Asia – Pacific

Miao, India, Apr 13, 2017 / 05:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the Diocese of Miao, located in India’s northeasternmost state of Arunachal Pradesh, Bishop George Pallipparambil does not stay quietly in his cathedral for Holy Week, but rather holds services across the diocese in an effort to better serve his people.

“What we’re trying to do is to reach to as many places as possible. I’m not confining myself to the main church in Miao,” the bishop told CNA in a 2015 interview. “I’ll be there only for the Easter Sunday Mass.”

“I finished today in one place, tomorrow I’ll be in a big community called Khonsa, and for Good Friday I’ll be in another district headquarters. For the [Easter] Vigil I’ll be in another place, and then for Sunday Mass I’ll be in Miao.”

The Miao diocese covers a vast area of nearly 17,000 square miles, and it is home to the easternmost portions of the Himalayas.

The terrain ranges “from the very low plains to the high snow-covered Himalayan peaks,” Bishop Pallipparambil explained. “Some of the biggest rivers in the world are in this region, coming down from the Himalayas flowing down to the plains.”

Mountainous terrain coupled with a lack of infrastructure explains why the diocese held its Chrism Mass entirely outside of Holy Week, that year on March 26.

The Chrism Mass is traditionally said on the morning of Holy Thursday, and it gathers all the priests of a diocese together with their bishop to emphasize their common ministry. The bishop blesses three kinds of oil – chrism, oil of the catechumens, and oil of the sick – which are distributed to the priests and used in sacramental anointings throughout the following year.

However, the Diocese of Miao has had to change this practice to adapt to its needs. The diocese was established in 2005, and Bishop Pallipparambil is its first ordinary.

“The first year we had [Chrism Mass] on Tuesday of Holy Week, and we found many of the priests could not reach back to their own places for Holy Thursday,” he explained. “So, we started in the last eight years to have the Chrism Mass in the previous week.”

Bishop Pallipparambil himself is sometimes beset by travel difficulties: in 2015, heavy rains had made the road to Kulagaon village extremely muddy, and on his way to Holy Week services there, he had to get out and push his jeep along with passersby.

Another adaptation: the Chrism Mass was not held in the cathedral at Miao, but rather in Minthong parish in the Longding district.

“It is one of the decisions we made when the diocese was created,” Bishop Pallipparambil said.

He explained that “having the Chrism Mass in the cathedral, at least for me, didn’t make sense,” because each year, the same people would attend and carry the holy oils back to the distant villages and parishes, where the local people “just don’t know what it is.”

“(W)hereas if the Chrism Mass is held in their place, they come to know because it is always done in their language, and so they know what it is. And when it’s time to have an anointing, whether it be for baptism or confirmation or another occasion, they know the sacredness of this oil.”

He added that “it brings all the priests and religious to pray together with the people the whole day before the Mass, so that also has a positive catechetical influence.”

That year, the Chrism Mass was the occasion for Bishop Pallipparambil to present the first translation of the entire New Testament into the Wancho language.

At the bishop’s request, Father TJ Francis spent three years working with Wancho leaders in preparing the translation, which will serve the 60,000 Wancho people who live in the Longding and Tirap districts.

Fr. Francis’ work “must inspire many of us to take up a similar responsibility to translate the Message of the Gospel to the language of the people we serve,” Bishop Pallipparambil said at the Mass. The Miao diocese is home to more than 100 distinct tribes, many of which have their own language.

Bishop Pallipparambil told CNA that the Wancho, of whom 95 percent are Christian, now have printed in their own language only the Bible and a few prayer and hymn books.

As the language had no written form, it also lacked its own script, the bishop noted, and Fr. Francis wrote the works with Latin letters. The priest has also produced a Wancho grammar.

Despite lacking access to written Scripture until now, many of the Wancho have converted “just by hearing and seeing” the Gospel.

“Some of their children in the ’80s and ’90s travelled outside their area and attended Christian schools, and when they got knowledge of Christianity they helped by teaching Bible in their own language,” he explained. The diocese also hold four to five-day Bible camps in which biblical stories and the catechism are explained.

Asked if the diocese hopes that the Old Testament will now be translated into Wancho, Bishop Pallipparambil affirmed “yes, we want to do it by all means at the earliest.”

