Photo by: Marco Carvalho
– Marco Carvalho, in Tokyo
A former student of Jorge Bergoglio during the years when the Pope was at the helm of San Miguel’s College, in Buenos Aires, Juan Carlos Haidar recalls Francis as a paternal figure and an easy-going man of a great spirituality. More than a humble and simple man, the Argentinian theologian claims, the Supreme Pontiff is a good disciple of Jesus Christ and the right person to shakedown the scandal-plagued structure of the Church. The director of Sophia’s University Catholic Center discussed the future of the Catholic Church with O Clarim in the Japanese capital.
Now that the visit of Pope Francis is already part of the past, what would you say can be the impact of this visit on the Japanese people, particularly the Japanese Catholics? The Pope’s visit was for many a sign of hope. Do you think that the seed of hope will grow and become something else?
Grace is among those things that don’t act only in one way. You have to be open to receive it, to accept it as if it is something of your own. It’s very difficult to predict how all these things will bring fruits to Japan. That it was a blessing from God is very clear. Then, it will depend on us, I think. It will depend on the way we receive that, on how we reflect on that. In my opinion, both the Japanese Church and Japanese society really needed a visit like this one. For the Japanese Church because it is very difficult to be a Christian in Japan and we all have the tendency to be exactly the opposite of what Pope Francis is. Here, the temptation is to become a little bit pessimistic, because people are working for years and years and the impression they have is that the Church never grows. In the last few years, the numbers are even decreasing, probably because the whole society is also decreasing. Nevertheless, this is never a good consolation for anyone. We feel compelled to say that things are like that, but it should probably be different with a message like Christianity. Anyway, to be a Christian in Japan is difficult and some of the temptations are disillusionment or lack of hope and Pope Francis is always filled with hope. All his messages point in that direction: “Don’t be afraid,”“Keep on hoping,” “Keep on working.” This sort of messages has the power to open some doors.
The Japanese Church faces many challenges; when you are part of a small group, another temptation is to close yourself and to say “Ok, lets keep warm inside our house,” but there are a lot of things that we can do to open those doors. One of those things is to embrace the foreigners. When we speak about the Japanese Church, many Japanese have the idea that it is the Church of the Japanese, but this perception is wrong…
There were many Filipinos, many Vietnamese and other small communities attending the Mass the Holy Father celebrated at the Tokyo Dome. They are already more numerous than the Japanese Catholics themselves, right?
Probably, yes. We don’t know for sure. That’s one of the reasons why we should act. The Church, itself, never accounted for them very well. We don’t know how many. But this is a sign that many people are not aware that more than half of the faithful are in that position. They are part of the Japanese Church, they are the Japanese Church and we have to hear what they have to say. They have a lot of things to offer, as well. I think that the event in the Tokyo Dome was a great thing also because of that. It was a very colorful and international one. But this is the Japanese Church: both the priests and the people in the stands came from very different places. There were Filipinos and Vietnamese. It was a very international Mass. I liked it very much because of that. I think it opened the eyes to many people. Then, it is Pope Francis we are talking about. He is like Jesus Christ. He always sends us outside. These two things – giving hope and telling the Church to open its doors, don’t be afraid of people who think differently from you, don’t become a sect – were very good for the Church.
He is not afraid to say the right things in the right places. In Nagasaki, he left a very important message about nuclear weapons. In Tokyo, Pope Francis asked those present not to rule their lives by the idea of competitiveness and profit. Do you think those people that went to the Tokyo Dome opened their hearts to his message?
As I told you, that’s our hope. It all depends on that. You have to have good ears to listen to Pope Francis. Before he came, one of the things we were trying to convey all the time was: “Don’t have a fixed idea about what Pope Francis is going to say. When a normal politician visits a place, you may now what he is going to say. Trump is going to talk like this, another guy will speak like that. But with Pope Francis it is not like that. In many occasions, what you see is that he will talk to the people he has in front of his eyes, he will change the message. He is being moved by the Holy Spirit, I think. But to hear all that, you need also a heart filled with the Holy Spirit. I hope that they will hear, but I think that the best … Here, in Japan, the media tried to picture his visit in these terms: the Pope is coming to Japan, because Japan is a country of peace, because of the atomic bombs and it is a good place to remind everybody in Japan. But it’s not only about that. It’s much more than that. As you were saying, Japan is a society that, in a certain sense, is living for war, not for peace. With all this competitiveness, this fixation on money, we have to be able to change this culture. It is not only about weapons or signing agreements. If you have a culture that is preparing itself for war, you will have to try and change it. It is much more important than saying “Stop the War” or “Let’s get rid of nuclear weapons.” That’s one of the messages that I loved the most: violence is everywhere. It’s in bullying, it’s in competitiveness, it is in looking at money all the time.
This was Pope Francis fourth visit to Asia. He is fully aware that our future, the future of Humanity will be, in a certain sense, gambled here. Do you think he will return to Asia in the next few years?
