Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States has been picked to be the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church; he will be known as Pope Leo XIV.

Now, as greetings resound across the Pacific and globally, attention turns to what vision the first US pope will bring.

Change is hard to bring about in the Catholic Church. During his pontificate, Francis often gestured toward change without actually changing church doctrines. He permitted discussion of ordaining married men in remote regions where populations were greatly underserved due to a lack of priests, but he did not actually allow it.

• READ MORE: ‘Leone!’ Vatican crowds hail Leo XIV as new pope of the Catholic Church
• Papua New Guinean Catholic students extend congratulations to Pope Leo

On his own initiative, he set up a commission to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons, but he did not follow it through.

However, he did allow priests to offer the Eucharist, the most important Catholic sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, to Catholics who had divorced and remarried without being granted an annulment.

Likewise, Francis did not change the official teaching that a sacramental marriage is between a man and a woman, but he did allow for the blessing of gay couples, in a manner that did appear to be a sanctioning of gay marriage.

To what degree will the new pope stand or not stand in continuity with Francis? As a scholar who has studied the writings and actions of the popes since the time of the Second Vatican Council, a series of meetings held to modernize the church from 1962 to 1965, I am aware that every pope comes with his own vision and his own agenda for leading the church.

Still, the popes who immediately preceded them set practical limits on what changes could be made. There were limitations on Francis as well; however, the new pope, I argue, will have more leeway because of the signals Francis sent.

The process of synodality
Francis initiated a process called “synodality,” a term that combines the Greek words for “journey” and “together.” Synodality involves gathering Catholics of various ranks and points of view to share their faith and pray with each other as they address challenges faced by the church today.

One of Francis’ favourite themes was inclusion. He carried forward the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the Holy Spirit — that is, the Spirit of God who inspired the prophets and is believed to be sent by Christ among Christians in a special way — is at work throughout the whole church; it includes not only the hierarchy but all of the church members.

This belief constituted the core principle underlying synodality.

Francis launched a two-year global consultation process in October 2022, culminating in a synod in Rome in October 2024. Catholics all over the world offered their insights and opinions during this process.

The synod discussed many issues, some of which were controversial, such as clerical sexual abuse, the need for oversight of bishops, the role of women in general and the ordination of women as deacons.

The final synod document did not offer conclusions concerning these topics but rather aimed more at promoting the transformation of the entire Catholic Church into a synodal church in which Catholics tackle together the many challenges of the modern world.

Francis refrained from issuing his own document in response, in order that the synod’s statement could stand on its own.

The process of synodality in one sense places limits on bishops and the pope by emphasising their need to listen closely to all church members before making decisions. In another sense, though, in the long run the process opens up the possibility for needed developments to take place when and if lay Catholics overwhelmingly testify that they believe the church should move in a certain direction.

Change is hard in the church
A pope, however, cannot simply reverse official positions that his immediate predecessors had been emphasising. Practically speaking, there needs to be a papacy, or two, during which a pope will either remain silent on matters that call for change or at least limit himself to hints and signals on such issues.

In 1864, Pius IX condemned the proposition that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.”

It wasn’t until 1965 – some 100 years later – that the Second Vatican Council, in The Declaration on Religious Freedom, would affirm that “a wrong is done when government imposes upon its people, by force or fear or other means, the profession or repudiation of any religion. …”

A second major reason why popes may refrain from making top-down changes is that they may not want to operate like a dictator issuing executive orders in an authoritarian manner.

Francis was accused by his critics of acting in this way with his positions on Eucharist for those remarried without a prior annulment and on blessings for gay couples. The major thrust of his papacy, however, with his emphasis on synodality, was actually in the opposite direction.

Notably, when the Amazon Synod — held in Rome in October 2019 — voted 128-41 to allow for married priests in the Brazilian Amazon region, Francis rejected it as not being the appropriate time for such a significant change.

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, expresses joy and gratitude following the election of Pope Leo XIV.https://t.co/r2GClc7hyM

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) May 9, 2025

Past doctrines
The belief that the pope should express the faith of the people and not simply his own personal opinions is not a new insight from Francis.