This article was originally published on CNA April 3, 2015.
 

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Manila, Philippines, Mar 20, 2017 / 08:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Remember what Jesus’ cross stands for, and don’t misuse the Bible to justify the death penalty, the Philippines’ Catholic bishops have said.

“To the people who use the Bible to defend the death penalty, need we point out how many other crimes against humanity have been justified, using the same Bible?” the country’s bishops asked.

“We humbly enjoin them to interpret the Scriptures properly, to read them as a progressive revelation of God’s will to humankind, with its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ, God’s definitive Word to the world.”

Their words came in a March 19 pastoral statement on the death penalty signed by Archbishop Socrates B. Villegas of Lingayen Dagupan, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. The statement was read at all Masses in the country on Sunday.

Jesus came not to abolish the law, but fulfill it, the bishops explained: “Jesus was never an advocate of any form of ‘legal killing’. He defended the adulterous woman against those who demanded her blood and challenged those who were without sin among them to be the first to cast a stone on her.”

The letter opened with a quotation from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “God proved his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The death penalty was abolished in the Philippines in 2006. At present President Rodrigo Duterte, who is also leading a brutal crackdown on drugs, has advocated its restoration.

In their letter, the Catholic bishops recounted the passage of a House of Representatives bill that would restore the death penalty.

“It was Ash Wednesday when members of the lower House, on the second reading of the death penalty bill, outvoted by voice-voting the nays with their ayes. Ironically, they were captured on television shouting in favor of death with their foreheads marked with crosses made of ashes,” the bishops said.

“Could they have forgotten what that cross meant?”

They questioned whether the legislators had missed that the crosses on their foreheads “were supposed to serve as a loud statement of faith in the God who, for love of us, chose to give up his life for our salvation, rather than see us perish.”

According to the bishops, the saying of the Bible, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” was challenged by Jesus, who advocated non-retaliation of evil for evil and justice founded on mercy.

“Even with the best of intentions, capital punishment has never been proven effective as a deterrent to crime,” they continued. “Obviously it is easier to eliminate criminals than to get rid of the root causes of criminality in society. Capital punishment and a flawed legal system are always a lethal mix. “

The statement also spoke about the victims.

“We are not deaf to the cries of the victims of heinous crimes. The victims and their victimizers are both our brothers and sisters. The victim and the opressor are both children of God,” they said.

They said the guilty should repent and make reparation for their sins. The bishops offered love, compassion and hope to crime victims.

The death penalty will be applied more to the poor, who cannot afford adequate legal defenses, the bishops said.

“As a law, death penalty directly contradicts the principle of inalienability of the basic human right to life, which is enshrined in most constitutions of countries that signed the universal declaration of human rights,” they said.

The Philippines bishops called for prayers for the country’s legislators.

“Let us offer all our Masses for them, asking our Crucified Lord who offered his whole life, body and blood, for the salvation of sinners, to touch their consciences and lead them to abolish capital punishment once and for all,” they said.

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Hagatna, Guam, Mar 18, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The practices of the Neocatechumenal Way in Guam have drawn attention from the island’s coadjutor archbishop, who has said its members are to stop forming new communities for a year, in the interest of healing divisions in the archdiocese.

Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes of Agaña cited “a growing sense of distress about the multiplication of small communities in some parishes and about some of the differences in the way the Mass is celebrated among the small communities of the Neocatechumenal Way.”

The movement must celebrate Mass at a consecrated altar and members of the congregation who receive the Blessed Sacrament must consume it as soon as they receive it, the archbishop said in a March 15 pastoral letter to his flock on the northwestern Pacific island, a U.S. territory.

The Neocatechumenal Way is a new ecclesial movement that focuses on post-baptismal adult formation in small parish-based groups. It is estimated that the movement contains about 1 million members, in some 40,000 parish-based communities around the world.

Archbishop Byrnes was appointed as Coadjutor Archbishop of Agaña in October 2016 to replace Archbishop Anthony Apuron, who was relieved of his pastoral and administrative authority in June 2016 after allegations surfaced that he had sexually abused minors.

