Chinese bishop focused on adapting faith to Communist Party ideals, Shanghai Catholics say

Sydney, Australia, May 13, 2017 / 06:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics in the Australian state of New South Wales applauded the rejection of bills in the upper house of the parliament that would have legalized abortion.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher, O.P…. […]

Tokyo, Japan, Nov 20, 2019 / 05:25 pm (CNA).- Though it is mostly an irreligious country, seemingly untroubled by matters of the hereafter, Japan is over-run with festivals and holidays dedicated to the Buddhist and Shinto gods.

Few contemporary Japanese people claim any affiliation with a specific religion, and even fewer of those religious citizens claim devotion to any particular sect or discipline.

According to the most recent available data, approximately 35% of Japanese people claim Buddhism as their religion, while around 3-4% claim Shinto or associated folk religions. Only 1-2% of Japanese claim Christianity as their religion, and only around half of Japanese Christians are Catholic.

However, despite the minuscule portion of the general population that actively affiliate themselves with Shinto temples and claim to abide by the Shinto worldview, around 70% of Japanese report participating in some annual Shinto ceremonies.

These ceremonies include Tanabata, the star festival, wherein families visit temples and shrines in order to write wishes on slips of paper and hang them from bamboo plants.

The festival’s mythology claims that the day is the annual meeting of two gods, one male and one female, who are separated lovers – Orihime and Hikoboshi. Tradition states that these two spirits are separated by the Milky Way, and that when there is no rain on the seventh day of the seventh month of the year, the two can be together.

The celebration is so widespread that even Tokyo Disneyland performs a special event for the day, casting Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse as the separated god and goddess in love.

Another example of common Shinto-influenced celebrations is Obon, a week-long festival far more solemn than the joyful, carefree festivals of spring and early summer.

Obon is a week-long holiday dedicated to deceased ancestors. Many families come together from across the country to meet at ancestral homes, cleaning graves and leave offerings for the spirits ancestors, including sake and rice.

But are these Shinto holidays off-limits to Catholics?

“A few years ago, the Committee on Inter-religious Dialogue of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan issued a guideline on this matter,” Archbishop Isao Kikuchi told CNA, ahead of Pope Francis’ Nov. 23-26 visit to Japan.

“In the case of community traditions, there is no problem participating in the event.”

That’s because, according to the committee’s findings, these festivals often carry no spiritual weight for participants.

“In many cases, members of the community do not find religious implications for these events. But rather, they see it as an opportunity to strengthen the community spirit of the neighborhood.”

These Shinto “community events” can perhaps best be compared to, for instance, Halloween in the United States.

While for some Christians, Catholics included, All Saints Day and All Souls Day are very real and religiously charged days on the liturgical calendar, many people celebrate the holiday of Halloween with no awareness of its actual spiritual significance.

The reality of Shinto celebrations (and to a lesser degree Buddhist celebrations) in Japan are largely the same.

However, Archbishop Kikuchi made one clear distinction on the subject of these holidays.

“It is not recommended to actively participate in worship at places such as in a Shinto shrine.”

The Japanese bishops have warned against certain forms of participation in these community festivals that still swerve too close to expressions of real religious devotion. While many visitors to shrines and temples around these times of year are not directly engaging with any religious worship, others can toe the line or fully cross it, the bishops warn.

For example, a common ritual at shrines during the holidays is to toss money into the open area in front of the main worship area, clap thunderously to scare away evil spirits, then clasp your hands and close your eyes in prayer. While there can be debate over what exactly the average Japanese means when they say they “pray” during these events, the practice is still universally condemned for Catholics in the country.

Additionally, a Shinto totem known as a mikoshi is often carried through the streets on festival days. A mikoshi is considered by Shinto believers to be a portable vehicle through which to transport gods and spirits from one shrine to another.

These miniature shrines are carried on the shoulders of dozens of town volunteers, each shouldering a small portion of the very heavy religious object. The transport of mikoshi often brings with it parades, chants, and religious dances.

Mikoshi, too, are strictly banned for Catholics.

The bishops do not see these universally important days in the Japanese calendar as obstacles to evangelization. Instead, they want to break them down and reshape them into something Catholics can use for their own spiritual lives.

And most importantly, it seems that they want to keep Japanese Catholics from being alienated entirely from Japanese life.

“In addition, many parishes have incorporated in their liturgical calendar Japanese customs having no religious character, such as the blessing of children aged 7, 5 and 3,” the archbishop explained.

A few Catholic parishes have even begun to shift their celebrations of the dead, usually reserved for October and November, to August to match with Obon.

“The Church can […] turn such occasions into opportunities for evangelization,” said Archbishop Kikuchi.
 

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Sydney, Australia, Feb 20, 2020 / 05:15 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Anthony Fisher, O.P., of Sydney said Mass Thursday to open formally the cause of beatification of Eileen O’Connor, the foundress of Our Lady’s Nurses of the Poor, who died at a young age.

Born in Melbourne in 1892, Eileen suffered an injury at the age of three that would leave her paralyzed for some years and then confined to a wheelchair and in pain for the rest of her life. Together with Fr. Edward McGrath, she founded a ministry to serve the poor in their own homes in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She died at the age of 28, in 1921.

