In his first meeting in Japan, Pope Francis encourages Japan’s tiny Catholic community to witness daily to the Lord by protecting life and proclaiming the Gospel of compassion and mercy.
Hardly an hour after his arrival in Tokyo from Thailand, Pope Francis met the bishops of Japan, Saturday evening, at the Apostolic Nunciature in the capital.
The Holy Father commended the Church in Japan, saying the DNA of their communities is marked by a witness to the Lord in daily life, which he said is an antidote against despair, that points out the path they must follow.
According to the Pope, protecting all life means, first of all, having a contemplative gaze capable of loving the life of the entire people entrusted to you, and recognizing it, above all, as the Lord’s gift. Only that which is loved, he said, can be saved and only that which is embraced can be transformed.
Protecting all life and proclaiming the Gospel, he pointed out, are not separate or opposed; rather each appeal to, and requires, the other. “Both entails being careful and vigilant about anything that could hinder, in these lands, the integral development of the people entrusted to the light of the Gospel of Jesus,” the Pope said.
“A Church of witness can speak with greater freedom, especially when addressing pressing issues of peace and justice in our world,” the Pope said, adding that during his visit to Nagasaki and Hiroshima on Sunday, he will pray for the victims and echo the bishops’ prophetic calls for nuclear disarmament.
The suffering caused by the two nuclear bombs and the triple disaster of a the massive earthquake that triggered a tsunami and crippled the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the Pope said, are an eloquent reminder of our human and Christian duty to assist those who are troubled in body and spirit, and to offer to all the Gospel message of hope, healing and reconciliation.
The Pope thus encouraged the efforts of the Japanese bishops to ensure that the Catholic community offers a clear witness to the Gospel amid the larger society. The Church’s highly respected educational apostolate, he noted, represents a great resource for evangelization and engagement with larger intellectual and cultural currents.
Source: Vatican News
