocean.

However, the Catholic bishops argue that the water's secondary treatment is still in the testing stage.

Furthermore, the bishops point out, health experts disagree about the health effects of tritium, citing claims that it is linked to stillbirth, Down syndrome, and childhood death due to leukemia.

They advocated that treated water be stored in tanks or solidified in mortar. Ocean release should not be the only method, they said.

The bishops say it is "worrisome" that the government report did not mention the effects of treated water on non-human marine life and the marine environment.

The release of radioactive material into the ocean is "irreversible," they said. Government officials had provided false information in the past regarding nuclear power plant building and maintenance.

Source

• CNA
• Image: Ejinsight.com

Last week, the Archdiocese of Tokyo cancelled all public Masses for more than two weeks in order to prevent the spread of the virus — a policy in line with secular precautions being taken by the Japanese government.

Masses will be suspended until March 14th in the Tokyo area.

More than 1,000 people in Japan have contracted coronavirus, and as of March 4, 12 people in the country have died. Read more

"We must all unite against this culture of bullying and learn to say ‘Enough!'

"It is an epidemic, and together you can find the best medicine to treat it."

"Bullies are afraid, and they cover their fear by showing 'strength'" the Pontiff said.

He made the comments while talking with students in Japan, and was responding to testimony from students who recalled the pressures they face in a hyper-competitive society.

The students described their feelings of inadequacy and the cruelty they sometimes face from their classmates, saying bullying and cruelty sometimes drive young people to suicide.

An alarming rate of suicide is one of the significant issues facing Japan, and Francis again returned to the topic when visiting with the country's bishops.

Francis urged the country's bishops to cater to young people in particular since they are the most prone to commit suicide and are "thirsting for compassion."

"Try to create spaces in which the culture of efficiency, performance and success can become open to a culture of generosity and selfless love, capable of offering to everyone — not only to those who have ‘made it' — the possibility of a happy and successful life," he said.

"With their zeal, ideas and energy, young people — when well-formed and accompanied — can be a deep source of hope to their contemporaries and bear vital witness to Christian charity."

The suicide problem started in Japan in the late 1990s and reached a peak in 2003 when 70 people committed suicide each day.

Although suicide rates have fallen, now the subject of discussion within the country is the issue of secondary school students and also younger primary school students who commit suicide.

Last year in Japan, more than 300 students took their own life.

Government data shows that depression, the pressure of family life and work-life, and bullying are the main causes.

Sources

• RNS
• AP News

Francis said it is "perverse" to think the threat of nuclear weapons makes the world safer.

Calling their use a crime against the dignity of humanity and against any possible future of our common home, the pope called the use of atomic weapons immoral.

"Future generations will rise to condemn our failure if we spoke of peace but did not act to bring it about among the peoples of the earth," the pope said.

"How can we speak of peace even as we build terrifying new weapons of war?

"How can we speak about peace even as we justify illegitimate actions by speeches filled with discrimination and hate?"

Francis said it made no sense to advance a policy of nuclear deterrence - counting on mutually assured destruction - to keep the peace.

"A world of peace, free from nuclear weapons, is the aspiration of millions of men and women everywhere," the pope said in Nagasaki.

Highlighting the billions of dollars spent each year on maintaining nuclear stockpiles and developing new weapons, Francis said it was not possible to be indifferent to the plea of our brothers and sisters in need.

"No one can turn a deaf ear to the plea of our brothers and sisters in need."

"No one can turn a blind eye to the ruin caused by a culture incapable of dialogue", he said.

The Holy See was among the first countries to sign and ratify the new U.N. nuclear prohibition treaty,

Francis himself went further than any pope before him in saying in 2017 that not only the use but the mere possession of atomic weapons is "to be condemned."

Tomohide Hirayama, a former Nagasaki resident who travelled from another prefecture to see the pope, said his religious faith was different but he fully supported Francis' call for a nuclear-free world.

"There were atomic attacks twice in history, and there should never be a third time," he said.

