St. Maximilian Kolbe (bearded, in front row, center) and his companions in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1936. / Credit: Public Domain/Courtesy of ‘Maximilian Kolbe: The Saint of Auschwitz’/Sophia Institute Press
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 9, 2024 / 05:00 am (CNA).
When the American military dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945, the city was completely devastated — more than 40,000 people were instantly killed by the blast as well as about 60,000 more in the following five years as a result of radiation-related diseases.
Everything within a mile and a half of the plutonium bomb’s hypocenter was destroyed, including 14,000 homes and the Urakami Cathedral, where the faithful had gathered that morning for Mass in preparation for the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary shortly before “Fat Man” was detonated.
While the bombing devastated both the city of Nagasaki and its large Catholic population, the monastery of Seibo no Kishi located in the mountains on the outskirts of Nagasaki was spared.
A Franciscan monastery built by Father Maximilian Kolbe and his supporters in 1931, this spot served as the second location for Kolbe’s “City of the Immaculata” mission that had started with his Niepokalanów monastery in Tersein, Poland.
Maximilian Kolbe’s missionary work in Japan
Kolbe was determined to expand foreign missionary work to Japan, even after having launched the monthly magazine Knight of the Immaculata in Kraków in 1922. He approached Father Alfonso Orlini, the father general of the Conventual Franciscans, in 1930 for permission to start a mission in Japan after having met four Japanese students on a train who shared the urgent need for missionaries in their home country.
Although he was initially told to go to China instead, Kolbe remained determined to travel to Japan and arrived in Nagasaki — a city known for its rich Catholic history — by ship in March 1930 alongside a handful of other friars.
Over the next six years, Kolbe and the friars would build up Mugenzai no Sono (a literal translation of “Garden of the Immaculata”), which would later have its name changed to Seibo no Kishi.
Here, the Franciscan friars received permission from the bishop of Nagasaki to publish and distribute the first edition of the Mugenzai no Seibo no Kishi — Knight of the Immaculata — magazine, as Kolbe agreed to teach theology at the seminary in return.
The friars were also able to begin building a monastery and various other buildings for their “city,” as Kolbe had chosen a plot of land in the suburb of Hongouchi that sat behind a mountain and faced away from Nagasaki. While many originally criticized this placement, it was this strange positioning that would protect the monastery and its missionaries later on.
Seibo no Kishi would consist of a chapel and wooden house, a large hall for meetings and classes, and a workshop to hold printing equipment. Additionally, Kolbe would build a nearby grotto completed with the placement of a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes on May 1, 1932.
Seibo no Kishi’s survival following the atomic bombing
After six years of missionary work and experiencing several periods of poor health in Japan, Kolbe was asked to leave and return to care for his foundation in Poland in 1936.
Upon his return to Poland, Kolbe wrote a letter to a friend in Nagasaki that read: “I will never forget Japan; indeed, I always pray for it. I will work with every effort for the salvation of Japanese souls. The Japanese are a people who really search for authentic religion, so they will obtain many graces from the Lord God.”
Eventually imprisoned by the Nazis and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, Kolbe volunteered to die in the place of another prisoner and was killed on Aug. 14, 1941.
Almost four years later, Seibo no Kishi would sustain no more damage than a few broken panes of stained glass during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, thanks to its location behind a mountain. In the days following the attack, Seibo no Kishi’s missionaries would minister to those who were injured, sick, and dying as a result of the atomic blast.
Today, the Seibo no Kishi monastery and Hongouchi church still exist within Nagasaki and are open to visitors. The Japanese edition of the Knight of Immaculata magazine also continues to be published by the Conventual Franciscans in Japan, celebrating its 1,000th issue in 2021.
The issue featured an article on the magazine’s history while also giving a nod to its first publication in which Kolbe discussed topics such as the Miraculous Medal and the Immaculate Virgin Mary — the centerpiece of Kolbe’s Militia Immaculata and Niepokalanów mission in both Poland and Japan.
Writing to another missionary friar in 1935, Kolbe spoke of his desire for “assimilation to [the Immaculate Virgin Mary]; to breathe her, and to live eternally according to her spirit; and of much toil and exhausting but fruitful labor; and much, much suffering; and heroic victories; and the sweetness of the name of Mary.”
“One effort alone in Niepokalanów is essential; that is, day by day we must become evermore the property of the Immaculate. When this happens, then everything else will come to us with her,” the letter continued. “Hence, the Church applies the words of holy Scripture to her: ‘All good things came to me along with her’ [Wis 7:11].”
