Miyuki Ito, 38, and her five-year-old daughter, Kotone, are scheduled to be baptized as Catholics at the April 3 Easter Vigil at the Yonezawa Church in Yamagata Prefecture, 290 kilometers north of Tokyo.
What makes them unusual? “My home is a Shinto shrine. My current job is as a miko,” or female shrine attendant, she explains. Her husband is a Shinto priest.
Full article here
Tadashi Sunaga stands in front of the donation box at Yama Jinja shrine in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, on Monday. (Mainichi)
UTSUNOMIYA — “There is something I have to apologize to this shrine for.” Those were the opening words of a letter found in the donation box at Yama Jinja shrine here along with 30,000 yen.
The letter was a confession from someone who 10 years before, when still in primary school, had stolen 10,000 yen from the box. “When I became an adult, I realized how hard it is to make money, and I remembered stealing from the box,” the letter continued.
The extra 20,000 yen, the mysterious writer said, was to make up for all the time that had gone by, as a kind of interest payment.
“It’s good this person didn’t continue down a bad road,” said the shrine’s manager, 76-year-old Tadashi Sunaga. “I’m happy.”
That is the full story but here is the source
FUKUOKA (Kyodo) Police raided the Fukuoka headquarters of a religious group Thursday over the death of a baby whose parents allegedly caused him to die by withholding medical treatment.
Their 7-month-old son, Yoshihiko, underweight and suffering from eczema, died in October
The parents allegedly only tried to help their son through religious acts of holding their hands over the baby’s body in what the sect calls a “jorei” service to cleanse the soul.
Hideo Takatsuki, 32, became a follower in elementary school, while Kuniko Takatsuki, 30, joined when she was in junior high school.
Yet another crazy cult here. I dont have an official number but there are quite a few of these small groups around with a lot of them hiding behind a veneer of Buddhism when they really aren’t Buddhist at all. More often when these groups end up in the news it is because of money issues. It’s so sad that this time an innocent kid died.
TOKYO, Dec. 30 (AP) – (Kyodo)—Cardinal Seiichi Shirayanagi, who was named cardinal in October 1994 by Pope John Paul II, died of heart failure Wednesday morning at a monastery in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward where he was recuperating, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan said. He was 81.
Shirayanagi, a Tokyo native, was ordained a priest in 1954 and appointed archbishop of Tokyo in 1970. He was the fourth Japanese who was made cardinal. With his death, there is no longer a Japanese cardinal.
May he rest in peace.
An interesting point from another article
With the death of Cardinal Shirayanagi, there are not 184 living members of the College of Cardinals, of whom 112 are under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote in a papal conclave.
Police in western Japan are investigating a series of vandalism acts against Protestant churches, with more than 50 places of worship damaged over the last year, the Asahi newspaper reported.
Windows were smashed and fire extinguishers thrown inside churches in the prefectures of Osaka, Hyogo, Kyoto and Shiga, the Asahi said, citing local police. Some of the fire extinguishers were stolen from nearby apartment buildings, the report said.
Japanese article (with photo) here
I hope the person or persons responsible for this are caught and brought to justice ASAP.
Kamagasaki (AsiaNews) – Life “is a treasure of holiness, which must be protected at all costs. Learning to recognize and respect the dignity of every human being, even those not yet born, is the key to improving society and the world in which we live”. These are the words with which the auxiliary bishop of Osaka, Msgr. Goro Matsuura, opened the Day for Life organized by the archdiocese Centre for Social Action Sinapis.
Wow way to go Osaka! Just because I havent been aware of any such events in the past doesn’t mean that there havent been any but I hope they keep it up.
The Director of Sinapis, Fr. Kazunori Hayashi, explains: “The Day was also organized with excursions outside the centre, a first for our community. This is very important, because the need to face the world reverberates deeply in our heart, a kind of earthquake, which we need if we want to continue on our journey”.
Uummm …what?!
During his speech, Msgr. Matsuura explained the meaning of human dignity to the participants and emphasized the freedom of choice and the necessary respect for the will of others: “Respecting a child, treating it properly, means respecting its will. The people that we face have the right to have their own opinions and express them: and we are called to respect them, always. “
Instead of freedom of choice maybe they meant free will? Respect for the will of others? So if someone wants to commit suicide I should respect their will? I’m having a really hard time following his logic today. I think it was the whole earthquake heart reverberation part that threw me off.
