From Kakure Kirishitans to Takashi Nagai. Persecutions and a Bomb, Urakami, Nagasaki, Japan
A beautifully bright day with clear blue skies. But for me a sombre one. I hadn't come to Nagasaki for this, but once here could not but on my last day go to visit the Bomb Grounds. At 11.02 AM on August 9, 1945, B-29 'Bockscar' released a plutonium based atom bomb 'Fat Man' over the suburb of Urakami. Within a few seconds very many thousands were dead, evaporated even, etched into shadows. According to the memorials I saw today more than 152,000 victims all-in-all.
The Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall and the adjoining Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum are highly and emotionally impressing. Even more perhaps the single black column in a small round grassy area that was the hypocentre above which the bomb burst at about 550 metres.
From there I went to the Peace Park which has a rather bombastic and didactic if not moralistic nature partly through its pretty awful sculpture. There are also many politically motivated monuments from former East-European communist countries decrying nuclear arms. There's a nice fountain, though, surrounded by these bright azaleas and a cordon of trees. Through a gap I could see in the distance the twin spires of Urakami Cathedral devoted to Our Lady.
Only about half a kilometer away from the hypocentre, its predecessor was totally destroyed by the Bomb. But stone for stone it was rebuilt again. Today it serves as a church which reminds of that Devastation of 1945 and at the same time of the perseverance of Japanese Christians down through the centuries.
When Father Bernard-Thadée Petitjean and a confrère arrived as Catholic missionaries in Nagasaki in 1863 they set about building a church: Ôura Church near Glover Garden. Soon after its completion, on March 17, 1865 villagers from Urakami visited Fr. Petitjean. They interrogated him about his Christian faith, and satisfied with his answers told him that they were the heirs to the Catholicism preached here in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.Since those times when Christians were literally crucified in Japan, they had in view of those terrible persecutions become 'Kakure Kirishitans', Hidden Christians. Anong other 'subterfuges', their Christian art had incorporated Buddhist styles.
Another bout of hardship, bannishment, persecution followed until 1873. Then there was freedom to build their own Church at Urakami. On its completion in 1925 it was the largest Catholic church in East Asia. But in August 1945 8500 of some 12000 parishioners were dead...
This photo is dedicated to the memory of Catholic physician-radiologist Dr Takashi Nagai (1908-1951), who, though wounded, survived the Bomb. He spent the remainder of his life in service, prayer and writing for peace. He's often referred to as 'the Saint of Urakami'.
From Kakure Kirishitans to Takashi Nagai. Persecutions and a Bomb, Urakami, Nagasaki, Japan
A beautifully bright day with clear blue skies. But for me a sombre one. I hadn't come to Nagasaki for this, but once here could not but on my last day go to visit the Bomb Grounds. At 11.02 AM on August 9, 1945, B-29 'Bockscar' released a plutonium based atom bomb 'Fat Man' over the suburb of Urakami. Within a few seconds very many thousands were dead, evaporated even, etched into shadows. According to the memorials I saw today more than 152,000 victims all-in-all.
The Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall and the adjoining Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum are highly and emotionally impressing. Even more perhaps the single black column in a small round grassy area that was the hypocentre above which the bomb burst at about 550 metres.
From there I went to the Peace Park which has a rather bombastic and didactic if not moralistic nature partly through its pretty awful sculpture. There are also many politically motivated monuments from former East-European communist countries decrying nuclear arms. There's a nice fountain, though, surrounded by these bright azaleas and a cordon of trees. Through a gap I could see in the distance the twin spires of Urakami Cathedral devoted to Our Lady.
Only about half a kilometer away from the hypocentre, its predecessor was totally destroyed by the Bomb. But stone for stone it was rebuilt again. Today it serves as a church which reminds of that Devastation of 1945 and at the same time of the perseverance of Japanese Christians down through the centuries.
When Father Bernard-Thadée Petitjean and a confrère arrived as Catholic missionaries in Nagasaki in 1863 they set about building a church: Ôura Church near Glover Garden. Soon after its completion, on March 17, 1865 villagers from Urakami visited Fr. Petitjean. They interrogated him about his Christian faith, and satisfied with his answers told him that they were the heirs to the Catholicism preached here in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.Since those times when Christians were literally crucified in Japan, they had in view of those terrible persecutions become 'Kakure Kirishitans', Hidden Christians. Anong other 'subterfuges', their Christian art had incorporated Buddhist styles.
Another bout of hardship, bannishment, persecution followed until 1873. Then there was freedom to build their own Church at Urakami. On its completion in 1925 it was the largest Catholic church in East Asia. But in August 1945 8500 of some 12000 parishioners were dead...
This photo is dedicated to the memory of Catholic physician-radiologist Dr Takashi Nagai (1908-1951), who, though wounded, survived the Bomb. He spent the remainder of his life in service, prayer and writing for peace. He's often referred to as 'the Saint of Urakami'.