The doctrine of papal infallibility, declared at the First Vatican Council in 1870, held that the pope, under certain conditions, could express the faith of the church without error.

The limitations and qualifications of this power include that the pope:

• be speaking not personally but in his official capacity as the head of the church;
• he must not be in heresy;
• he must be free of coercion and of sound mind;
• he must be addressing a matter of faith and morals; and
• he must consult relevant documents and other Catholics so that what he teaches represents not simply his own opinions but the faith of the church.

The Marian doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption offer examples of the importance of consultation. The Immaculate Conception, proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in 1854, is the teaching that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was herself preserved from original sin, a stain inherited from Adam that Catholics believe all other human beings are born with, from the moment of her conception.

The Assumption, proclaimed by Pius XII in 1950, is the doctrine that Mary was taken body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life.

The documents in which these doctrines were proclaimed stressed that the bishops of the church had been consulted and that the faith of the lay people was being affirmed.

Unity, above all
One of the main duties of the pope is to protect the unity of the Catholic Church. On one hand, making many changes quickly can lead to schism, an actual split in the community.

In 2022, for example, the Global Methodist Church split from the United Methodist Church over same-sex marriage and the ordination of noncelibate gay bishops. There have also been various schisms within the Anglican communion in recent years.

The Catholic Church faces similar challenges but so far has been able to avoid schisms by limiting the actual changes being made.

On the other hand, not making reasonable changes that acknowledge positive developments in the culture regarding issues such as the full inclusion of women or the dignity of gays and lesbians can result in the large-scale exit of members.

Pope Leo XIV, I argue, needs to be a spiritual leader, a person of vision, who can build upon the legacy of his immediate predecessors in such a way as to meet the challenges of the present moment.

He already stated that he wants a synodal church that is “close to the people who suffer,” signaling a great deal about the direction he will take.

If the new pope is able to update church teachings on some hot-button issues, it will be precisely because Francis set the stage for him.

Dr Dennis Doyle, is professor emeritus of religious studies, University of Dayton. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

The Timorese Press Council today asked journalists to avoid being “messenger boys”, referring to the publication of a statement about former Timor-Leste president Xanana Gusmão’s controversial visit to a former priest accused of child abuse without identifying the source.

“Journalists are urged to reflect on their role in society and to refuse the function of mere passive message transmitters, messenger boys,” said a statement released today by the Press Council (Conselho De Impreza or CI).

The note was distributed after a press conference to analyse the Timorese media’s coverage of the visit that Gusmão made in late January to the house where former Father Richard Daschbach, accused of paedophilia and other crimes , is under house arrest.

• READ MORE: Church demands Timor-Leste faithful accept defrocking of accused priest
• Pedophile former priest evades justice in Timor-Leste

The Press Council said that five Timorese media outlets – the public news agency Tatoli, the online newspaper Oekussi Post, the private television GMN and the newspapers Diário and Independente – covered the visit, relying exclusively “on a statement delivered by the delegation of Xanana Gusmão”.

“The journalists replicated the statement, made few or no changes to the press release, not attributing its origin, and did not go further in the coverage,” Virgílio Guterres, president of Press Council told reporters today.

The council also highlights that in three media outlets the text was signed by a journalist, “which constitutes (…) plagiarism”.

For the Press Council (CI), there was “a total dismissal of journalistic activity, not checking, not looking for the contradictory, not diversifying sources, not looking for rigour and truth”, violating the law and the journalistic code of ethics and discrediting an activity that or “vigilant of the instituted powers and of the Democratic Rule of Law”.

‘Absence of plurality’
The council questions the “absence of plurality”, when the five outlets published “equal” texts, and the fact that the texts contain “omissions that make the news biased, not effectively fulfilling its mission to inform”.

Guterres said that the statement “aimed at an objective, like any public act, in which journalists agreed to participate, choosing to defend a particular interest rather than the public interest”.

