A Catholic Priest Visiting Nagasaki

A priest with his fellow seminary professors made a trip to Nagasaki and these are some of his impressions.


The Church in Nagasaki has the largest number of Christians in the Country with about 5% of the population Catholic. The Catholic population of the country is insignificant with this one exception. He was impressed with the ardor and zeal of this small group of Japanese Christians. Today there are more foreign Catholics living in Japan than there are native Japanese Catholics.

The second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and a very large number of Catholics were
killed. He mentioned Dr. Nagai Takashi who tried to understand how a loving God could allow such a tragedy to happen. He was injured in the blast, his wife was killed; he lived in a hovel that he had made, with his two children. (For an introduction to Dr. Nagai go here: During the years before his death he helped many who were injured, with a team that he had formed and worked to exhaustion. He wrote much in the few years before his death- the Bell of Nagasaki is his best known work. )

He had many question that he asked. Is there a connection between the end of the war and the destruction of Nagasaki? His conclusion was that Nagasaki was the table of sacrifice for the sins of humankind for the second world war ; the blood and sacrifice of the holy city of Nagasaki was part of the atonement, the sacrificial lamb. (I noticed in a comment to a blog that mentioned that in Hiroshima the feeling was : "look what you foreigners have done" in Nagasaki it was, "Never Again". I would like to think that is the Christian influence of Nagasaki. )


The priest spent some time with the Korean missionaries working in Japan and was impressed on how close they were with the Christians. On a visit to the bishop they were told that he hopes that they can remain in Japan for at least ten years and would like more.

The priest ends the reflection with a comment that it would be better to have the missioners come from Korea than from west: they have much more in common being both Asian. There are many problems between Japan and Korea but working with the Japanese in this spiritual setting can only be for the good of the relationship.