Sources

• Politico
• CNS

In both countries, there's one Catholic for every 200 people, as opposed to roughly one for five in the United States.

The Nov. 19-26 trip will be the pontiff's fourth to Asia, following South Korea (2014), Sri Lanka and the Philippines (2015), and Bangladesh and Myanmar (2017).

Though his first priority will be to boost the small local Catholic communities, Pope Francis is bound to focus most of his 18 scheduled speeches - all in Spanish - on issues close to his heart and which heavily affect these countries.

The wide range of topics likely will include human trafficking and the exploitation of women and children in Thailand's sexual tourism industry; the death penalty; corruption; and the high number of suicides among young people.

He's also expected to call for peace and nuclear disarmament, especially during stops in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and care for the environment.

Just to put some of these priorities into context:

• Sex tourism: Both girls and boys as young as ten years old are forced into prostitution in Thailand, either by local pedophiles or foreign sex tourists. Often they're forced to service five to ten clients a day, constituting what Pope Francis condemns as "modern day slavery," and a "crime against humanity." UNICEF describes child prostitution as "one of the gravest infringements of rights that children can endure."
• The death penalty: The pontiff recently changed the official compendium of Catholic teaching to reflect that capital punishment is never admissible. However, it's still allowed in Japan. The local Church has invited Iwao Hakamada, an 86-year old man who spent 48 years on death row, to meet Pope Francis. This former boxer and Catholic convert was released in 2014 when DNA analysis proved the evidence against him could have been planted.
• Suicide: According to a 2018 government report, 250 elementary and high school-age children in Japan took their own lives between 2016 and 2017 for a variety of reasons including bullying, family issues and stress. It's the top cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 39, and Japan's suicide rate is the sixth highest in the world.
• Peace: While in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world's only two cities to have experienced nuclear weapons, Francis is expected to reiterate his calls for nuclear disarmament. Though post-war Japan has a history of pacificism, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is currently attempting to revise the constitution to allow for rearmament. (The Nippon Carta Magna, article nine, states that the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right, aspiring "to an international peace based on justice and order.") Continue reading

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Kawasaki, 69, is one of a dwindling number of Japan's "Kakure Kirishitan," or "Hidden Christians," descendants of those who preserved their faith in secret during centuries of persecution.

His unique faith blends Buddhist, Christian and Shinto practices, and its ritual chants combine Latin, Portuguese and Japanese.

The Hidden Christians have garnered fresh attention ahead of Pope Francis's visit to Japan on Nov. 23-26, with domestic media and a French broadcaster heading to Nagasaki to report on them. Last year, 12 Hidden Christian-related locations were designated UNESCO World Heritage sites.

But their religion may be on the verge of extinction as youth leave rural areas, where the faith has persisted.

"I worry that what my ancestors worked hard to preserve will disappear, but that is the trend of the times," said Kawasaki, who prays each evening at home before the altar, flanked by others devoted to Buddhist and Shinto gods.

"I have a son but I don't expect him to carry on," he added. "To think this will disappear is sad, without a doubt."

Centuries of suppression

Jesuits brought Christianity to Japan in 1549, but it was banned in 1614. Missionaries were expelled and the faithful were forced to choose between martyrdom or hiding their religion.

Many joined Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines to disguise their beliefs, and some rites such as confession and communion, which require a priest, disappeared.

Other rituals blended with Buddhist practices such as ancestor worship or indigenous Shinto ceremonies.

Handed down orally and in secret, "orasho" chants - from "oratio" in Latin - combined Latin and Portuguese with Japanese, their meanings mostly symbolic.

When Japan's ban on Christianity was lifted in 1873, some Hidden Christians joined the Catholic Church; others opted to maintain what they saw as the true faith of their ancestors.

"They didn't want to destroy the faith they had preserved all along despite suppression," said Shigenori Murakami, the seventh-generation head of a group of Hidden Christians in Nagasaki City's Sotome district, the setting for Martin Scorcese's 2016 movie "Silence" about persecuted Christians.