After the criticism that the news provoked, some newspapers chose to correct the reference to Daschbach from priest to ex-priest, “but without any explanation for this change”, deleting or altering other paragraphs.

The published texts also feature a long biography of the target, “omitting relevant information”, including the fact that he was expelled from the Vatican and was accused of the crimes of paedophilia and child pornography.

“By referring in his biography only to positive facts of his journey, the media thus contribute to convey a false image of the target, disagree with reality, in a clear whitening process”, he maintains.

In addition, the texts have references “that are clearly assumed as rhetorical resources to awaken feelings of compassion and empathy in the reader”.

Guterres considered that the coverage “failed, by not presenting relevant journalistic facts”, being “unbalanced, with the intention of changing the public opinion about the accusation against the former priest”.

Reporting facts without fear
Asked by Lusa about whether the Timorese “media” were afraid to cover this case, Guterres recalled that this was the first time “that a member of the clergy is brought to justice” in Timor-Leste.

The important role of the Catholic Church in society, he said, had led to a less-than-expected media reaction, although some publications, such as Tempo Timor, had been essential in making the case known.

“We recognise that the fear-inhibiting effect exists. But now we need to report facts without fear,” he said.

Regarding the coverage of the case by Tatoli, the fact that it was a public news agency should demand increased responsibility, and its journalists “must have honesty and humility to recognise failures and mistakes and accept criticism,” he said.

Last week, the Timorese Episcopal Conference called on the Catholic community in Timor-Leste to respect Pope Francis’ decision to expel Daschbach from the priesthood.

In October last year, the representative of the Holy See in Dili told Lusa that the Vatican “has no doubt” that the former priest is guilty of these crimes.

Daschbach, 84, detained in 2019, is accused of abusing at least two dozen children at the orphanage where he worked, Topu Honis, located in the Oecusse enclave.

In September last year, the Attorney-General, José da Costa Ximenes, confirmed to Lusa that in addition to the crimes of child sexual abuse, the Public Prosecutor’s Office accused Daschbach of the crimes of child pornography and domestic violence.

The penal code provides for maximum sentences of 20 years in prison for sexual abuse of children under 14 years, increased by one third if the victims are under 12 years old.

A pastor has been shot dead at the weekend allegedly by the Indonesian military, sparking protests by church groups and a call for an investigation.

The pastor, Rev Yeremia Zanambani, was killed on Saturday in the Hitadipa district of Intan Jaya regency, Papua.

He was the former chairperson of the GKII Hitadipa district churches, vice-chairman of the Moni Bible translator, and also head of the STA Hitadipa school.

• READ MORE: Churches union condemns shooting that killed pastor in Papua, urges Jokowi to take action

Neighbourhood community sources in Hitadipa village confirmed the shooting.

“This pastor went to to his pig pen in Bomba, a village not far from Hitadipa, to feed pigs. His body was just found this morning with his hand cut and shot,” the source said on Sunday.

Previously, the Indonesian military (TNI) had warned the Hitadipa communities to immediately return two weapons that had been allegedly taken by the National Liberation Army of West Papua (TPNPB) from the Hitadipa Koramil post.

Killing condemned
The Jakarta Post reports that according to leaders of the Indonesian Evangelical Christian Church (GKII) and local media in Papua, the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) chairman, Gomar Gultom, had alleged that Zanambani had been shot by TNI personnel at the same time that a military operation reportedly took place.

“I strongly condemn the shooting that killed pastor Yeremia Zanambani,” Gomar said yesterday.

Gomar said reports that the PGI had received differed from the account of the military, which published a statement on Sunday claiming Zanambani had been shot by an “armed criminal group” in the area.

The GKII, PGI executives and figures of the Moni tribe in Papua – an indigenous group to which Zanambani belonged – were currently investigating the incident, Gomar said.

Suara Papua articles are republished by the Pacific Media Centre with permission.

Church groups and human rights advocates are holding the Duterte administration accountable for the spate of attacks which killed 10 activists in a span of two days.

The slain victims were two religious leaders in Luzon and eight Lumad indigenous activists massacred in Mindanao.