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ACI Prensa Staff, May 9, 2023 / 12:00 pm The serious gasoline shortage in Cuba has forced Father Kenny Fernández Delgado, a priest of the Archdiocese of Havana in the town of Madruga in Mayabeque […]
Amanda Achtman’s last photo with her grandfather, Joseph Achtman. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Amanda Achtman
CNA Staff, Nov 5, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
When the Canadian government began discussing the legalization of euthanasia for those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable,” 32-year-old Amanda Achtman said something in her began to stir. Her grandfather was in his mid-90s at the time and fit the description.
“There were a couple of times, toward the end of his life, that he faced some truly challenging weeks and said he wanted to die,” Achtman recalled. “But thank God no physician could legally concede to a person’s suicidal ideation in such vulnerable moments. To all of our surprise — including his — his condition and his outlook improved considerably before his death at age 96.”
Achtman said she and her grandfather were able to have a memorable final visit that “forged her character and became one of the greatest gifts he ever gave me.”
The experience of walking with her grandfather in his last days led Achtman to work that she believes is a calling. On Aug. 1, she launched a multifaceted cultural project called Dying to Meet You, which seeks to “humanize our conversations and experiences around suffering, death, meaning, and hope.” This mission is accomplished through a mix of interviews, short films, community events, and conversations.
Amanda Achtman speaks during the Evening Program at St. Mary’s Cathedral during “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” event in Calgary Sept. 23, 2023. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
“This cultural project is my primary mission, and I am grateful to be able to dedicate the majority of my energy to it,” Achtman told CNA.
Early years
Achtman was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She grew up in a Jewish-Catholic family with, she said, “a strong attachment to these two traditions that constitute the tenor of my complete personality.”
Her Polish-Jewish grandfather, with whom she had a very close relationship as a young adult, had become an atheist because of the Holocaust and was always challenging her to face up to the big questions of mortality and morality.
“One of the ways I did this was by traveling on the March of Remembrance and Hope Holocaust study trip to Germany and Poland when I was 18,” Achtman said. “My experiences listening to the stories of Holocaust survivors and Righteous Among the Nations have undeniably forged my moral imagination and instilled in me a profound sense of personal responsibility.”
Shortly after her grandfather’s death, Achtman discovered a new English-language master’s program being offered in John Paul II philosophical studies at the Catholic University of Lublin in Poland.
“Immediately, I felt as though God were saying to me, ‘Leave your country and go to the land that I will show you — it’s Poland.’ At the time, the main things I knew about Poland were that the Holocaust had largely been perpetrated there and that Sts. John Paul II, Maximilian Kolbe, and Faustina were from there,” Achtman explained. “I wanted to be steeped in a country of saints, heroes, and martyrs in order to contemplate seriously what my life is actually about and how I could spend it generously in the service of preventing dehumanization and faithfully defending the sanctity of life in my own context.”
On Sept. 23, 2023, Amanda Achtman organized a daylong open-house-style event called “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” in Calgary, Alberta. Participants added ideas for how we, the Church, can prevent euthanasia and encourage hope. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
The rise of euthanasia in Canada
In 2016, the Canadian government legalized euthanasia nationwide. The criterion to be killed in a hospital was informed consent on the part of an adult who was deemed to have a “grievous and irremediable condition.”
“The death request needed to be made in writing before two independent witnesses after a mandatory time of reflection. And, consent could be withdrawn any time before the lethal injection,” Achtman explained.
Then, in 2021, the Canadian government began to remove those safeguards. “The legislative change involved requiring only one witness, allowing the possible waiving of the need for final consent, and the removal, in many cases, of any reflection period,” Achtman told CNA.
“Furthermore, a new ‘track’ was invented for ‘persons whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable.’ This meant that Canadians with disabilities became at greater risk of premature death through euthanasia. Once death-by-physician became seen as a human right, there was practically no limit as to who should ‘qualify.’ As long as killing is seen as a legitimate means to eliminate suffering, there is no limit to who could be at risk.”
Euthanasia — now called medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Canada — is set to further expand on March 17, 2024, to those whose sole underlying condition is “mental illness.” Last year, Dr. Louis Roy of the Quebec College of Physicians and Surgeons testified before a special joint committee that his organization thinks euthanasia should be expanded to infants with “severe malformations” and “grave and severe syndromes.”
Renewing the culture
Achtman followed the debates around end-of-life issues in Canada and wanted to figure out a way to restore “a right response to the reality of suffering and death in our lives.”
“The fact is, our mortality is part of what makes life precious, our relationships worth cherishing, and our lives worth giving out of love. That’s why we need to bring cultural renewal to death and dying, restoring our understanding of its meaning to the human condition.”
At the Sept. 23, 2023, open-house event called “The Church as an Expert in Humanity,” there were table displays of ministries in the diocese who are doing the best work on suffering, death, grief, and caregiving. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
On Jan. 1, 2021, Achtman made a new year’s resolution to blog about death every single day for an entire year in a way that was “hope-filled and edifying.”
