Japan Catholic News

May 2006

BEATIFICATION OF 188 MARTYRS MOVES CLOSER TO REALIZATION

KINDERGARTEN FACING CLOSURE FINDS A WAY TO STAY OPEN

CATHOLIC DOCTOR HONORED BY CAMEROON GOVERNMENT

STATUES OF XAVIER AND YAJIRO BOUND FOR MALACCA

BIBLE FORUM IN TOKYO DRAWS 2000

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES PROVIDE PASTORAL CARE, SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES TO STUDENTS

April marks the start of the school year in Japan. On the campuses of Catholic universities, newly arrived Catholic students receive pamphlets informing them of campus ministry activities intended to serve them. Those ministries offer a base for Bible study, volunteer activities, preparation of Christmas and other celebrations and other Catholic activities.

Elizabeth College of Music in Hiroshima and the University of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo are two examples of Catholic schools that provide a campus ministry for their students.

At the Jesuit-founded Elizabeth College the campus ministry is nicknamed "Cammini." It provides a place to study the Bible, plan liturgies or just talk with others over a cup of tea.

"At first it wasn't easy for me to come here," said Chihiro Fujii (20). "I was invited by a friend to attend the Bible study and also the Mass. Now, when I'm free, I often just drop in. I feel at home here."

Sachiko Enjoji (22), who attends the same Bible study commented, "At Cammini I experience calm and peace." She added that she has begun to make visits to the chapel to pray.

Four times a week there is a lunchtime Mass and sharing at the chapel next door. On Wednesdays, the most popular day, about 25 people attend the Mass. There are only two or three Catholics among them.

Genri Iwata (20), who makes a point of attending every time said, "It's a time completely different from the hectic pace of the rest of the day. I can turn off my cell phone and be quiet."

At present, there are four staff members at Cammini who take turns being in charge. The work often involves staying up late talking with students.

Antonius Firmansyah, a Jesuit seminarian who is a member of the staff, said, "We want to tell students who have no particular interest in religion of God's love and gentleness. Our challenge is to tell the students in their own language that God exists and loves you."

The school states its founding spirit in this way: "The ultimate ideal of our education is to develop through the art of music a spirit that is in touch with the mystery of life."

As he watches students practicing their music, Firmansyah reflects, "A musician can't perform well without an inner sense of serenity."

The Jesuit added, "We also want to have students who are not Catholic or who are not thinking of receiving Baptism come. I want the students to know that Cammini isn't just for the purpose of receiving Baptism."

Yu Yonehara (20), who has been thinking of receiving Baptism and has helped to set up the Bible study program said, "Cammini is enabling people to experience the existence of God as something close to them." According to Cammini's explanatory pamphlet, "Cammini is a harbor where you can find a moment of peace."

In Tokyo the Madeleine Sophie Social Center (MSSC) at the University of the Sacred Heart (run by the Sacred Heart Sisters) provides not only Mass and Bible Study but also activities for the students.

"Putting the students at the center makes for the best activities. This is what I am always striving for," said Sacred Heart Sister Teruko Yamazaki, the teacher in charge of the center. She has been the one bringing everything together at the Center year after year as the students and their activities continually change. One example is the "Water Sprinkling Campaign."

Every year on the third Sunday of July residents of a shopping area near the university sponsor a "Morning Market Day." Sacred Heart students set up a stall to sell shiratama (rice-flour dumplings). Students, merchants and passers-by also form a group of about 300 who sprinkle the streets with water that had previously been used for bathing etc. The sprinkling is part of a national movement to increase environmental awareness through the reuse of water and by reducing the "heat island" effect where Tokyo's paved streets and buildings increase temperatures in the city.

"Tent-shops line the street, which is blocked off so pedestrians can stroll freely. Sacred Heart students, all dressed in yukata (light-weight kimono), stroll along the street calling on people to participate in sprinkling the streets," explained Keaki Mori (21), who worked as chair-person for the campaign last year.