In an protest rally at the Boys Scout Circle in Quezon City on Tuesday, progressives condemned the killings of civilians and activists, either in military operations, or assassination-style by suspected military death squads.

The attacks, they said, were reminiscent of the open fascist rule during the Marcos dictatorship and during the “undeclared martial law” under the administration of President Gloria Arroyo.

The protesters, led by Karapatan, the Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR) and Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) vowed to also raise the level of opposition to “state terrorism” and call for justice in a big protest in Luneta, Manila on December 10 – International Human Rights Day on Sunday.

“Indeed, this fascist and terrorist regime has turned the entire country into a killing field,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay in a statement.

Since Sunday, December 3, Karapatan has been sending out one urgent alert after another, about various human rights violations happening all over the country.

‘Open targets’
The human rights group denounced how unarmed civilians have become “open targets by state security forces, emboldened and reassured by their commander-in-chief”.

At 10:45 on Monday night, December 4, Catholic priest Marcelito “Tito” Paez, 72, died from nine gunshot wounds in a hospital where he was rushed after being attacked by motorcycle-riding men. He was the first Catholic priest killed extrajudicially under Duterte.

On December 3, Pastor Lovelito Quiñones, 57, was shot dead by the Police Regional Mobile Group in Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro. Karapatan cited that the Army’s 203rd Brigade claimed the victim was a “New People’s Army guerrilla,” which his relatives rejected and said the RMG planted a .45 calibre pistol as “evidence”.

Quiñones, a pastor of King’s Glory Ministry, was on his motorcycle heading home in Don Pedro village when he was shot in the chest. The Army’s 4th Infantry Division alleged that there was an encounter in the area.

On the same day in South Cotabato province in Mindanao, eight Lumad residents were shot dead by a composite team of soldiers of the 27th Infantry Battalion and Philippine Marines in sitio (subvillage) Datal Bong Langon, Ned village, Lake Sebu.

Killed were: Victor Danyan, Victor Danyan Jr., Artemio Danyan, Pato Celardo, Samuel Angkoy, To Diamante, Bobot Lagase, and Mateng Bantal. Two others were wounded: Luben and Teteng Laod.

• More Philippines stories

Nueva Ecija priests led by Bishop Robero Mallari are appealing to the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte to seek justice for the death of 72-year-old retired Filipino social activist priest Marcelito “Tito” Paez who has been gunned down by unidentified assailants in Jaen town.

The slain priest visited New Zealand in November 1990 as a member of the Philippine delegation to the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) conference at Pawarenga marae, north of Hokianga.

“Kami ay nanawagan na sa mga kinauukulan sa pamahalaan na bigyang linaw at katarungan ang kanyang kamatayan [We are calling on authorities in the government to shed light on the killing and give justice to his death],” the priests said in a statement signed yesterday by Bishop Mallari.

READ MORE: Duterte declares New People’s Army a ‘terrorist group’

Two motorcycle-riding attackers killed Paez in Sitio Sanggalang, Barangay Lambakin, on Monday.

The victim was on his way home to Barangay Baloc in Sto. Domingo, Nueva Ecija and was onboard a Toyota Innova with plate number AAB 2391 around 8 p.m. when the attackers shot Paez with a .45-calibre pistol.

He was rushed to a hospital in San Leonardo, Nueva Ecija, but died there while undergoing treatment.

A day before he was slain, Paez helped facilitate the release of political detainee Rommel Tucay, a peasant union organiser of the Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luzon, who was abducted and tortured in March 2017 allegedly by state security forces.

Championed peasant rights
Paez dedicated most of his life to defending the rights of Filipinos, especially the rights of poor workers and peasants, according to the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose, Nueva Ecija where Paez served as a priest starting in 1984 when the parish was established until he retired in 2015.

“Sa kanyang paglilingkod sa Simbahan, siya ay aktibong nakisangkot sa mga usaping panlipunan, lalo na sa mga usapin na may kinalaman sa karapatang pantao, magsasaka, at mahihirap [In serving the Church, he involved himself in social issues, especially on those that had to do with human rights, farmers, and the poor],” said Mallari.