Archbishop Apuron is a member of the Neocatechumenal Way. He has also been accused of mishandling control over Guam’s seminary, reportedly using it as a Neocatechumenal seminary rather than a diocesan seminary, which led to the withdrawal of all Samoan students.

At his appointment, Archbishop Byrnes was given all the faculties, rights, and obligations of the Archbishop of Agaña.

“In the conversation with Pope Francis last October, he appealed to me in a particular way to do what I can to bring some healing to the divisions existing in the Archdiocese of Agaña,” he wrote in his pastoral letter.

“I realize that a number of factors have contributed toward the divisions. I cannot deal with them all at once hence what I outline below represents a beginning.”

He presented his decisions regarding the Neocatechumenal Way “in the context of the pastoral change entrusted to me by the Holy Father.”

Archbishop Byrnes will appoint a priest delegate to to review the Neocatechumenal Way’s catechetical directory and to ensure its catechists  are sufficiently formed.  

He is also regulating the liturgies of the Neocatechumenal Way in his local Church, to foster clarity and unity.

“The sooner we have unity and universal adherence as an archdiocese to the norms established by the Church in celebrating the body of Christ during the sacred celebration of the Mass, the sooner we shall be on the path to reconciling with one another and bring healing to our divided diocese,” Archbishop Byrnes said.

Since the Neocatechumenal Way says Mass on Saturday evenings, the coadjutor archbishop stipulated that all Masses on Saturday evenings be said at a consecrated altar. This norm will go into effect April 2.

He also directed that if the Neocatechumenal Way’s Mass is one of a parish’s regularly scheduled Masses, its special character be noted in the bulletin; if the Mass is in addition to a regularly scheduled Mass on Saturday evening, a portion of its collection should go to the parish; and that the pastor has the authority to direct how many additional Masses may be said.

Archbishop Byrnes also directed that, in accord with the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, the celebrant of a Mass must consume the Body and Blood of Christ prior to distributing Communion, and that communicants are to consume the Body and Blood as soon as they receive the host or chalice, without any delay. These norms take effect March 26.

The archbishop recognized the good that the movement has brought to many people’s lives and he noted that it is recognized and approved by the Holy See.

However, it is imperative that it adhere to liturgical norms, he said, and this adherence “will only enrich the fruits of the Neocatechumenal movement.”

Fr. Paul A.M. Gofigan, rector of Dulce Nombre De Maria Cathedral-Basilica, told the Pacific Daily News that when the movement aims to start a new community, it offers testimonials at churches.

“Many have been very offended that the non-Neos have become a captive audience because these testimonials have been inserted into the Mass,” he said.

Since the Neocatechumenal Way was founded, the group has sometimes been cautioned by the Vatican for inserting various novel practices into the Masses it organizes. These include practices such as lay preaching, the reception of Holy Communion while sitting, and the passing of the Most Precious Blood from person to person.

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Rajshahi, Bangladesh, Mar 11, 2017 / 06:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A man acting as a guard outside a Catholic church in Bangladesh was injured in a knife attack on Friday. Local authorities attribute it to a private feud, and not terrorism.

According to local reports, Gilbert Costa, 65, was guarding Saint Rita parish in the Chatmohar upazila of the Pabna district, about 55 miles southeast of Rajshahi, when he was attacked in the early hours of March 10 by several young men from his village wielding knives.

“He was hacked randomly by sharp knives and was left severely injured. He was shifted to a hospital where his condition is now stable,” local police chief Ahsan Habib told AFP.

Officials have ruled out a link to Islamic terrorism, and have said that the attack was motivated by “personal enmity.”

“Costa and his relatives have identified the attackers with whom they had personal feud in the village. We have found no extremist connection whatsoever,” Habib told AFP.

Three young men from Costa’s village have been arrested in connection with the attack.

Christians have suffered numerous attacks in the country, where they make up approximately 0.2 percent of the population in the Muslim-majority nation.

While the country has a history of violence against Christians, violence has spiked in the wake of the rise of extreme Islamic terrorism. In November 2015, an Italian missionary priest working at a hospital in Bangladesh, was shot and critically injured an attack claimed by the Islamic State. In summer 2016, several attacks left dozens dead, including a Catholic man coming home from Sunday prayers in June and 28 people who died in a hostage situation in July.

