Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Takamatsu (Agenzia Fides) – Fr. Antonello Iapicca, of the clergy of the Diocese of Takamatsu, sent the following memories of Bishop Joseph Fukahori, Emeritus Bishop of the Diocese, to Agenzia Fides.
“He left this world in silence, the humble and simple silence that characterized the over 20 years of his ministry as a Pastor in Takamatsu, Japan. Bishop Joseph Fukahori, age 84, passed away on September 24, 2009, received into the loving arms of Our Lady of Ransom.
No more than two days ago, he suddenly awoke almost miraculously after a long sleep, to greet a group of thirty young people from the Diocese who had come to his room, with the desire to visit a living saint. It was as though he wanted to pass on this testimony of a life spent for the Gospel and for the Church to that group of young people that he had baptized and formed in the faith. As occurred with John Paul II, it was the youth, the hope of the Church that is always renewed, those who were the witnesses of his birth into eternal life. For them, Bishop Fukahori spent his last strengths, the same that – filled with apostolic zeal – had led the smallest diocese in Japan with prophetic spirit.
Takamatsu, like Bethlehem, small and with a future without priests to minister to it, saw a miracle take place twenty years ago, when the Bishop and Servant of God John Paul II called for the establishment of the International Diocesan Seminary “Redemptoris Mater” for the evangelization of Japan and Asia. Thirty priests now working in Japan, Asia, and in other parts of the world have been formed there. Today, twenty years later, we see how prophetic Bishop Fukahori's decision was” in nearly all the dioceses of Japan, there are seminarians from other Asian countries, to help face the lack of vocations.
With the Seminary, Bishop Fukahori promoted the New Evangelization in his diocese, calling on several “Families in Mission” of the Neocatechumenal Way, who for years have been giving of their lives, along with their numerous children. Through them, many Japanese have had the grace of meeting the Lord, in schools, in the workplace, and in various sectors of daily life.
Bishops Fukahori wanted a new Holy People that would be light, salt, and yeast in modern Japan, which he had lived in through war, the post-war era, and that he saw was being blinded by the vain prosperity that had come to it. There was an economy that could meet the needs of the flesh, perhaps, but was leaving the spirit more and more empty, with suicides and alcohol as the causes of death in tragic proportions, like a nuclear war – testimony of the urgent need for evangelization that would reach every Japanese person. This is what Bishop Fukahori lived for.
Japan is a difficult land, almost impenetrable, apparently interested in novelty but profoundly rooted in its own traditions and immobile in that sense. It is not easy sowing the Gospel. You need credibility, real testimony, that the seed dies in order to penetrate into the depths and bear lasting fruit. The sufferings and difficulties that Bishop Fukahori lived, thanks to the prophetic weight of his decisions, often misunderstood, made him precisely this small seed in the earth, even more so through his total dedication to the Church and his limitless love that kept him always smiling and full of peace even in the difficult moments, his silence was full of mercy and with his “blood” of spiritual martyrdom he sprinkled this arid land.
The footprints of genuine love left behind by Bishop Fukahori in his governance of the diocese and accepting of God's will...are the greatest heirloom left to the Diocese of Takamatsu and the Church in Japan. Only this love to the extreme will be able to evangelize Japan; only in the living presence of Christ and his Paschal Mystery can this generation be led to Heaven. It is Jesus that each Japanese person awaits in his life. Bishop Fukahori showed us the way, marking the path towards authentic evangelization, with his life. (Agenzia Fides 30/9/2009)