The bishop added that Paez was also part of the Catholic Church’s Social Action Commission and headed a unit within it called Justice and Peace Office, whose main goal is to help ensure the rights of the poor and the marginalised, especially that of workers and farmers.

Paez, former parish priest of Guimba town, was also the coordinator of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines in Central Luzon.

In the 1980s, Paez also became a leader of the Central Luzon Alliance for a Sovereign Philippines, which campaigned for the removal of the US military bases in the region.

The left-leaning Bagong Alyansang Makabayan yesterday condemned “in the strongest terms” the killing of Paez, who the group said was among the founders of Bayan in Central Luzon and “the first Catholic priest to be killed under the Duterte regime”.

Bayan denounces killings
Bayan also denounced the killing of Pastor Novelito Quinones, who was slain reportedly in Mindoro last Sunday, during an anti-rebel police operation in the province.

“He was later made to appear as a member of the NPA (New People’s Army) even his congregation attests otherwise” the group said.

Bayan likewise condemned the attempt to serve a warrant of arrest against PISTON transport group leader George San Mateo “who faces trumped up charges for allegedly violating Commonwealth Act 146, a law that dates back to 1936.”

“The case is pure harassment and indication,” it said.

“These attacks come in the wake of Duterte’s threats of a crackdown of legal activists, and his slandering of mass organisations as mere legal fronts of the CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines),” said Bayan.

• More Philippines stories

Imagine your Catholic parish priest rushing or abruptly ending a mass because his wife or his child met an accident. Or that priest is budgeting a part of a parish’s funds for his wife’s and his children’s needs.

Such scenarios are not impossible if married men are allowed to be ordained as suggested recently by Pope Francis, say Filipino canon law experts and priests.

“What if in the long run such marriages of these ‘married priests’ won’t last,” asked Father Stephen Mifsud, MSSP.

“So we’ll have another case of separation or divorce. What will parishioners say?”

These concerns are just some of the reactions generated by Pope Francis’ previous statement that the Church should be open to allowing married men to enter the priesthood.

The statement was made as the Church is grappling with the declining number of priests and the aggressive proselytising by other Christian sects, including evangelicals.

“What the Pope seems to be considering lately, especially in places where there is a dearth of priestly vocations, is the possible ordination of married men to the priesthood. [This is for] men who have not made a vow of celibacy,” Bishop Pablo David of the Diocese of Caloocan in Metro Manila said in a Facebook post.

Married priests exist
Bishop David explained that there were married priests in other parts of the world, as in the case of Anglican priests who converted to the Catholic Church and the non-celibate clergymen of the Eastern Orthodox churches.

In the Philippines, about 60 married priests who are now living with their respective families have formed a group called the Philippine Federation of Married Catholic Priests (PFMCP).

Members of the 25-year-old PFMCP have asked the Vatican to recognise their group but have yet to receive a response.

The PFMCP is one of four federations of married Catholic priests worldwide, the others being continental networks: the North Atlantic Federation, the European Federation and the Latin American Federation.

PFMCP member Father Jose Elmer Cajilig said that in the group’s seeking of Vatican recognition, married priests are a reality.

“Even in Europe, there are many married priests in the ministry,” he said in Visayan dialect.

Cajilig had his priestly faculties suspended by the Archdiocese of Jaro in Iloilo province (central Philippines), but he continues to minister in the area.

‘I’m still a priest’
Cajilig currently lives with his common-law wife and four children, and hears mass on two chapels there on Sundays.

“Although, I’m no longer part of the Archdiocese of Jaro, I’m still a priest. My masses are still valid,” Cajilig said.

Father Jim Achacoso, a canon lawyer and consultant of the Philippine Catholic bishops’ Episcopal Commission on Canon Law, said the ordination of married men is not the same as allowing clerics to marry.

“What Church law demands is perpetual celibacy in its ordained ministers. So even if married men were ordained, it would mean that they will have to remain celibate thereafter. The prohibition to get married comes with ordination,” Achacoso said.