To explain dignity within human relationships, the prelate added: “Falling from a tree and hurting oneself is a different thing from being hit with a branch by a person. Even if the wound is the same in the second case we are dealing with an attack on human dignity: this should not be tolerated if we are to improve humanity. “
But don’t we have to respect the will of the person who is using the tree branch to hit someone? And what about the will of the tree, the branch, and even gravity?! This guy needs better examples since I fail to see the connection between suicide, abortion, and whatever he`s talking about.
Yasuki Tanaka, a 26 year old Catholic from Semboku church said: “It was the first time someone explained the word dignity to me. I myself have repeatedly acknowledged having a tendency to self-humiliation, but this meeting has helped me to understand the truth of things”.
At least someone understood! Or did he? I’m tempted to hit him with a tree branch during an earthquake to find out. Just kidding!
NAGASAKI, Oct. 28 (AP) – (Kyodo)—Priests of the Catholic Archdiocese of Nagasaki will take the “bombed Mary,” a statue damaged in the wartime U.S. atomic bombing of the city, on a pilgrimage to Guernica, Spain, and the Vatican next year, archbishop Mitsuaki Takami said Wednesday.
It will be the third overseas trip for the roughly 26-centimeter-high scorched wooden head of a Virgin Mary statue found in the ruins of Urakami Cathedral, about 500 meters from ground zero, following trips to the Vatican in 1985 and Belarus in 2000.
During the tour from April 20 to May 1, the group, including regular followers, will attend a mass and a ceremony to commemorate victims of the 1937 carpet bombing of Guernica by German forces and have an audience in the Vatican with Pope Benedict XVI, he said.
“We should never repeat such a cruel war and hope to call for peace from the nonviolent standpoint,” Takami said in a press conference in Nagasaki.
He was Fr. Damien then Blessed Damien and today, October 11, he is Saint Damien. EWTN aired the canonization mass which I remembered half an hour after it was over 😦
Here is one of many articles covering the event.
Here is an article about a painting of Fr … I mean Saint Damien 🙂 that was given to the Pope. The late artist had Lou Gehrig`s disease but she did an amazing job.
Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) — Shoichi Nakagawa, who resigned as Japanese finance minister in February amid accusations of drunken behavior during an international conference in Rome, was found dead in his Tokyo home yesterday. He was 56.
One of many articles on this story. Another is here
Mr Nakagawa was infamous for a very drunken looking press conference but also for exhibiting drunken behaviour at the Vatican Museum such as sitting down against the Laocoon statue, touching some of the art, and for opening an emergency exit door. My original post on that is here. I will include intentions for his soul and for comfort for his wife and children when I say my chaplet of Divine Mercy today.
Update
An autopsy on former Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa has detected numerous anomalies in his cardiovascular system as well as the presence of alcohol, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
TOKYO —
The number of people who committed suicide in Japan from January through August came to 22,362, an increase of 971 or 4.5% from a year earlier, a National Police Agency report showed Monday. If the current pace continues the annual figure could match the record of 34,427 marked in 2003. Of the total during the eight-month period, 16,008 were men and 6,354 women, according to the preliminary survey.
Reducing the number of suicides requires bringing people hope and, of course, since Im Catholic that hope is based in Jesus who, for one example, in confession absolves us of our sins and by doing so gives us renewed hope. Pope Benedict speaks of hope many times and on many occasions. His latest was several days ago during a homily in the Czech Republic.
Dear friends, regarding the character of today’s liturgical assembly, I gladly supported the decision, mentioned by your Bishop, to base the Scripture readings for Mass on the theme of hope: I supported it in consideration of the people of this beloved land as well as Europe and the whole of humanity, thirsting as it does for something on which to base a firm future. In my second Encyclical, Spe Salvi, I emphasized that the only “certain” and “reliable” hope (cf. no. 1) is founded on God.
History has demonstrated the absurdities to which man descends when he excludes God from the horizon of his choices and actions, and how hard it is to build a society inspired by the values of goodness, justice and fraternity, because the human being is free and his freedom remains fragile. Freedom has constantly to be won over for the cause of good, and the arduous search for the “right way to order human affairs” is a task that belongs to all generations (cf. ibid., 24-25). That, dear friends, is why our first reason for being here is to listen, to listen to a word that will show us the way that leads to hope; indeed, we are listening to the only word that can give us firm hope, because it is God’s word.
I strongly encourage everyone to read the rest of the homily click here
Catholic in Japan 
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