Motoko Murata, a staff member at the MSSC, commented, "This experience is an occasion for the students to think about what they can do to bring people together, how they can take care of the environment and so on."

One of the things that resulted from the students being introduced to this event by Murata is a new NPO (non-profit organization) that was set up at the University of the Sacred Heart to deal with the problem of global warming.

Another organization that has been in existence since the founding of the school is Madeleine Sophie Social Services (MSSS).

"I used to wonder how to deal with people who had disabilities," said Mika Toita (20), this year's head of MSSS. "Now I have come to realize that my attitude then was mistaken. What changed me was my experience of visiting a nearby home for children once a week as a volunteer from the Sumire (violet -- the flower) Club, one of the activity groups in MSSS."

Besides the Sumire Club, there are groups that learn braille and sign language and a club called "Mukku" that visits a home for children. Mukku members become big sisters to the children, playing with them and helping them with their homework on a weekly basis even during the school vacation.

There are many other activities supported by the Center. They all are aimed at giving the students an experience of the motto of Sacred Heart University, "Where there is love, there is God."

This year the Center gave a questionnaire to new students asking about their interest in Christianity. Attendance at the Mass for students had been decreasing, so Murata was astonished when she saw the results.

"I would never have imagined the degree of interest they showed!" she said. "The challenge to us is clear: how to find a way get these interested students to visit the Madeleine Sophie Social Center and participate in the student Mass."

FILIPINOS FIND INTEGRATION WITH CHURCH IN JAPAN A CHALLENGE

"When I have time I come here to rest. I thank God for it," said Grace Nakagawa, a Filipina in Sapporo talking about Welcome House. According to 2004 statistics, there are 266 Filipinos living in Sapporo, where the diocese opened Welcome House as a counseling center for foreign residents in 2001. According to Japanese government immigration authorities there were 199,394 Filipinos resident in Japan at the end of 2004.

Filipinos who use Welcome House have a key to the facility so that they can come and go freely. At lunchtime on Sunday, they can be found gathered around the table there exchanging the latest news in their native Tagalog.

"At the church they can't express their real feelings," explained Maryknoll Father James Mylet, director of the center.

"Japanese say internationalization is progressing, but foreigners say there's a long way to go," the American priest said..

Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Sister Noriko Mori serves Filipinos in the Osaka diocese.

"Conditions were very difficult in the beginning," she explained. "Japanese parishioners used to complain, 'Why must we accept people like these in our church?'"

In 1983, at the request of the Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, the Bishops' Conference of Japan set up a Commission for the Support of Asian Women Resident in Japan. Sister Mori has worked with that commission since 1986.

In the beginning she used to stand in the lobby at Itami airport to meet passengers coming off the only direct flight from Manila and hand out cards to Filipinas as they came through customs. On the cards she had written, "In case of need phone me." Eventually some of these women married and had children and now attend Mass in Tamatsukuri Church.

"Communities, however, have not yet really integrated," the Sister said. "I keep hoping that one day we'll see a little more of the richness one should find in the Catholic Church in Japan."

In Higashi Sumiyoshi the Daughters of Charity have established the Bahaini Maria center where lawyers and other volunteers assist Filipinas. The number who have registered for permanent residence in Japan has increased, but so, too, have consultations concerning divorce and the education of children.

Good Shepherd Sister Mari Celeste Juson works with Filipino Catholics at Pakikisa (Solidarity) House in Nagano. The center provides psychological and spiritual counseling.

"Some who come to us are suffering from trauma," the Sister said.

Besides counseling, the House also organizes opportunities for Filipinos to get together.

Sister Juson came to Japan from the Philippines at the request of the diocese of Yokohama in1994 when a great number of Filipino laborers were involved in preparations for the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games. She worked with them for five years and then returned to the Philippines, but came back to Japan again in May 2005.