It ended up being very fruitful to Achtman personally, but she said “it also touched a surprising number of people, inspiring them to take concrete actions in their own lives that I could not have anticipated.”
The experience, Achtman said, made her realize that it’s possible to contribute to cultural renewal through things like coffee shop visits, informal interviews, posting on social media, being a guest on podcasts and webinars, organizing community events, and making videos.
“Basically, there are countless practical and ordinary ways that we can humanize the culture — wherever we are and whatever we do the rest of the time.”
The Dying to Meet You project
When it comes to the mission of Dying to Meet You, Achtman told CNA that “God has put on my heart two key objectives: the prevention of euthanasia and the encouragement of hope” and added that “the aim of this cultural project is to improve our cultural conversation and engagement around suffering, death, meaning, and hope through a mix of interviews, writing, videos, and events.”
Achtman said the project is an experiment in the themes Pope Francis speaks about often — encounter, accompaniment, going to the peripheries, and contributing to a more fraternal spirit.
“There is a strong basis for opposition to euthanasia across almost all religions and cultures, traditionally speaking,” Achtman said. “Partly from my own upbringing in a Jewish-Catholic family, I am passionate about how the cultural richness of such a plurality of traditions in Canada can bolster and enrich our value of all human life.”
To that end, one of the projects Achtman has in the works is a short film on end of life from an Indigenous perspective to be released mid-November.
“It’s not so much that we have a culture of death as we now seem to have death without culture,” said Achtman, who hopes her efforts will help change that.
An inspiring hometown event
This past Sept. 23, Achtman organized a daylong open-house-style event called “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” in her home city of Calgary, which took place at Calgary’s Cathedral, the Cathedral Hall, and the Catholic Pastoral Centre. The morning featured a ministry hall of exhibits with 18 table displays of ministries throughout the diocese doing the best work on suffering, death, grief, and caregiving. In the afternoon, there were three-panel presentations.
The morning of “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” in St. Mary’s Cathedral Hall in Calgary, Alberta, featured a ministry hall of exhibits with table displays of ministries in the diocese doing the best work on suffering, death, grief, and caregiving. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
The first involved Catholics of diverse cultural backgrounds speaking about hospitality and accompaniment in their respective traditions. It included a Filipino diaconal candidate, a Ukrainian laywoman working with refugees, an elderly Indigenous woman who is a community leader, and an Iraqi Catholic priest.
The second was called “Tell Me About the Hour of Death,” where participants heard from two doctors, a priest, and a longtime pastoral care worker.
The third panel focused on papal documents pertaining to death, hope, and eternal life. A Polish Dominican sister who has worked extensively with the elderly spoke about John Paul II’s “Letter to the Elderly.”
Later, an evening program was held in Calgary’s Catholic Cathedral and included seven short testimonies by different speakers that “were narratively framed as echoes of the Seven Last Words of Christ.” Among the speakers were a privately sponsored Middle Eastern Christian refugee, a L’Arche core member who has a disability, and a young father whose daughter only lived for 38 minutes. Afterward, Calgary’s Bishop William McGrattan gave some catechesis on the Anima Christi prayer, with a special emphasis on the line “In your wounds, hide me.”
“The day was extremely uplifting and instilled the local Church with confidence that the Church indeed is an expert in humanity, capable of meeting Christ in all who suffer with a gaze of love and the steadfast insistence, ‘I will not abandon you,’” Achtman told CNA.
Calgary’s Bishop William McGrattan listens to the seven testimonies echoing the seven last words of Christ during the evening program. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
Our lives are not wholly our own
Many believe euthanasia is compassionate care for those who suffer. Shouldn’t we be able to do what we want with our own lives? And can suffering have any meaning for someone who doesn’t believe in God?
Achtman said these questions remind her of something Mother Teresa said: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other,” as well as the John Donne quote “Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.”
“Our lives are not wholly our own and how we live and die affects the communities to which we belong,” Achtman said. “That is not a religious argument but an empirical observation about human life. If someone lacks ties and is without family and social support, then that is the crisis to which the adequate response is presence and assistance — not abandonment or hastened death. As one of my heroes, Father Alfred Delp, put it, a suffering person makes an ongoing appeal to your inner nobility, to your sacrificial strength and capacity to love. Don’t miss the opportunity.”
Amanda Achtman pictured with Christine, an 88-year-old woman who got a tattoo that says “Don’t euthanize me,” which is featured in a short four-minute documentary. Credit; Photo courtesy of Amanda Achtman
The mission continues
Achtman also organized a “Mass of a Lifetime,” a special Sunday Mass for residents of a local retirement home, on Oct. 15.
