"We must all unite against this culture of bullying and learn to say ‘Enough!'

"It is an epidemic, and together you can find the best medicine to treat it."

"Bullies are afraid, and they cover their fear by showing 'strength'" the Pontiff said.

He made the comments while talking with students in Japan, and was responding to testimony from students who recalled the pressures they face in a hyper-competitive society.

The students described their feelings of inadequacy and the cruelty they sometimes face from their classmates, saying bullying and cruelty sometimes drive young people to suicide.

An alarming rate of suicide is one of the significant issues facing Japan, and Francis again returned to the topic when visiting with the country's bishops.

Francis urged the country's bishops to cater to young people in particular since they are the most prone to commit suicide and are "thirsting for compassion."

"Try to create spaces in which the culture of efficiency, performance and success can become open to a culture of generosity and selfless love, capable of offering to everyone — not only to those who have ‘made it' — the possibility of a happy and successful life," he said.

"With their zeal, ideas and energy, young people — when well-formed and accompanied — can be a deep source of hope to their contemporaries and bear vital witness to Christian charity."

The suicide problem started in Japan in the late 1990s and reached a peak in 2003 when 70 people committed suicide each day.

Although suicide rates have fallen, now the subject of discussion within the country is the issue of secondary school students and also younger primary school students who commit suicide.

Last year in Japan, more than 300 students took their own life.

Government data shows that depression, the pressure of family life and work-life, and bullying are the main causes.

Sources

• RNS
• AP News

Kawasaki, 69, is one of a dwindling number of Japan's "Kakure Kirishitan," or "Hidden Christians," descendants of those who preserved their faith in secret during centuries of persecution.

His unique faith blends Buddhist, Christian and Shinto practices, and its ritual chants combine Latin, Portuguese and Japanese.

The Hidden Christians have garnered fresh attention ahead of Pope Francis's visit to Japan on Nov. 23-26, with domestic media and a French broadcaster heading to Nagasaki to report on them. Last year, 12 Hidden Christian-related locations were designated UNESCO World Heritage sites.

But their religion may be on the verge of extinction as youth leave rural areas, where the faith has persisted.

"I worry that what my ancestors worked hard to preserve will disappear, but that is the trend of the times," said Kawasaki, who prays each evening at home before the altar, flanked by others devoted to Buddhist and Shinto gods.

"I have a son but I don't expect him to carry on," he added. "To think this will disappear is sad, without a doubt."

Centuries of suppression

Jesuits brought Christianity to Japan in 1549, but it was banned in 1614. Missionaries were expelled and the faithful were forced to choose between martyrdom or hiding their religion.

Many joined Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines to disguise their beliefs, and some rites such as confession and communion, which require a priest, disappeared.

Other rituals blended with Buddhist practices such as ancestor worship or indigenous Shinto ceremonies.

Handed down orally and in secret, "orasho" chants - from "oratio" in Latin - combined Latin and Portuguese with Japanese, their meanings mostly symbolic.

When Japan's ban on Christianity was lifted in 1873, some Hidden Christians joined the Catholic Church; others opted to maintain what they saw as the true faith of their ancestors.

"They didn't want to destroy the faith they had preserved all along despite suppression," said Shigenori Murakami, the seventh-generation head of a group of Hidden Christians in Nagasaki City's Sotome district, the setting for Martin Scorcese's 2016 movie "Silence" about persecuted Christians.

Pope Francis is expected to speak of Hidden Christians when he visits a martyrs' monument on Nishizaka Hill in Nagasaki, southwest Japan, where 26 Christians were executed in 1597.

"I think there is a high likelihood that he will send a message about the Hidden Christians," whom he has mentioned in the past, Kagefumi Ueno, a former Japanese envoy to the Vatican, told reporters.

"The pope has said the fact that in Japan there were Christian people who maintained their beliefs for two and a half centuries under great suppression holds a big lesson for the present." Continue reading

He says it's been difficult for the Church to move into mainstream Japanese society, which has faced persecution and genocide since 1549.

"In Japanese society, it is difficult to find tangible success in missionary activities," he says.

The Catholic schools' foreign language education, helped and was a powerful tool for cross-cultural pollination after World War II.

Foreign languages were in demand for high-paying positions in international business and politics.

However, over the years English education has become compulsory in most schools. In addition, the country is "overflowing" with foreign-language crammers known as eikaiwa.

These two factors have largely killed the foreign language classes that were once a staple of Catholic missionary activity.

Furthermore, Kikuchi says the country's nominally Catholic schools are beginning to abandon cultural education through language instruction.

"A Catholic school may be the place to meet many young people, but unfortunately ... it has not become a place for missionary activities."

Schools have historically been Catholicism's last strong foothold in evangelisation in Japan. Nonetheless, Catholic high schools and universities have endured and even strengthened in Japan, even though Catholicism is waning.

Catholic universities are still greatly respected today.

However, Kikuchi says that this ongoing prestige has come with a hefty cost.

"While the schools should be independent from national politics, unfortunately they are tied up with subsidies from the country, and thus they are gradually losing their uniqueness, with only the name ‘Catholic' remaining," he said.

"Many priests, religious and the laity are completely losing their involvement with them."

The Church in Japan has also helped in recent disaster relief projects, including the huge 2011 earthquake and tsunami which Kikuchi speaks of as " works of mercy".

While he acknowledges works of mercy might not lead immediately to baptisms, he hopes those touched by the Gospel spirit would be led to the Church.

The presence of foreign Catholics in Japan is the Church's second most powerful evangelization tool, Kikuchi says.

Among these are 250,000 Filipinos, who with their families make up large portions of Japan's laity, attending masses and integrating into religious communities in the towns and countryside.

Encouraging foreign nationals to become aware of their missionary vocation as Catholics is a priority, Kikuchi says.

"Pastoral care for foreign nationals in the Japanese church is not merely a service to welcome [guests], but rather a duty to make them aware of their vocation as missionaries."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Vatican News