Pope Francis recently met with families of the victims of the 2016 hostage scenario, most of whom were foreigners from Italy and Japan. During his visit with the families, he offered his prayers and encouraged forgiveness.

“It’s easy to take the road from love that leads to hatred, while it is difficult to do the opposite: from bitterness and hatred to go towards love,” he said.

Despite the persecution, the Catholic population in Bangladesh is reportedly on the rise. In 2015, Pope Francis established a new diocese in the south-central region of the country, due to an increase of Catholics in the region.

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Seoul, South Korea, Mar 9, 2017 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The first Bishop of Pyongyang, an American born-bishop, and numerous priests and laity are among the 213 who could be beatified and advanced on the process to sainthood under a process begun in South Korea.

Bishop Lazarus You Heung-sik of Daejon predicted it will take at least ten years before any beatification or canonization, “but for our people, these people are already holy.”

The bishop heads the Korean bishops’ committee considering the beatifications. He told Asia News that important parts of the path to beatification are the Catholic faithful’s prayer and “desire to follow the spirit of the martyrs.”

One group under consideration for beatification includes Servant of God Bishop Francis Borgia Hong Yong-ho and 80 companions. This broad group ranges from the martyrs of the 1901 Jeju massacre, in which about 300 Catholics were killed, to the victims of persecution following the division of Korea following the Second World War.

Bishop Hong, born in 1906, was ordained a priest in 1933 under Japanese occupation. He was named the first native Bishop of Pyongyang in 1944. He was an apostolic vicar to a region considered mission territory by the Church. With the rise of communism, he was imprisoned in 1949. His fate is unknown, but he is believed to have died in a concentration camp in North Korea.

Until 2013, when he would have been 107, the Vatican considered him missing. Acknowledgment of his death opened the path to possible beatification.

Bishop Patrick James Byrne, a native of Washington, D.C., is also among the group. The Maryknoll missionary was born in 1888. He was ordained a priest in 1915, then served in Korea and Japan before the Second World War. In April 1949 he was named the first apostolic delegate to Korea, and ordained a bishop at the age of 60 in 1949.

In July 1950 he was arrested by communists and put on trial. He and other priests were put on forced marches. During a four-month-long forced march, suffering from bad weather and a lack of food and shelter, he died Nov. 25, 1950.

Altogether, the group associated with Bishop Hong includes two bishops, 48 priests, three seminarians, seven religious sisters, and 21 lay people.

The second group, Servant of God John Baptist Yi Byeok and his 132 companions, were all lay people killed for their faith between 1785 and 1879. Yi was from a family of court dignitaries who under the Joseon dynasty converted to Catholicism and helped evangelize Korea. He was martyred at the age of 33.

One of their number, Alexius Hwang Sa-yeong, died by martyrdom when his arms and legs were tied to four animals which were then driven away in opposite directions, dismembering him.

Another in the group died in exile and his martyrdom must be verified.

The Korean bishops’ conference has set up a special committee for the causes of saints with a Vatican mandate to consider martyrs who belong to different dioceses.

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Beijing, China, Mar 5, 2017 / 05:31 am (CNA).- For some 35 years, the population of China was strictly controlled by the Communist government’s one-child policy.

Parents were only allowed one child, and additional pregnancies meant forced aborti… […]

Manila, Philippines, Feb 28, 2017 / 05:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Caught in the throes of a brutal war on drugs, the people of the Philippines are increasingly looking to the Catholic Church to provide refuge and resistance.

Since last summer, more than … […]

Hyderabad, Pakistan, Feb 17, 2017 / 11:46 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pakistanis are mourning those killed and wounded in a series of terrorist attacks which have taken place this week in the country, including one on a Sufi shrine that left more than 80 people dead.

“People in Pakistan are above all sad; they are also angry with the institutions that are not able to protect citizens. Finally they feel fragile, vulnerable, helpless in the face of [a] terrorist threat that spares no one,” Fr. Inayat Bernard, director of Santa Maria Seminary in Lahore, told Fides.

“We condemn this senseless violence against innocent human beings. Before any ethnic, cultural or religious connotation, the victims are human beings,” he continued.