“I think the youth of Eileen focuses attention far more on the brief period of her activity,” Fr. Anthony Robbie, a priest of the Archdiocese of Sydney and postulator of O’Connor’s cause, told CNA Feb. 20.

“We’re focused much more intently on the particular luminosity of the character that the Servant of God shows under stressful circumstances, perhaps brought on above all by the physical frailties that she suffered during her life. And she’s a hidden soul in many ways, again imposed by her illness.”

O’Connor “was a humble soul deeply in love with God, and so her writings, which take the form mostly of letters and spiritual conferences she gave to her companions in the little work of Our Lady’s Nurses of the Poor, are very uplifting and beautiful expressions of affection and attachment to God, and the motivation of charity, which inspired all of the great works that she accomplished,” the priest reflected.

Her witness of sanctity comes “above all from the effect she had on the people around her,” he said.

“They were absolutely devoted to her, they called her ‘the little mother’, and they loved her … And that degree of affection in which she was held never diminished over the years, not just by women who joined the community, but others who saw her example were just amazed and delighted.”

O’Connor and McGrath founded Our Lady’s Nurses of the Poor in 1913 to care for the poor and sick.

Today, Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor continue their ministry in Sydney, Newcastle, and Macquarie Fields.

“In Eileen’s day they were laywomen; later on, they formed themselves into a religious community of sisters under vows, and they’re still religious sisters today,” Fr. Robbie explained.

“It’s always been small; it was never above 30 people, it now hovers around 10 members. It’s a very small but very good group of devoted women,” he added.

More than 1,000 people assisted at a Feb. 20 Votive Mass of Our Lady at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney formally to launch the cause for O’Connor’s beatification.

During his homily, Archbishop Fisher called O’Connor a “faithful lay-woman, mystic and foundress, renowned for works of mercy, whom we hope one day to call Australia’s second saint!”

“An unwavering devotee of the Blessed Virgin, she experienced a visitation from her and agreed to offer up her suffering for Our Lady’s work,” the archbishop stated.

He added that when O’Connor’s body was translated to a convent in Coogee 16 years after her death, it was found to be incorrupt, and pilgrims continue to visit her tomb.

Because of the continual devotion to O’Connor, in 1962 the then-Archbishop of Sydney approved a prayer for her beatification, and in 1990 a preliminary investigation of her merits was permitted.

In 2018, the bishops of the province unanimously voted to initiate her cause, and the Holy See granted her the title Servant of God in confirmation of the work thus far.

“The time is now ripe for a more thorough examination of her cause, to pray that there may be many miracles to credit to that cause, and to hope that the Church may eventually raise her to the altars,” Archbishop Fisher said.

He noted that “for a century now the Catholic faithful have kept alive the memory of the Little Mother, cherishing the woman, her character and wisdom, her foundation and apostolates … And for a century now believers have received many answers to prayers to and through Eileen.”

“Popular devotion to her even in her life-time has not diminished since her death, even in a culture increasingly deaf to the supernatural and disrespectful to the handicapped.”

Fr. Robbie explained that at this point in the cause, “the process involves a forensic examination of her life, to find the presence of what we call heroic virtue in the Servant of God. If the panel of historians produce sufficient information in that regard, and the Roman authorities are satisfied by it all, then they accept this cause, [and] declare her venerable.”

Archbishop Fisher preached that “She certainly seems to have done ordinary things in an extraordinary way and extraordinary things ordinarily, like so many saints. Frail, crippled and in pain, she reached out to others and was tireless in their service. She gave her all to God, her sisters, the sick poor. Amidst all her troubles, she was united to Christ and Mary, drawing strength and inspiration from them.”

Fr. Robbie emphasized that should she be declared venerable, “at that point we will start investigating the existence of miracles” worked through her intercession, “and the nature of the miracles.”

“The main focus of this investigation is into the virtues of her life,” he added. “The saints are there both to provide example and intercession.”

Michelle Climpson is a young Sydney woman devoted to O’Connor, who credits that devotion to helping her through a grave illness.

She told CNA that in June 2016, when going to donate blood she discovered that her hemoglobin was “very low.”

Sent to the hospital to have the matter examined, it was found she had a form of leukemia and would need a bone marrow transplant.

“Hearing that news … was very scary. And my mum is actually the one who introduced me to Eileen O’Connor. We started to go see her in Coogee and went to a few Masses where she lays,” Climpson said.

“Pretty much just from the first time I was there I wrote … for her to help me be cured, and every time I had a massive treatment … I just took all of my prayers to her, and I continually prayed to her every time it got a bit rough.”

Climpson said, “I just put all of my attention into praying to her. And so now I am in remission, and in June it will be four years since I was diagnosed.”

She added that “I’ve always prayed, and I have always gone to Church, but I think this has definitely heightened it … I always ask for Eileen’s help all the time now, it really has increased my faith.”

“It definitely helped me to get through to the other side, now I’m living a normal life, I got married, and I think my faith really helped me get to this point, and I’m very, very, very grateful.”

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