Imperial Family of Japan and Christianity
There is a well known fact in Japan that the Imperial Family is somewhat intimate with Christianity, or especially with the Vatican.
The agency that is in charge of managing imperial family affairs is called Imperial Household Agency (Kunai-Cho) under the current Consttution.
In 1949, the name of Imperial Household Office was changed to the Imperial Household Agency. In this way, the Imperial Household became an external agency of the Prime Minister's Office.[1]
In 2001, the Imperial Household Agency was organizationally re-positioned under the Cabinet OfficeThe first director-general of the Agency is Michiji Tajima (1885-1968) who was a member of nonchurch movement Christians. Tajima, an elite businessman and also a councilor of the Bank of Japan, was a zealous follower of prominent Japanese Christians Inazo Nitobe (1862-1933) and Kanzo Uchimura (1861-1930).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Household_Agency#Imperial_Household_Agency.2C_1949.E2.80.93present
The head of office to take care of the Emperor concerning his private and public activities is called the Grand Chamberlain (Jijyu-cho). The Grand Chamberlain when Tajima was the director-general of the Imperial Household Agency after WWII was Takanobu Mitani (1892-1985), an ex-elite diplomat. Mitani kept this position closest to the Emperor from 1948 to 1965. Mitani was also a Christian. He was also a follower of prominent Japanese Christians Inazo Nitobe and Kanzo Uchimura.
In 1949, a prominent Japanese economist was appointed to a councilor for the Imperial Family. It is Shinzo Koizumi (1885-1966) who had studied in European universities in the era of WWI. Koizumi became in charge of individual tuition of the then Crown Prince of Japan, the current Emperor. Koizumi received baptism with his daughter in the wake of the death of his grandchild, namely a child of his daughter, after WWII.
Tajima appointed Takeshi Usami (1903-1991) as his successor, namely the second Grand Chamberlain. Usami was an ex-elite bureaucrat of the Japanese Government. And, Usami was also a Christian.
When the three figures, Tajima, Mitani, and Usami had a strong influence on the Imperial Family and Christian economist Koizumi was educating the then Crown Prince, marriage of the then Crown Prince was conducted. And, a young lady who married the eldest son of the Emperor was not from an ex-imperial relative family or a house of ex-nobility associated with the Imperial Family. In other word, she was from commons. So, the new crown princess was the eldest daughter of the president of Nisshin Seifun Group Inc. (Nisshin Seifun is a major flour-milling company in Japan her grandfather founded.) And, naturally, it was expected that she would become Empress of Japan in future. Indeed, she is now Empress of Japan. Yet, her father was a Catholic. She learnt in a Christian female university. This was unthinkable in Japan, even if it was after WWII.
The Imperial Household Council held a meeting on November 27, 1958. The chairman was the then prime minister Nobusuke Kishi who asked, for confirmation, Grand Chamberlain Usami whether or not the young lady, the focus of this meeting, received baptism to be a Christian. Usami replied that she did not. Subsequently Imperial Family members who attended the meeting agreed with the proposal about the marriage of the Crown Prince. Then other members followed suit. Miss Michiko Syoda became future Crown Princess. An hour later, this decision was announced to all over Japan through radio.
In this way, a young lady who was somewhat close to Japanese Catholics became Crown Princess and eventually Empress of Japan.
Moreover, the eldest son of the incumbent Emperor and Empress, namely incumbent Crown Prince, married a young lady who learnt in a Catholic primary school and whose sisters received baptism to become Catholic.
So, the Imperial Family of Japan, whose family religion is 2000-year long shintoism (indigenous religion of Japan), is somewhat linked to Catholicism which had history of 2000 years.
Or we might have to say that the Imperial Family of Japan is somewhat surrounded by Japanese Christians or especially by Japanese Catholics.
(to be continued...)
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The 3/11 Tsunami of Japan carried a 140 ton very-large and mighty rock on a shore for 450 meters (1300 ft.) into an inland damaging a road, houses, etc.
A grave meaning of the 2011 3/11 Disaster of Japan is that it is a very rare incident in an advanced country of today that 20,000 citizens lost lives in one single natural disaster, a great tsunami, that occurred in a few hours after an M9.0 earthquake.
If 50,000 American lost their lives in one single natural disaster, it would have a significant impact on the minds of all the Americans.
So, the aftermath of the 3/11 Disaster still continues in Japan along with the ongoing trouble of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Mat 11:25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.