Men who worked on the construction sites in Nagano returned to the Philippines but women who married Japanese now face the problem of raising children who know nothing of their mothers' culture and find it difficult to communicate. The mothers, whose Japanese is often far from fluent, find it difficult to explain religion and the Church.

"In a non-Catholic country like Japan," the nun said, "it is difficult to bring up children as Christians. And we find it hard too to convince them that the Church is concerned about them",

Fr. Satoshi Ito of Naha diocese said that conditions in Okinawa are completely different. Filipinos who came to work for the American military in Okinawa after the Second World War lived outside the U.S. bases. Their descendants are now into the third and fourth generation.

According to the priest, perhaps because Okinawa has traditionally engaged in trade with neighboring nations, the local response to the Filipinos has been quite different from that in other parts of Japan.

"Our Catholics do not find it the least bit strange to have Mass offered in a mixture of languages," he said.

There are two Filipino priests working in the Naha diocese. Fr. Rommel Cruz of the Philippine Foreign Mission Society said, "Problems arise where the pastor does not strive for unity. If he treats foreigners as guests they will remain so. If he lets them take part in running the parish they will integrate. Let the pastor set an example; the parishioners will follow."

INDONESIAN CATHOLICS KEEP SENSE OF COMMUNITY THROUGH FAITH PRACTICE

Many of the employees of the seafood processing plants in Ibaraki prefecture are Indonesians. One of them, Hani Rangitan, organizes a weekly Mass on Saturdays for Catholics among them.

Rangitan, 41, came to Oarai with his wife in 2001. Their 18-year-old son lives with his grandfather in Indonesia. Oarai, a seaside resort town in Ibaraki prefecture, is about 100 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.

About 30 people gather for the Saturday-evening liturgy. Jesuit Father Roger Downey began celebrating Mass for the group six years ago, and now Father Suri Waruyo of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary continues the service.

"The language and cultural differences make working in Japan very difficult, but I am happy here now," says Rangitan, an electrician who repairs machines used in processing and packing fish and shellfish.

Most of about 500 Indonesians in Oarai come from Manado, the Indonesian city closest to Japan. Manado, on Sulawesi Island, is the capital of North Sulawesi province, which has a majority Protestant population, unusual in Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population. The Indonesians in Oarai include a large number of Catholics and Protestants.

Each evening in May and November, the Catholics gather in someone's house after work for the rosary. They rotate the meetings around their houses and spend a few hours socializing in addition to praying.

Besides the Mass in Oarai, Indonesian Catholics here also join parishioners in Mito for Sunday Masses. Mito, the capital of Ibaraki prefecture, is 40 minutes away by bus or 20 minutes by train.

Elsa Morina, 29, takes care of these arrangements. She and her three siblings have been employed for the past six years in a factory where they process smelt and cuttlefish. According to Morina, they came to Japan because they "wanted to go overseas and gain some experience."

Many of the Indonesians in Oarai are of Japanese descent or married to someone of Japanese descent. During World War II, Japanese troops occupied Indonesia and fathered children with local women. But the soldiers had to return to Japan when the war ended.

Morina met her 90-year-old grandfather in Hiroshima. "I got a surprise when I went to visit him with my mother once. I did hear when I was small that my grandfather was Japanese, but I did not know the details," she recounted.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Mass is offered every Sunday evening in the Indonesian language at Kojimachi Church. The congregation of about 60 people is largely made up of students, post-graduate interns and others who have found employment in Japan. This Mass also was begun by Father Downey six years ago. Indonesians learned of it by word of mouth and through the Internet.

"Many of us are employed in banks, information technology, education and mechanical engineering," said Cindiar Soemono. The 30-year-old leader of the Tokyo group added, "We are like a big family. After Mass we do not feel like scattering right away so we have a meal together."

Maureen Gunawan, 29, who leads the choir, pointed out that they use either Japanese or English daily for work and communication. "It is nice to get together and pray in our own language," she said.