Pope Francis is expected to speak of Hidden Christians when he visits a martyrs' monument on Nishizaka Hill in Nagasaki, southwest Japan, where 26 Christians were executed in 1597.

"I think there is a high likelihood that he will send a message about the Hidden Christians," whom he has mentioned in the past, Kagefumi Ueno, a former Japanese envoy to the Vatican, told reporters.

"The pope has said the fact that in Japan there were Christian people who maintained their beliefs for two and a half centuries under great suppression holds a big lesson for the present." Continue reading

When he appointed Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle as head of Catholic aid agency Caritas Internationalis, the cardinal revealed that the pope had told him he wanted an Asian in the position because "the future of the Church is in Asia."

"It is not a matter of honour. Is it a challenge, a prophecy or a great calling? We do not know. But it is surely a matter of great responsibility, a great mission," the cardinal said.

And while the Church only has an estimated 120-140 million followers in North, Southeast and South Asia from about 1.2 billion worldwide, it continues to grow and Francis very clearly sees the opportunities.

The pontiff's visits to Thailand and Japan from Nov. 20-26 follow his journeys to South Korea for World Youth Day in 2014, Sri Lanka and the Philippines in early 2015 and Myanmar and Bangladesh in late 2017.

Each trip had its own unique triumphs and we can expect no less this time around, especially the Japan leg, which is heavy with both personal and thematic symbolism.

As Pope Francis prepares to embark on his fourth trip to Asia in the seventh year of his pontificate, he is delivering in a big way on the promise he made shortly after his election that he would make Asia a key focus of his papacy.

When he appointed Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle as head of Catholic aid agency Caritas Internationalis, the cardinal revealed that the pope had told him he wanted an Asian in the position because "the future of the Church is in Asia."

"It is not a matter of honour. Is it a challenge, a prophecy or a great calling? We do not know. But it is surely a matter of great responsibility, a great mission," the cardinal said.

And while the Church only has an estimated 120-140 million followers in North, Southeast and South Asia from about 1.2 billion worldwide, it continues to grow and Francis very clearly sees the opportunities.

The pontiff's visits to Thailand and Japan from Nov. 20-26 follow his journeys to South Korea for World Youth Day in 2014, Sri Lanka and the Philippines in early 2015 and Myanmar and Bangladesh in late 2017.

Each trip had its own unique triumphs and we can expect no less this time around, especially the Japan leg, which is heavy with both personal and thematic symbolism.

And on Sept. 22, 2018, the Vatican also inked a still-secret and controversial deal on the appointment of bishops with China. Movement on the provisional agreement has proved extremely slow on the Chinese side amid an escalation of Beijing's crackdown on religion, which is focused particularly on so-called "underground" Catholic and Protestant churches, whose followers number 60-100 million, as well as China's 22 million Muslims. It has also targeted young people.

It was in Seoul, during World Youth Day in August 2014, that it was clear Francis, only 17 months into his pontificate, was already a hugely popular pope, feted as something of a religious rock star by Catholic youth excited by the change from the deeply traditional and conservative papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

The importance of youth of saving the planet and creating a more modern Church for future generations has been a constant theme of Francis' papacy.

This is unlikely to stop as on most of his overseas visits he holds a special Mass for young people.

This will happen in Bangkok, while he will meet young Christians and non-Christians at St. Mary's Cathedral in Tokyo.

It was also en route to Seoul in August that Francis sent a telegram to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who had been elevated to secretary-general of the ruling Communist Party, about restarting talks with Beijing that had been dormant for almost a decade.

Francis' voyage to Thailand is the first by a pope since St. John Paul II visited in 1984.

His trip to Japan is the first by a pontiff since St. John Paul II visited in 1981 and represents the end of a long personal journey.

As a young priest, Francis had been determined to travel to Asia as a missionary. With his first choice of China unavailable because of the closing of the country to foreign missionaries and Catholic priests by the Communist Party, Japan became Francis' destination of choice.

"Over time, I felt the desire to go as a missionary to Japan, where the Jesuits have always carried out very important work," he wrote as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio in his 2019 book El Jesuita. Bergoglio was diagnosed with a heart ailment and deemed physically unsuitable for missionary life, but it is something he has carried with him all his life.