A suicide bomber reportedly loyal to the Islamic State attacked devotees at a Sufi shrine in Sehwan, more than 90 miles northwest of Hyderabad, on Thursday. In addition to the more than 80 killed in the attack, some 250 were wounded. Sufism is a form of Islamic mysticism which the Islamic State opposes, in part because it reveres individuals it regards as saints. The shrine in Sehwan which was attacked is devoted to Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, a Sufi poet and philosopher of the 13th century.

Since Monday, there have also been terrorist attacks or attempts in Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar, Mohmand, and Arawan.

In a security crackdown in response to the attacks, Pakistani forces have killed more than 100 militants. It has closed border crossings with Afghanistan, whence it claims the militants were based.

“Today we know that we are all potential targets,” Fr. Bernard commented. “Even us Christians – no one is excluded. The victims of these latest attacks are all Muslims, tomorrow it could be the turn of a Christian, a Hindu or a Sikh. This indiscriminate violence hits places of worship, such as the Sufi mosque in Karachi, or churches in the past.”

He lamented that “religious communities are forced to adopt their own security measures and cannot rely on the government. There should be more control, but it is very difficult when there is a great influx of faithful.”

“This violence profanes the name of God, profanes Islam and uses religion to try to overthrow the state. Public opinion strongly calls on the government to urgently implement the national action plan against terrorism, already outlined, but there is some hesitation on behalf of the government and this gives rise to many questions on the possible existing connections even in the institutional apparatus. We are in an impasse”.

Catholics in Pakistan are called to “pray and show deep empathy and solidarity” to the Sufi victims in Sehwan, he said.

“We brought our condolences to the police, after the massacre in Lahore; we go to hospitals to offer assistance and solidarity to the injured,” he said.

He added that interreligious meetings are being organized “to reject, in the name of God, [the] terrorism that has bloodied our beloved nation, and say yes to peace and respect for life.”

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Manila, Philippines, Feb 8, 2017 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Though the Philippines president has professed a willingness to go “to hell” to win his deadly war on drugs, the country’s bishops have said Catholics must speak out against its evils.

“This traffic in illegal drugs needs to be stopped and overcome. But the solution does not lie in the killing of suspected drug users and pushers,” they said.

“The life of every person comes from God. It is he who gives it, and it is he alone who can take it back. Not even the government has a right to kill life because it is only God’s steward and not the owner of life.”

Silence in the face of evil means becoming an accomplice to it, they warned.

“If we neglect the drug addicts and pushers we have become part of the drug problem, if we consent or allow the killing of suspected drug addicts, we shall also be responsible for their deaths.”

The pastoral letter, dated Jan. 30, bears the signature of Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. It was read at all Sunday Masses Feb. 5. The letter comes soon after the bishops’ biannual plenary assembly held in Manila. It took its title from Ezekiel 32, in which God says “For I find no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies.”

President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent crackdown on drug use has claimed more than 6,000 lives in the six months since he took office. At least 2,250 drug suspects have been reported killed by police, while at least 3,700 others were murdered by unknown suspects who sometimes accused their victims of being drug dealers or addicts, according to Agence France Presse.

Many priests and bishops have been afraid to speak out against the killings, Jerome Secillano, public affairs chief for the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said in January.

The pastoral letter appeared aimed to break the silence.

“Let us not allow fear to reign and keep us silent. Let us put into practice not only our native inner strength but the strength that comes from our Christian faith,” the bishops said.

They warned of a “reign of terror” and the lack of justice against those who commit killings. They rebuked indifference to the killings and those claim the killings are “something that needs to be done.”

Those who murder drug dealers are also committing grave sins, the bishops said.

“We cannot correct a wrong by doing another wrong,” they explained. “A good purpose is not a justification for using evil means. It is good to remove the drug problem, but to kill in order to achieve this is also wrong.”

Duterte’s response to the pastoral letter was adamant.

“You Catholics, if you believe in your priests and bishops, you stay with them,” the president said Sunday. “If you want to go to heaven, then go to them. Now, if you want to end drugs … I will go to hell, come join me.”

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella, a former pastor of an evangelical Protestant church, said that the bishops’ conference appears “out of touch with the sentiments of the faithful who overwhelmingly support the changes in the Philippines,” Fox News reports.

