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Abe Keita (Franciscan priest) |
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I ended my 7 years living in Ikuno (Osaka) and this summer I was transferred
to Kawasaki. Since there are things I was not able to write in my series
of articles of this bulletin, I will do it now from a different perspective.
First, when I expressed my wish that I wanted to live near Ikuno's Korean
town, in order to participate in the local activities there, I was allowed
to do it under the condition that I return to the monastery, during the
weekends, and participate in the liturgical prayers with the others there.
One of the community members advised me not to try to get active in changing
the surroundings. Instead, he said, I would better share the pain and the
reflections of those persons overrun by officials and Japanese society.
This advice was somehow unexpected. The reason was that the image I had
of dedicating myself to the local people had been much influenced by the
work done by the small communities of several religious congregations living
in Sanya and Kamagasaki during the 80s. At that time, lectures on Liberation
Theology were frequent and the so-called 'prophetic' communities that were
small worked locally in social issues. Small-scale community building inserted
among the people and with a prophetic role was highly evaluated and communities
were established in several places. There are only a few left now. The
methods of evangelization and the actual needs have changed and also vocations
have diminished. All these can be counted as reasons.
Again, there were other reasons why I felt that the advice given to me
was unexpected. My participation in local activities will presuppose that,
by taking action, some visible results will appear, but seeing the lack
of priests working in parishes why to do that? Will not be more effective
to train lay people in the parishes and to conduct volunteer services through
them? What is the meaning of living in a rented apartment and participating
in local activities if nobody gets baptized? No matter this thinking and
the pressure exerted by parishioners, the opinion mentioned above was going
against the current.
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Through my involvement with local people I felt again that effectiveness
is still a high value in Japanese society as well as in the Church, and
that was implied to me by members of my Congregation that were against
my opinion.
For instance, in the activities of the local community there are cases
of success as well as of failure, and when one compares the reactions of
the local community with those of Church people, there is, certainly, a
difference in that the local community does not question effectiveness,
while Church people do it. Such reaction is somehow expected. In Japan,
to produce results and to be useful and able to do something are highly
evaluated and the fact that the Church is influenced by such value systems
should not be considered strange.
There are reasons why local people do not question results. In the case
of Ikuno, Christians started various activities there that began as an
answer to the needs of the local people. Some of those activities developed
into big-scale institutions and yearly events, or human rights movements
that though sued the official policies of the government often lost the
trials. Nevertheless, in spite of acting without visible results of victory,
people living in that region showed sympathy to such action for the people
suffering from oppression, realizing that it gives them strength to continue
fighting together.
It can be concluded from this, that the important thing is not to do this
or that or to produce results, but it is also rather important to be with
the people and to learn from their situation. This is my honest impression
in participating in the activities of the people with whom I was living.
Once again, I feel grateful for the advice I received before going to live
in Ikuno.
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