Japan

Msgr Celso Ba Shwe - Bishop of Loikaw - took part in the celebration that every year on the third Sunday of November recalls the bond of solidarity between Japanese Catholics and the Church in former Burma, now wounded by war. Support for schools in the forest through the Seeds of Hope initiative. Archbishop Kikuchi: ‘Hope is born from the heart of those who walk together’.

Despite a proposal by legal experts, the Japanese government has ruled out setting up a commission to review capital punishment. The Cabinet Secretary cited public support for this penalty, but legal experts believe most Japanese are not adequately informed.

The 27 years the Spanish religious spent on the mission between Tokyo and Hiroshima were remembered during the closing ceremony of the diocesan phase of his beatification process. Head of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983, he loved the Japanese people and culture and provided heroic service among the thousands of injured in the atomic bomb blast of 6 August 1945.

In the town of Bando, Ibaraki prefecture, at least 20 men and women lived in a community. There was also a restaurant and a karaoke bar in the disused facilities. There are 600,000 Vietnamese working in Japan, but they are also the largest group among the nearly 10,000 trainees who have ‘disappeared’ in the country over the past year.

Sightings and attacks on people are on the rise: already 56 incidents this year, with two people killed. To curb the phenomenon, several municipalities are adopting systems based on video cameras "trained" to automatically detect if the moving figure is a bear and raise the alarm.

After its electoral defeat, the Liberal Democratic Party began talks with the Democratic Party for the People, led by Yuichiro Tamaki, who is not willing to go beyond external support for the government. Opposition leader Yoshihiko Noda has intensified efforts to gain cross-party support for his bid for the post of prime minister, but he is not likely to succeed.

The Holy See’s logo at the universal exhibition that will open on 13 April was unveiled. At the Vatican’s section, visitors will be able to admire "The Entombment of Christ" by Caravaggio, brought to Japan from the Vatican Museums. Manga artist Kan Takahama will be one of the "ambassadors" of the Vatican presence at the Expo. For the first time, the Holy Year in Rome will also have a manga-styled mascot.

For the first time in 15 years, the Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in parliament in Tokyo. The new premier paid the price for the party's slush fund scandals, which had already caused Kishida's popularity to plummet. Excluding an enlargement of the coalition, the opposition led by Yoshihiko Noda is trying to put up a united front with the centrists. For the first time, the Conservative Party, a xenophobic and revisionist force, will also enter the Diet.

Tomorrow Japanese voters will pick members of the House of Representatives in an early election. The ruling majority is at risk after months of corruption scandals and poor showing in public opinion polls. Inside the LDP, a new leadership contest is developing. Opposition parties are not likely to back a coalition government with the LDP.

The incredulous tears of the ‘hibakusha’ in a country that has struggled to recognise their suffering and equal dignity. The movement's role in the campaign to ban atomic weapons. PM Ishiba speaks of ‘extremely saignificant’ recognition, but continues to cite nuclear deterrence as a ‘pragmatic response’.

Fr Alberto Berra, a PIME missionary in the city of the first atomic bomb in 1945, speaks about the decision to award the prize to the association that gives voice to the victims who still bear the signs of the explosion from almost eighty years ago. “They feel they have received a mission: to be a voice for the world” because, as Pope Francis said in Hiroshima in 2019, “it is not only the use of atomic weapons that is immoral, but also their possession.”

The archbishop of Tokyo and president of Caritas Internationalis, chosen by Pope Francis as one of the new cardinals, invites us to look at the mission of the Church as an exchange of gifts. Today, “many countries in Asia and Africa give missionaries to the world.” Together with the archbishop of Belgrade, the archbishop of Tokyo will be the first Verbite cardinal since Card Thomas Tien, the archbishop of Beijing who was the very first Verbite appointed cardinal by Pius XII in 1946.