Mission and evangelization

On overseas trips, particularly on visits to Asia, Francis often speaks about the importance of mission and evangelization.

Francis' travel schedule in Asia already compares favourably with that of the great travelling pope, St. John Paul II, despite his relative age as an octogenarian compared with the saint's youth at the start of his long pontificate.

Indeed, in visiting Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Francis made history with the first-ever papal visits to these countries.

The only Asian nations where St. John Paul II ventured that Francis has not yet visited are Timor-Leste, still at the time part of Indonesia when the Polish pope made a deeply historic visit in 1989, and India, where he undertook a substantial 10-day journey from north to south in 1986 and again to Delhi in 1999.

India is very much on Francis' wish list, something he has made very public, and the recalcitrance of the Indian government remains a sore point with the Vatican, especially since St. Teresa of Kolkata was canonized by Francis in 2016.

The Holy See failed last time, in 2017, to get the permission of the increasingly Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi, a knockback from which Myanmar reaped the benefits.

Now comfortably elected for a second term, Modi may find the temptation to have multiple photo opportunities with Pope Francis too hard to resist and see it as a way, perhaps, of deflecting his mounting programs of religious repression.

This is being writ large in Jammu and Kashmir, the disputed Muslim-majority state that in August had its autonomy revoked, sparking outcry across the globe.

But while India remains a disappointment to be resolved, we should note the successes of Francis' Asian visits.

He opened communications after many years of silence with Beijing — followed by a deal, however limited and initial — celebrated Sri Lanka's first saint, and made a triumphant visit to Asia's Catholic heartland of the Philippines, comforting victims of Typhoon Yolanda and pulling focus on the 2015 Year of the Poor.

In Myanmar and Bangladesh in late 2017, he played a delicate piece of two-step diplomacy, soft-pedaling in public over the then raw Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, where at both official and ground levels the actions of the army forced the troubled Muslim ethnic minority into Bangladesh.

But privately he is understood to have been far tougher with civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her military counterpart Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

He then triumphantly staged an ecumenical service in Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, welcoming Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists on stage for prayers.

They included representatives from the Rohingya people, instantly silencing critics of his gently prodding stance in Myanmar.

In this way he shone an international spotlight on the crisis of up to one million refugees being forced from their homeland by a brutal military and a racist, increasingly religiously intolerant regime.

On the Japan leg of his forthcoming trip, he has similar opportunities for subtle but clear diplomatic messages — and who would bet against him taking them?

The Vatican's deal with China and the ongoing repression of Christians by North Korea's murderous regime will be lurking.

If he is trying to balance China's glacial progress on his bishop deal and its assault on worship of all religions by his mere presence in Japan — China's hated neighbour — he will already have hit the mark on the day the tour was announced.

It is not drawing too long a bow to see his appearances in Japan, where a stadium Mass in Nagasaki is already fully booked, as a test. Any Chinese reaction will give him a clue to where he really stands with Xi Jinping.

At a guess, Francis will, for sure, give the Chinese some face, wave hello at least and talk up his deal while he is being treated as a rock star and pressing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's flesh, surrounded by only one version of the church loyal only to Rome.

He will only be helped by the infectious enthusiasm of Japanese crowds who have shown, with the recent wildly successful Rugby World Cup, just how keen they are to embrace the new.

The Chinese, to put it mildly, will be put on the spot.

This is the first in a series of commentaries on Pope Francis' apostolic visit to Thailand and Japan and the issues around the journey.

• Michael Sainsbury is a journalist and photographer. He was commissioned by UCAN to write a series of comment pieces ahead of the Pope's visit to Asia.
• First published by UCANews.org. Republished with permission.

But the comparison appears to end right there — at least with reference to Thailand. The pope's trip to Japan has a point and it doesn't get much bigger than global peace.

Yet his visit to Thailand does not appear to have a point at all beyond some motherhood blandishments, and that is a big missed opportunity for the Vatican. The Holy See appears to be uncharacteristically dropping the ball on the Thai visit, but maybe for reasons that are beyond its control.