The group also has sponsored charity concerts for various causes, including aid to people affected by the 2004 tsunami, which killed more than 150,000 people in Aceh, Indonesia's westernmost province.

POLISH CATHOLIC COMMUNITY GROWS BUT FACES UNCERTAIN FUTURE

The Polish Catholic community in Tokyo has not hit 1,000 yet, but it has grown steadily the last two decades.

Father Tadeusz Oblak, who teaches canon law at Jesuit-run Sophia University, recalls that the community started to organize itself about 25 years ago: "We only got together on the second Sunday of each month in Shibuya Church, about 10 of us in all. Two years later we moved to St. Ignatius Church in Kojimachi, Tokyo." That church remains the center of activities today.

"Over 100 attend the weekly Mass, and this swells to 500 at Christmas and Easter. Just as in Poland we have a blessing for food at the end of the Mass at Easter," the Polish Jesuit priest continued. The Sunday Masses in Polish have been held weekly for the past 15 years.

Polish women married to Japanese men form the majority of the congregation. More than half of their Japanese husbands are not Catholics, but they frequently attend Mass. Other Massgoers include Polish Embassy employees, exchange students and trainees. More than 90 percent of Poles are Catholics.

According to Japanese immigration bureau statistics, 864 Polish nationals were residing in Japan in 2004.

When Pope John Paul II died last year, the Polish community in Tokyo offered a requiem Mass for their countryman.

According to Halina Kumakura, who first came to Japan 28 years ago, "Each of us wrote some words of condolence in an album that was later taken to Warsaw and placed in the John Paul II Museum there." Kumakura was a member of the original community, before she moved to Sapporo for 12 years because of her Japanese husband's work there.

"When we came back six years ago, I was surprised to find the community had grown so big," she recalled. "There were only 12 of us before. In the meantime, democracy came to Poland and international marriages increased. In some cases, however, the married couples who come to Japan are both Polish."

Anna Katarzyna, 35, who teaches biology at a local university, originally came to Japan as an exchange student 11 years ago. "I come for the Mass, of course," she said. "But it is also nice to get together and converse in our native tongue."

Nonetheless, the future of the group is unclear.

"They all say this community is absolutely necessary, but everyone is worried too," admits Kumakura. "Father Oblak is not getting younger."

The 84-year-old priest echoes this concern. "Who is going to take over for me?" he asked.

Three nuns from the Congregation of the Providence of God, which has its headquarters in Poland, have been helping the Polish community from the start.

"Helping the Poles live their faith is also helping the Japanese Church," explains Sister Jordana Skakuj, 48.

Two years ago, a Polish Sunday school was set up. Katarzyna Machida, 33, says her children "make friends here, and they also get the opportunity to speak Polish."

The "first fruits" of that initiative are at hand, with five or six Polish and Japanese-Polish children set to make their First Communion in May.

Sisters Juliusza Kobus, 29, and Emanuela Gora, 35, who teach Sunday school classes, agree that many of the children learn more about the faith at the classes than at home, since often only their mother is Catholic.

HIROSHIMA CATHEDRAL DESIGNATED NATIONAL CULTURAL ASSET

Hiroshima's Noboricho Church, known as the World Peace Memorial Cathedral, was effectively designated a cultural asset of national importance when the Agency for Cultural Affairs submitted a report to the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology on April 21 recommending the designation.

Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Hall was recommended for the same status in the report. They will be the first post-war buildings to be designated as cultural assets of national importance. The Memorial Hall was designed by Kenzo Tange, who also designed the Tokyo Cathedral and later became a Catholic.

The pastor at the time of the Aug. 6, 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Jesuit Father Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, decided that the cathedral should be rebuilt as a memorial to those who perished and as a symbol of international friendship and peace. Designed by Togo Nomura, the new cathedral was completed in 1954, with people of various countries and religions donating gifts and furnishings.

At present 10 Catholics work as volunteers at the cathedral, guiding young people on peace study tours and foreign visitors.

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