TOKYO: Pope Francis denounced the “evil” of nuclear weapons on Saturday as he began a three-day visit to Japan and fulfilled a dream to be a missionary in a land with a rich but bloody Christian past.
The Pope’s plane landed in the rain in Tokyo, where he received a small welcome at the airport before heading to the Vatican residence to meet with Japanese bishops. Streets near the residence were lined with smiling well-wishers holding umbrellas and a sign: “Gracias! We love you.”
After a packed three days in Thailand, Francis has an even busier schedule in Japan, starting off with flights on Sunday to Nagasaki and Hiroshima to appeal for total nuclear disarmament, and a meeting on Monday with victims of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Those meetings come before he even meets with Emperor Naruhito and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, indicating his priorities for the trip.
Francis told the bishops upon arrival that he wanted to pay tribute to the victims of the atomic bombings and meet with survivors, “those who still bear the wounds of this tragic episode in human history”.
“Evil has no preferences; it does not care about people’s background or identity,” the Pope said. “It simply bursts in with its destructive force.”
Francis has gone further than any other pope by saying that not only the use but the mere possession of nuclear weapons is “to be condemned”.
It’s a message he is expected to repeat Sunday, and it’s one that has been welcomed by Japanese old enough to remember the bombings.
“I hope he will deliver the message of true peace to Japan and to the world,” said Ryohei Sakamoto, 71, a Catholic who was waiting for Francis outside the nunciature on Saturday afternoon. “And I hope the world will listen to him and his message. That’s what I wish he could do on this visit.”
Francis told the bishops how as a young Jesuit in Argentina, he had longed to be a missionary in Japan, following in the footsteps of St Francis Xavier, the Jesuit who first brought Christianity to the archipelago in 1549.
While health reasons prevented Francis from realising that dream, he said he nevertheless nurtured a continued affection for Japan and was inspired by the Christians who endured more than two centuries of persecution starting in the 16th century.
“Such self-sacrifice for the sake of keeping the faith alive amid persecution helped the small Christian community to develop, grow strong and bear fruit,” Francis told the bishops.
One of the highlights of the trip will be a prayer on Sunday at the memorial of the 26 Nagasaki Martyrs, who were crucified in 1597 at the start of the wave of anti-Christian bloodshed by Japanese rulers.
Christians endured centuries of bloody repression in Japan after the religion was introduced to the country by a Spanish Jesuit priest in 1549.
In the 17th century, Japan was closed to the outside world and Christians were persecuted, tortured, crucified and drowned as they were forced to recant their faith.
When Japan reopened to the world in the mid-19th century and the missionaries returned, they were astonished to find an estimated 60,000 who had secretly kept the faith alive and followed a unique version of Catholicism blended with Japanese culture and religious rites.
Francis is expected to pay tribute to these “hidden Christians” — or kakure kirishitan in Japanese — during his trip on Sunday to Nagasaki, where they were discovered.
The Pope’s other key aim in coming to Japan is to tend to today’s tiny Catholic flock, which has grown exponentially more diverse in recent years due to an influx of foreign workers. Today, these temporary workers make up more than half of Japan’s Catholic population of 440,000, according to the Archdiocese of Tokyo.
Overall, Catholics account for less than 0.5% of Japan’s 127 million people, most of them loosely affiliated with Buddhism or Shinto, or both.
Japan had long kept its door closed to immigrants, but the country last year adopted a new policy to open up unskilled jobs to temporary foreign workers, a major revision to the country’s policy to deal with its rapidly aging and declining population.
Many of the newcomers hail from the Philippines, Vietnam and Brazil and are Catholic, rejuvenating local churches that now offer Masses in English, Tagalog, Portuguese, Spanish and Vietnamese.
Francis has made welcoming migrants a hallmark of his papacy, and he told his bishops that their ministry to foreign workers was a precious demonstration of their commitment to spreading the faith.
He urged them also to look out for young Japanese, who he said were increasingly prone to “loneliness, despair and isolation”.
“The increase in the rates of suicide in your cities, as well as bullying and various kinds of neediness, are creating new forms of alienation and spiritual disorientation,” he warned. He urged them to encourage a shift from a “culture of efficiency, performance and success” to one of “generous and selfless love, capable of offering to everyone, and not only to those who have ‘made it’, the possibility of a happy and successful life.”
Francis himself was offering some joy to the few people invited to welcome him at the Vatican residence Saturday night.
“I am so looking forward to seeing him and I cannot wait!” gushed Michiko Haramoto, a 71-year-old Catholic who traveled from southern Fukuoka, on Kyushu island, to greet the pope. She said she would be on the first flight to Nagasaki on Sunday to attend the papal Mass.
“I don’t know how and whether it’s possible. But if I get to talk to him directly at all, it will be so wonderful and I will surely tell him how grateful we all are here upon receiving him,” she said.
En route to Japan, the papal plane flew over Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese airspace and he sent messages to their respective leaders as part of customary diplomatic protocol.
The message to Carrie Lam, the embattled chief executive of Hong Kong, invoked “well being and peace”. Francis made no mention of the months of the pro-democracy demonstrations in the Chinese-ruled special administrative region.
The message to Chinese President Xi Jinping was similar. It was the first time that Francis has flown over Chinese airspace since last year’s landmark accord between Beijing and the Vatican over the appointment of bishops.
He also sent a message to Taiwan, which has diplomatic relations with the Vatican but which Beijing regards as a renegade province.