The message from the Vatican is as standard as it can get: "Christ's Disciples, Missionary Disciples." It's the 350th anniversary of the Vatican's mission to Thailand (formerly Siam) but most of the visit is stuffed with meetings with dignitaries, bishops and priests and the standard stadium Mass, a Mass for young people and a hospital visit. But that is it.

Like St. John Paul II, Pope Francis' trip to Japan has a singular and laser-focused point — peace and the end of war, which has tortured mankind since antiquity.

Pope Francis follows his predecessor to Nagasaki, where he will hold a Mass, and to Hiroshima, where he will hold a prayer service for peace. Like the saintly pontiff, Pope Francis will visit the shrines of 26 martyrs, heady stuff compared to Thailand, a last-minute add-on that has even bewildered some in Rome.

The Japan visit gains even more poignancy because it will take place in the shadow of nuclear-armed Russia, China and North Korea. And at a time when the United States has withdrawn from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty that bans land-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres.

Russia remains in dispute with Japan over Kuril island and the two have a 200-kilometre maritime border. This will add huge weight to Pope Francis' visits to the nuclear-bombed cities of Japan and to the meetings with survivors and their families. In recent months, North Korea has seemed the most likely of those three nations to actually use a weapon if rhetoric is anything to go by. At the time of St. John Paul II's visit, the Cold War and its nuclear arms race were still raging. We do not learn, it seems, from even our very recent history.

Pope Francis' Thai schedule is disappointing. Many local clergy and lay Catholics lay the blame at the feet of Thailand's Cardinal Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovitvanit, who reportedly is not especially popular among his own clergy or the substantial number or foreign clergy in Bangkok.

Thailand is the regional hub for Catholic charity Caritas International and the Jesuit Refugee Service — these religious are peeved at being left out of proceedings. The only exception regarding the religious are the Jesuits, the pope's own order with whom he spends time on each international visit.

Indeed, the closest Pope Francis will come in Thailand, even vaguely, to the poor and dispossessed will be in the constrained environment of a Catholic hospital for the disabled.

Local Catholics are wondering why there is not a meeting with refugees, or a visit to a refugee camp, perhaps at Mae Sot or other refugee camps on the Myanmar-Thai border. After all, John Paul II spoke to refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in a camp south of Bangkok for several hours.

Refugees close to pope's heart

Thailand is the Southeast Asian epicentre for refugees, and there are hundreds of thousands of both registered and unregistered refugees in the country. The Catholic Church, led by the Jesuit Refugee Service, which has its Asian headquarters in Bangkok despite the country's tiny Catholic minority, has done long-term and consistent work helping these people.

It is arguable there is no issue closer to Pope Francis' heart than refugees. He has been a tireless advocate and supporter of dispossessed people. As he celebrated Mass in St. Peter's Square on the 105th World Day of Migrants and Refugees on Sept. 29, once again he denounced "the globalization of indifference" and said "a painful truth" is that "our world is daily more and more elitist, more cruel towards the excluded." The same might be said, about this trip, of the Thai Church.

Francis continued: "As Christians, we cannot be indifferent to the tragedy of old and new forms of poverty, to the bleak isolation, contempt and discrimination experienced by those who do not belong to our group," adding that "we cannot remain insensitive, our hearts deadened, before the misery of so many innocent people. We must not fail to weep. We must not fail to respond."

The plight of Pakistani Catholic refugees has been well documented in coverage that has been led by this very publication. This week we revealed that Pakistani Catholics in Bangkok are too afraid to attend the papal Masses. The Thai Church could help facilitate this, but it seems it is unwilling or perhaps fearful of upsetting the government with which it has cosy elitist ties at senior levels.

There are other issues very close to the pope's heart and mission that could be raised in Thailand and brought to life for a global audience in much the same way he did with the Rohingya crisis during his 2017 trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh.

