The Hope of Japan's Church Rests in the Children

(15 Dec 07 - RV) “Japan’s is a generous but ageing Church, our hope lies with the children”
These are the words of Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, of the Society of the Divine Word Missionaries is Bishop of Niigata. He was among the 17 bishops of the 16 diocese of Japan who met with the pope this morning at the end of their Ad Limina visit.
He spoke to Veronica Scarsbrick about that main challenges facing the Church in Japan and his hopes for his own rural Diocese :
“I think at this moment it is secularisation especially among the young people. People are not finding a meaning to their lives, (they believe) there is no religion, no God. Also the number of older people is growing and we do not have enough young people to support society and this is directly affecting the Catholic Church too. If you visit the Parishes in Japan, for Sunday masses, you find many old people, but not young people. This also creates great financial problems too. And thirdly, how to take care of migrants. Particularly migrant Catholics.
“Children, born from these international marriages, Philippino women married to the Japanese Farmers they are the hope for my diocese. These Philippine mothers have great faith and we are trying to educate these children according to our own traditional faith so they are the hope!”.
Bishop Kikuchi is also president of Caritas Japan; “Our main task is to organise campaigns to raise money for the Caritas network all over the world. We are also trying to tell the government that they should take a lead in talking about the debt crises in African and Asian countries, I think that is Japan as one of the biggest financial donors to African countries has an important role to play. We have the responsibility to talk about what must be done. The people in Japan are really generous in supporting others”.
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