Attendees at the Mass of a Lifetime event, a special Sunday Mass for residents of a local retirement home held on Oct. 15, 2023, in Calgary, Alberta. Credit: Amanda Achtman
“I was inspired by a quotation of Dietrich von Hildebrand, who said: ‘Wherever anything makes Christ known, there nothing can be beautiful enough,’” Achtman said. “Applying that spirit to this Mass, we made it as elaborate as possible to show the seniors that they are worth the effort.”
Achtman also recently produced a four-minute short film about an 88-year-old woman named Christine who got a tattoo that says “Don’t euthanize me.” It can be viewed here:
Throughout 2023-2024, Achtman told CNA, she is basing herself in four different Canadian cities for three months each “in order to empower diverse faith and cultural communities in the task of preventing euthanasia and encouraging hope.” She started in her hometown of Calgary and is off to Vancouver this month.
In addition to her work with the Dying to Meet You project, Achtman does ethics education and cultural engagement with Canadian Physicians for Life and works to promote the personalist tradition with the Hildebrand Project.
St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-202). / Public Domain.
Vatican City, Jan 20, 2022 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
St. Irenaeus of Lyon is one step closer to being the first martyr to be declared a Doctor of the Church.Pope Francis met with the head of the Vati… […]
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Ex-Jesuit Malachi Martin, in his book “The Jesuits” (1987), remarks that Pedro Arrupe was near either Hiroshima or Nagasaki when the atomic bombs were dropped in August 1945, with up to a quarter million deaths.
ARRUPE: Later, Arrupe served as Superior General of the Jesuits, from 1965 to 1987. In his remark, Martin reports, of our huge modernday moral dilemmas, that Arrupe proposed we might have to provisionally suspend morality for a bit in order to at least begin to handle what’s so wrong with the world.
The beginning of fluid “Jesuit spirituality”? And a help in understanding parts of the past eleven years—near the beginning with Amoris Laetitia’s wedge-chapter 8 and footnote 352 (2016), and culminating in the Fiducia Supplicans (2023) blessing of the full range of “irregular” household situations—especially the homosexual subculture, all one “couple” at a time.
AMNESIA: As with the fateful backstory that led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki—to this observer, the intricate record seems to support a pattern of momentum more than a deliberated “decision”—likewise, with synodalistic amnesia in dealing with the momentum of rapidly multiplying LGBTQ-ism which, clearly, is not genetic and by its nature cannot be biological.
An earlier PARADIGM SHIFT: We’re almost reminded of the pseudo-Christian Hung Hsui-ch’uan, who fancied himself as the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Before fomenting the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864), one of the largest insurrections in Chinese history and which brought directly and indirectly the deaths to between twelve and twenty million souls. Hung—more efficient than Cardinal Fernandez today and his “informal, non-liturgical, and spontaneous” blessings—baptized his troops with a fire hose…Inter-culturally, another fluid theology!
Sts. Maxamilian Kolbe and Matteo Ricci, pray for us.
Ex-Jesuit Malachi Martin, in his book “The Jesuits” (1987), remarks that Pedro Arrupe was near either Hiroshima or Nagasaki when the atomic bombs were dropped in August 1945, with up to a quarter million deaths.
ARRUPE: Later, Arrupe served as Superior General of the Jesuits, from 1965 to 1987. In his remark, Martin reports, of our huge modernday moral dilemmas, that Arrupe proposed we might have to provisionally suspend morality for a bit in order to at least begin to handle what’s so wrong with the world.
The beginning of fluid “Jesuit spirituality”? And a help in understanding parts of the past eleven years—near the beginning with Amoris Laetitia’s wedge-chapter 8 and footnote 352 (2016), and culminating in the Fiducia Supplicans (2023) blessing of the full range of “irregular” household situations—especially the homosexual subculture, all one “couple” at a time.
AMNESIA: As with the fateful backstory that led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki—to this observer, the intricate record seems to support a pattern of momentum more than a deliberated “decision”—likewise, with synodalistic amnesia in dealing with the momentum of rapidly multiplying LGBTQ-ism which, clearly, is not genetic and by its nature cannot be biological.
An earlier PARADIGM SHIFT: We’re almost reminded of the pseudo-Christian Hung Hsui-ch’uan, who fancied himself as the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Before fomenting the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864), one of the largest insurrections in Chinese history and which brought directly and indirectly the deaths to between twelve and twenty million souls. Hung—more efficient than Cardinal Fernandez today and his “informal, non-liturgical, and spontaneous” blessings—baptized his troops with a fire hose…Inter-culturally, another fluid theology!
Sts. Maxamilian Kolbe and Matteo Ricci, pray for us.
St. Maximilian Kolbe – Pray for us.