There are the slave fishermen drawn from Burmese, Cambodia and Lao economic refugees who also work in often dangerous and underpaid construction jobs. He could remind the world of the Rohingya crisis ongoing over the border in Myanmar, and there are plenty of Rohingya refugees in Thailand along with scores who have perished in people-smuggling camps.

Then there is the sectarian conflict in the south between the Thai military and Muslim separatists that has claimed tens of thousands of lives — a conflict that fits in with the message of peace Francis will take to Japan.

Pope Francis could bookend his trip with a visit to the excellent Hellfire Pass Burma Railway Museum, another look at the Japanese war experience that would help him better understand what life was like as a prisoner of the Japanese, and how their notorious brutality was probably one of the reasons the Americans dropped nuclear bombs instead of sacrificing more of their own.

In doing so, he could highlight the stunning forgiveness that has come from Australian, British, New Zealand and Asian civilians.

Each one of these is a singular and powerful missed opportunity.

The soft schedule in Thailand could change, of course — and this is where Francis could work his special magic.

Indeed, ucanews understands that questions are already being asked in Rome.

This pope has a habit of getting personally involved in his international travel; he sidestepped normal diplomatic channels to get to Myanmar and has a habit of making even the most apparently anodyne situations suddenly work so well for him, exemplified by his visit to the Mexico-US border. Celebrating Mass in Ciudad Juarez, he offered a stinging critique of leaders on both sides of the border, saying that the "forced migration" of thousands of Central Americans is a "human tragedy" and "humanitarian crisis."

So maybe Thailand should prepare for a surprise.

• Michael Sainsbury is a journalist and photographer. He was commissioned by UCAN to write a series of comment pieces ahead of the Pope's visit to Asia.
• First published by UCANews.org. Republished with permission.

He says it's been difficult for the Church to move into mainstream Japanese society, which has faced persecution and genocide since 1549.

"In Japanese society, it is difficult to find tangible success in missionary activities," he says.

The Catholic schools' foreign language education, helped and was a powerful tool for cross-cultural pollination after World War II.

Foreign languages were in demand for high-paying positions in international business and politics.

However, over the years English education has become compulsory in most schools. In addition, the country is "overflowing" with foreign-language crammers known as eikaiwa.

These two factors have largely killed the foreign language classes that were once a staple of Catholic missionary activity.

Furthermore, Kikuchi says the country's nominally Catholic schools are beginning to abandon cultural education through language instruction.

"A Catholic school may be the place to meet many young people, but unfortunately ... it has not become a place for missionary activities."

Schools have historically been Catholicism's last strong foothold in evangelisation in Japan. Nonetheless, Catholic high schools and universities have endured and even strengthened in Japan, even though Catholicism is waning.

Catholic universities are still greatly respected today.

However, Kikuchi says that this ongoing prestige has come with a hefty cost.

"While the schools should be independent from national politics, unfortunately they are tied up with subsidies from the country, and thus they are gradually losing their uniqueness, with only the name ‘Catholic' remaining," he said.

"Many priests, religious and the laity are completely losing their involvement with them."

The Church in Japan has also helped in recent disaster relief projects, including the huge 2011 earthquake and tsunami which Kikuchi speaks of as " works of mercy".

While he acknowledges works of mercy might not lead immediately to baptisms, he hopes those touched by the Gospel spirit would be led to the Church.

The presence of foreign Catholics in Japan is the Church's second most powerful evangelization tool, Kikuchi says.

Among these are 250,000 Filipinos, who with their families make up large portions of Japan's laity, attending masses and integrating into religious communities in the towns and countryside.

Encouraging foreign nationals to become aware of their missionary vocation as Catholics is a priority, Kikuchi says.

"Pastoral care for foreign nationals in the Japanese church is not merely a service to welcome [guests], but rather a duty to make them aware of their vocation as missionaries."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Vatican News

The three sources said the trip would be announced soon.

The late Pope John Paul visited Japan in 1981 and Thailand in 1984.

Francis' trip to Japan, which he announced himself in January, will take him to Tokyo as well as the two cities hit by U.S. atomic bombs at the end of World War Two - Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Read more

According to "The Mainichi" newspaper, an inscription on the scroll reads "1592 years since His Birth,".