For their part, the bishops stressed the importance of presuming an accused person is innocent. They said legal processes must be followed and society has processes to apprehend, convict and punish those who are guilty of crimes.

According to the bishops, there are several root causes of drug problems and criminality: poverty, family breakdown, and corruption. They said people should address these problems through anti-poverty efforts to provide employment and living wages; family strengthening efforts; and reform in the country’s police forces, judicial systems and politics.

Every person has the chance to change because of God’s mercy, the bishops said. The Catholic Church’s recently concluded Year of Mercy deepened awareness that Jesus Christ “offered his own life for sinners, to redeem them and give them a new future.”

“To destroy one’s own life and the life of another, is a grave sin and does evil to society. The use of drugs is a sign that a person no longer values his own life, and endangers the lives of others. We must all work together to solve the drug problem and work for the rehabilitation of drug addicts,” the bishops said.

“We in the Church will continue to speak against evil even as we acknowledge and repent of our own shortcomings. We will do this even if it will bring persecution upon us because we are all brothers and sisters responsible for each other. We will help drug addicts so that they may be healed and start a new life.”

The bishops said they will stand with the families of those who have been killed.

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Tokyo, Japan, Feb 8, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A 17th century Catholic Samurai and martyr was beatified during a Mass in ‎Osaka, Japan on Tuesday.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Vatican’s ‎Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided over the Beatification Mass of Justo Takayama Ukon, who was declared a martyr by Pope Francis in January last year.

Takayama Ukon was born in 1552 in Japan during the time when Jesuit missionaries were being introduced within the country. By the time Takayama was 12, his father had converted to Catholicism and had his son baptized as “Justo” by the Jesuit Fr. Gaspare di Lella.

Takayama’s position in Japanese society as daimyo (a feudal lord) allowed him many benefits, such as owning grand estates and raising vast armies. As a Catholic, Takayama used his power to support and protect the short-lived missionary expansion within Japan, influencing the conversion of thousands of Japanese.

When a time of persecution set in within the country under the reign of Japan’s chancellor Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1587, many newly-converted Catholics abandoned their beliefs.

By the 1620s, most missionaries were either driven out of the country or into underground ministry. These missionary priests would have been of the same era as those featured in the recent movie “Silence” by director Martin Scorsese. Although the film is based on a fictional novel by the Japanese author Shusaku Endo, many of the events and people depicted in “Silence” are real.

Instead of denying their faith, Takayama and his father left their prestigious position in society and chose a life of poverty and exile. Although many of his friends tried to persuade Takayama to deny Catholicism, he remained strong in his beliefs.

Takayama “did not want to fight against other Christians, and this led him to live a poor life, because when a samurai does not obey his ‘chief,’ he loses everything he has,” Fr. Anton Witwer, a general postulator of the Society of Jesus, told CNA in 2014.

Ten years passed, and the chancellor became more fierce in his persecution against Christians. He eventually crucified 26 Catholics, and by 1614, Christianity in Japan was completely banned.
The new boycott on Christianity forced Takayama to leave Japan in exile with 300 other Catholics. They fled to the Philippines, but not long after his arrival, Takayama died on February 3, 1615.

In 2013, the Japanese bishops’ conference submitted the lengthy 400-page application for the beatification of Takayama to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. On Jan. 22, 2016, Takayama’s advancement in the cause for canonization was further promulgated when Pope Francis approved his decree of martyrdom.

“Since Takayama died in exile because of the weaknesses caused by the maltreatments he suffered in his homeland, the process for beatification is that of a martyr,” Fr. Witwer explained.
Takayama’s life exemplifies the Christian example of “a great fidelity to the Christian vocation, persevering despite all difficulties,” Fr. Witwer continued.

“As a Christian, as a leader, as a cultural person, as a pioneer of adaptation, Ukon is a ‎role model and ‎there ‎are many things we can learn from him,” ‎Father Renzo De Luca, and Argentinian Jesuit and the director of the 26 Martyrs Museum ‎in Nagasaki‎, told Vatican Radio.   

“In this era of political distrust, I think he ‎will be helpful ‎for ‎people other than Christians.”

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