2. a. Do you know any Japanese Catholic families?
    b. Could you describe their home life?
    c. how many children do they generally have?

3. a. How “orthodox” (meaning faithful) are Japanese Catholics to the Teaching of the Church?
    b. What is the general position regarding contraception in the laity?
    c. What about Natural Family Planning (NFP), have you ever heard much about that in Church or amongst the laity?

4. Cardinal Arinze is probably a modern day Faulton Sheen, an amazing man. Cardinal Arinze speaking on local practices such as liturgical dance ect. is permitted where the tradition exists (see the YouTube Arinze podcasts for more info) and obviously not in places where different local traditions exist (like the Brompton Oratory London lol) so my question is…
  a. Do you know any Japanese Catholics that observe Japanese traditions such as, tea ceremonies, dress (kimono ect), flower arranging, music, ettiquette and other traditions practiced at home?
  b. What do Japanese Catholics do for recreation? (do they practice traditional Japanese pass-times, which I’m sure you know better than I do what they are!)

5. What about Catholic Schools in Japan, are they “orthodox” or are they just “Catholic” by name?

6. Yeah you mentioned very early on in your blog about people not showing outward signs of intimacy (apart from perhaps some of the younger generation), but some old geezer reading dodgy manga. This was quite shocking for me, the whole thing around the Japanese sense of sexuality, explicicity and cartoons. I am really interested to hear what your experience is, what the fruits are (I imagine there are a lot of sex crimes?), yeah and this whole thing about cartoons. I was shocked to hear when speaking to a South Korean friend who had spent 7 years in Japan, that everyone reads manga. Shock. Even old people! What?! Is that true? I mean, like, do you read manga? Do Catholics read manga or is there Catholic manga (lol!)? What about the priests, do they read manga? What do they say about it?! Oh and what’s with the whole sailor outfit molarkey? I mean from my end of the stick I can only conclude that Japans really lost the plot and is a breeding ground for sex offenders and adult children cartoon addicts…

 6. I’m also glad that you mentioned Alcholics Anonymous at one point, I really respect AA, they get a lot of flak but one cannot deny the fruits are very good, does what it says on the tin, so to speak. Is there much of a problem with alcohol or substance abuse out there?

  7. That brings me on to my final run of questions, I understand that you want to keep your blog anonymous, to protect your vocation and identity. But I would really like to hear a bit about your story, why on earth are you in Japan? I mean it would be quite nice to also hear your personal stand point on the questions I asked regarding the Japanese. I am genuinely interested to hear more from you, I don’t know if you get my email when I submit this form, but you can find me on Facebook George Steven I’m from Bournemouth. God bless you and your discernment!
   Yours Faithfully in Christ Jesus,
     George Steven    

Anyway, good luck with all of this, vee8! I’m sure you’ll end up where you were meant to be, and I hope it all goes smoothly along the way. Whatever happens, I’ll say a prayer (and hope to continue to follow your progress for as long as you choose to keep blogging)!

Anyway, I’m not going to try to claim mine’s a lot better (I’m only translating as an amateur volunteer, and anyway, any translator’s work is going to be limited by their source material). But some portions may be a bit more fleshed out, so I’ll try to explain.

So, some specifics:

1. Regarding the “freedom of choice” aspect, my source said, 尊厳のために、意志、選択、決断の自由が必要と強調した。The key words there are 意志 (will)、選択 (choice)、決断 (judgment). Each of those words is pretty direct (although this is not a direct quote), so I translated the sentence pretty literally: “freedom of will, of choice, and of judgment.” I don’t think there’s a way to get around that, though it’s not clear from this whether “freedom of choice” as it’s understood in the West is what he’s getting at.

Anyway, after the comment about the child’s free will, Bishop Matsuura gives an additional example to illustrate his point. He calls to mind the fact that even poor people have personal sovereignty to choose what they need and don’t need; so if you are handing out blankets, don’t take an arrogant “here’s the blanket you need” sort of attitude; instead, simply ask them whether they want it, which gives them more control and dignity. Actually, I thought it was a good point.

2. About the tree. That section was given as a part of a direct quotation in my source article, and it’s phrased a bit differently. I suppose someone decided to smooth it out a bit. I fear it may have obscured the statement. My translation was, “Bumping into a tree and bruising your face is different from being bruised by someone who hits you.” The point is that there’s nothing about a wound that inherently hurts a person’s dignity; but wounds take on a new meaning when they happen in the context of a relationship. I infer that he means issues of abuse: it’s not just about the actual physical harm; there’s the additional psychological harm of being actually mistreated and disrespected that reduces the dignity of the person.

He goes on to explain (in the JCN version) that repairing that damage (and therefore caring for a victim of abuse, say) must also happen in the context of a relationship, and therefore rebuilding a person’s sense of dignity and the respect for individual dignity in society means also helping to repairing (or build anew) the relationships of abuse victims and society as a whole. Again, I thought this was a good insight, once I understood it.

So, in conclusion, I think the Asia News article could have been more clearly written. But actually, the JCN article didn’t discuss specifically anti-abortion comments in any detail (I wonder why?), which was a little distressing to me, so I’m glad to have read the other take on it.

All in all, I think the materials sound like they were pretty appropriate for the audience (who were charged with actually working with the poor). But Bishop Matsuura’s speech didn’t really lend itself to sound bites.