This has suggested to historians that this was the year the scroll was created. Carbon dating has dated the scroll as having been created prior to the year 1633. Read more

If he goes, it will be only the second time a Catholic pontiff has visited visit Japan. St Pope John Paul II visited Japan in 1981.

Francis made the announcement of his proposed visit to members of the "Tensho Kenoh Shisetsu Kenshokai" association he met with on Wednesday.

"... I would like to announce my desire to visit Japan next year. Let's hope I can do it," he told them.

Francis is said to have long expressed his admiration for Japanese culture and history.

He is said to have hoped to become a missionary in Japan after he was ordained a priest - a desire his superiors quashed, citing his frail health at the time.

During his papacy, Francis has repeatedly spoken in admiration of the missionary work of his Jesuit order to bring Christianity to Japan in the 16th century.

He has also often spoken of the witness of the martyrs who suffered from the anti-Christian persecution that ensued.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is known to have extended an invitation on several occasions for Francis to visit.

He has suggested Francis could visit Hiroshima, the site of US atomic bombing at the end of the Second World War, to raise awareness about the continuing dangers of nuclear weapons.

Christianity is a religious minority in Japan, where those who identify with an organised religion are primarily Shinto or Buddhist.

According to the Vatican's 2016 statistics, the latest available, there are 539,000 Catholics in Japan.

Source

• NCR Online
• ABC News
• aaronbonneau.com

The missionaries were working in several southwestern provinces and in the northwestern autonomous region of Ningxia.

The detention of the 21 Christian group members is thought to be part of the Chinese authorities' efforts to crack down on missionary work.

They are categorising missionary work as illegal activity.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Friday he was not aware of the details surrounding the detention.

He suggested media inquiries be directed to the "relevant government departments.

"China is a country with the rule of law," Lu said.

While Beijing will protect the legal rights of all parties, Lu said "foreigners should abide by Chinese laws too and should not commit crimes."

Five of the detainees have already returned to Japan, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

The ministry did not say if they were deported.

The Japanese government has expressed interest in the detentions and has asked the Chinese government to deal with the detainees properly.

Last November China detained 19 Japanese nationals affiliated with a Christian group in the southeastern province of Guangdong.

All of them were later deported.

Source

• The Mainichi
• South China Morning Post
• Image: The Gospel Herald

They say these ceremonies should be clearly separated from the imperial family's private religious ones when the change of emperors takes place in 2019.

The bishops note this principle was "learned from reflection on history that Japan had fought wars under the emperor-centered national Shinto religion, and had violated the human rights and peace of many people in the world, especially Asian people." Read more

Among her past pupils is Japan's Crown Princess Masako.

Following Sister Paschal's 100th birthday, her young cousin, James Creedon—who works in Paris as the media correspondent for the television news channel France24—became interested in her life and experiences and decided that they should be preserved.

From the time they spent together over the following year, before Sister Paschal's death, a documentary film is in production, directed and produced by James, which bears witness to the values and extraordinary experiences of one of Ireland's missionary daughters born in another epoch, a film with much to say to the Church and to the world of the 21st century.

A trailer for the film can be viewed here; a fundraising page for those interested in helping Creedon complete the film is here.

Catholic World Report interviewed James Creedon about his initiative.

CWR: James, presumably you did not know Sister Paschal as you grew up. How was she regarded in your family? What did you learn of her as a boy and young man?

James Creedon: There were around a dozen missionary priests and nuns in my extended family going up three or four generations. I knew of Sister Paschal via my grandmother's correspondence with her.

Jennie, as she was known to her family, was a wonderful letter-writer, and despite the fact that she spent 75 years on the other side of the world, she maintained close family ties with extended family members, many of whom were born after her departure.

My grandmother, for example, was just three years old when Jennie left Ireland, yet somehow a bond was established and maintained. That alone says a lot about the kind of person she was and how big her heart was. Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic World Report
• Image: Irish Examiner