August 9th, 1945.
On this date, the most devastating single act of violence in history was committed against the home of Christianity in the East when American forces dropped an Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.
The city had a long and mystical relationship with the Catholic faith since 1549, when Saint Francis Xavier arrived at Kagoshima in Japan. The great Jesuit brought with him teachings of Christ and the Catholic faith.
The initial years of Japanese Christianity were a success and brought many baptisms and conversions to the faith. The Jesuits continued the success they experienced in other areas into the city of Nagasaki. So prolific were they in inspiring the Nagasaki people to follow Christ and to embrace his church that the area became known as 'Little Rome'.
The Japanese had converted to Catholicism in droves, estimates state that 130,000 had converted by 1579.
It was at that time the largest non European ruled Christian nation. The Jesuits, joined by the Franciscans and Dominicans, had successfully won over locals.
Domestic tensions would soon impinge upon this success.
A ban on the Jesuits in 1587 arose from Japanese native Toyitomi Hideyoshi, hoping to stamp out the influence of Christianity and the Jesuits in particular, upon the Japanese. Incidents like the San Felipe, where it was alleged Jesuits were a precursor to invasion, only made the situation worse.
In 1597, the Japanese church began the first of its many sufferings, when the executions took place of the men who became the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki. Like our Blessed Lord, these men were crucified and pierced with spears, they were composed of Franciscans and Jesuits.
In 1615, Christianity was completely prohibited from Japan and missionaries were ordered to leave. Many stayed, even though persecutions followed. On September 10th 1622, 56 Christians were burned alive or beheaded at Nagasaki.
The following centuries were equally bleak for Christians in Japan.
Many tried to live their faith in secret but were forced to trample on an image of Christ or Mary once a year in order to prove that they were not secret Christians.
Despite their great suffering and the lack of priests to say Mass, the underground Church of Nagasaki was a place where Christians kept their faith from generation to generation. Anywhere they could, they prayed together, in secret and with great love for the Mystical Body of Christ.
In 1865, after Japan had been reopened to non natives, a French priest by the name of Bernard Petitjean was approached by some of those remnant Christians.
One of them whispered that she believed as he did and asked to see an image of the Virgin Mary. The priest was stunned to find that they'd baptised their children for centuries and kept the faith alive.
Most of the hidden Christians of that area were from the Village of Urakami.
In thanksgiving for the Lord's presence, they decided to build a Cathedral on the grounds of the land where they had been forced to trample on Our Lady's image. The Church of the Immaculate Conception that was built there was the biggest in Asia.
The Cathedral was completed in 1925 and became a sign of hope for Christians leading in to the future. 20 years later, 95% of Japan's now blossoming Catholic Church lived in Nagasaki.
After 250 years of exile, Japanese Christians finally had reasons for optimism.
Unfortunately, some in the United States had other plans for Japan's Christians.
On August 9th 1945, as the local Catholics prepared for the Feast of Immaculate Conception, the pilots of the Boxscar were instructed to look for the spire of the Urakami Cathedral as they dropped the 'Fatman' bomb.
Under orders from Harry Truman, a Freemason, the United States dropped its 2nd Atom Bomb in 3 days. The destruction was unimaginable.
Fulton Sheen would later associate the viciousness of the atomic bomb attacks with the moral disorder of the world afterwards, seeing it has having opened up a new system where the ends justified the means in all circumstances and man was capable of using technology to inflict hell on Earth.
The bombing in Nagasaki happened at 11.02 am as many attended Mass.
In the death toll
-8,500 of the 12,000 Christians
- 3 separate orders of nuns
- An entire Catholic school
There were stories of nuns singing as they made their way through the streets after the blast, many dropping dead on the street as they did so.
Christians now make up only 1% of the wider Japanese population.
We can pray and hope that these near 500 years of suffering and hiding will reap many rewards for the descendants of Christians in centuries to come, the blood of the martyrs will always be the seed of the church.