I have no idea. Even this trip to Japan… We met Pope Francis two years ago and he said: “I will not go to Japan.” And he came. It is very difficult to predict things in that sense. I don’t know. I have a strong impression that he would love to go to China or something of the kind. If he returns to Asia, it’s because of an exception like that. It will be very difficult, though. He is not that young and he has been in a couple of places in Asia. As I said, it is very difficult to talk about Christianity in Asia. It is really a mystery that we don’t really catch or understand. We are never sure if Asia will get the message or not or how much influence it will have. All those things are really beyond our capacity of understanding. We just work; we leave some seeds and hope that these seeds will grow. The good thing about, for example, the visit of Pope Francis is that many people got interested, both for good and for bad. If you watch You Tube you will see many criticisms, but it is a sign that something is happening. That something is happening its clear. Then, how God will work with that or what will we do with that, it is very difficult to predict. But Asia needs Christianity, desperately, I think.
You were saying that it is not easy to work in Asia. Nevertheless, for the Society of Jesus, Asia – and, particularly, Japan – is still a sort of ultimate goal. It was a dream for young Jorge Bergoglio to come to Japan. How important is the work that you make, here in Japan?
It is one fact that the Society of Jesus has been sending people to Japan for a very long time. Currently, there are not so many of us as there was in the past, because, in general, in Europe and other places, vocations are declining, but we have people of many countries working in Japan. The Japanese Province was created as an international province of the Society. It is the only place like that. When we work in Japan, we work for the whole Society. I think it is because of Francis Xavier. We all believe that he saw something here. We need to have that in mind and to respect it. I have been in Japan for 28 years and I have also been in charge of the formation of the people that come to Japan and I always say that, to work in Japan, sooner or later, you will always need a conversion. And that conversion is to learn how to leave things in the hands of God. Otherwise, you will become frustrated. When you learn to do that, you work freely and happily. But that also means that we cannot control the results. In Japan it is always very difficult to discuss things like how much, how many, when. Nevertheless, we all have this idea that the vocation of Francis Xavier to Japan was a vocation from God and there is something there. I feel the same thing. All of us are perfectly aware that God brought us here and there is a reason why we came. We don’t know it, we cannot see it, but if something has to happen, it will happen. I hope that our effort is not in vain. We are sinners, we are never at the level of what we should do, but we have had all these martyrs and people that gave their lives and I don’t think that God would have let all happen in vain. This is our hope, but it’s important to predict an outcome. It’s not for us to say. Only God will know.
Nevertheless, the Society of Jesus has been doing a very important work in Japan, without proselytizing. The Sophia University is well known for its excellence…
Well, the University… We reflect a lot about the University. We have been here for more than one hundred years and things have changed. Probably, other orders are called to other things, but I think that a thing like a University, probably only the Society of Jesus can provide. We have the people, we have the experience and I think it is important. The Japanese Church is not a big church, so most of the influential people in the Japanese Church passed through Sophia University. In Japan, also, is not very easy to measure the influence of Christianity, because neither Buddhism nor Shintoism has the idea of baptism. Many people never get baptized, but they call themselves Christians. Probably you know the fact that, when street surveys are organized and they ask people what religion they profess, the numbers of Christians are high, much higher than the official numbers. Almost ten per cent of the surveyed people say that they are Christian and we are only about one per cent. Ten per cent of the Japanese population thinks that they are Christians. Even though they think they are Catholics, they never thought about getting baptized. It is very difficult to say whom do we reach, but a lot of what we do, has to do with education, not only here at the University. I think that many of the people that studied at our University, if you ask them, they may call themselves Christians. We see many people coming back, getting baptized after ten years or fifteen years. The other day, I baptized a man who was 75 years old. In one week, I baptized two persons in their seventies. One of them was graduated and he said: “I had this conviction inside of me all my life, but I was busy with work and this and that. Now, I don’t want to die without being baptized.” Well, this was one case we were aware of, but there are thousands we cannot see. It is, in my opinion, a very important aspect and, at the Society of Jesus, I think this is what we should do. This is not only a University. It is also a mission. If we don’t do this, nobody else will do it. In Japan itself studies are a very important part of life and we Christians should be there in some way.
You have been a student of Pope Francis. How was he as a teacher? How was he as a master?
He was the rector of the college. He was in charge of the formation and he rarely taught classes, but he was in charge of our formation as priests. He was a father. It is probably the best word that you can use. I entered the Society of Jesus when I was 18 and I came to Japan when I was 26. He was there all the time when I learned a lot of things, when I was growing and committing a lot of mistakes. He is a person that you can approach very easily and you know that he loves you. It is very easy to talk with him, to go to him, open your heart and say anything. This is one aspect.
Then, he is a person that really teaches you how to look at life, in a spiritual dimension. As I said in the beginning, it is not all that easy to understand his messages. He is not a politician; he is not someone selling Christianity. He is a spiritual man. That’s a treasure. To have someone in your life that can show you what a Christian is. As a teacher, as I told you, he is a person very easy to approach. And it was always challenging, because Pope Francis always had new ideas. Christianity is always revolutionary and Pope Francis understood that. He is always breaking the limits and the things that people think that should be done. He is always bringing in new ideas and that is why it is very challenging to follow Pope Francis in a certain sense.
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