He explained that married men who are capable of exercising the ministry with all its demands should also live in “complete and perpetual chastity”.

And as for PFMCP, Achacoso said the group’s members have proven themselves “incapable of being faithful to their first love”.

For Bishop David and Achacoso, only those married men who can give up married life can be ordained.

Pope Francis open
In an interview by German weekly Die Zeit in March, Pope Francis acknowledged that there was a shortage of clerics due to what he described as a “vocation crisis”.

When the magazine asked Pope Francis if he was open to ordaining married men of proven virtue, or viri probati, the pontiff agreed.

The pope also maintained that optional celibacy was not the solution to the problem.

The Vatican processes at least 500 married priests a year who want to return to the ministry.

But some priests are open to the idea of ordaining married men.

Like Father Mifsud, a Maltese missionary serving in Bataan province (north of Manila, on Luzon Island), who said the Catholic Church had been losing adherents to other religious groups because of the lack of priests.

“If viri probati is a solution, why not? Because of the decline in vocations, we could be losing our Catholic faithful to other sects —as we have already experienced in some parts of the country where there are less priests,” Father Mifsud said.

Catholic priest ratio
While about 85 percent of the 100 million Filipinos in the Philippines are Catholics, there are only 9,433 priests, according to the 2016-2017 Catholic Directory of the Philippines. Thus, the ratio is a Catholic priest for every 8,500 Filipino Catholics.

The ordination of married men would be one way to allow the Church to reach the “ideal” ratio of one priest for every 2,000 parishioners, Father Mifsud said.

But canon lawyer Monsignor Rey Monsanto disagreed, saying the move may “create a lot of chaos”.

“This [ordination of married men] will give a precedent and priests may just get married and later go back to the Church,” Monsanto said.

He said such arrangements might bring more confusion and could put the requirement of priestly celibacy in jeopardy.

“This will be tantamount to having optional celibacy, which is not in the purview of the Church,” Monsanto said.

Father Casibjorn Guy Quiacao is an MA in Communication student at the University of Santo Tomas, and produced this story for the graduate class Global Journalism Practice and Studies.

• Read more University of Santo Tomas Journalism stories

Today, Martin Scorsese’s Silence will have its premiere at the Vatican, where it will be screened to hundreds of Roman Catholic priests.

The famed director’s first foray into East Asia links to familiar themes of Catholic guilt and redemption, as he portrays the brutal 17th century persecution of Jesuit missionaries and their converts in Japan.

Scorsese’s film, which will open here in January, is an adaptation of Japanese author Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel Silence. It tells the story of two Portuguese Jesuit priests (Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield) who travel to Japan at a time when Christianity was banned to find their mentor (Liam Neeson) and support the local converts.

The pair are imprisoned and tortured.

The characters of the priests Cristóvão Ferreira and Sebastian Rodrigues were based on Portuguese and Italian Jesuits found in the historical record.

Endo’s novel (沈黙）describes the hostile environment that leads to the missionary priests’ relinquishment of faith. They were forced to place their feet on fumi-e （踏み絵) – religious images – to demonstrate that they had given up all faith.

Rodrigues (played by Garfield in the film), believes he hears Jesus’ voice telling him to apostatise by stepping on the fumi-e.

‘Hidden Christianity’
The remaining Christians went underground. The persecution continued until the ban against Christians was removed in 1873. But the indigenous Japanese who returned to Catholicism in the 1870s after 250 years of “hidden Christianity” remembered their long period of “betrayal”.

Most descendants of the native Christians lived in Nagasaki during World War II. On the 9 August 1945, when the United States dropped the A-bomb on Urakami, a northern suburb of Nagasaki, 8500 of the 12000-strong Catholic Christian community were among the dead.

The bomb was meant to target Nagasaki city, but because the Americans were low on fuel and clouds opened above the northern suburbs, the eventual Ground Zero happened in Urakami.

Its cathedral – the biggest Catholic church in Asia at the time – was only 500m from Ground Zero.

Nagasaki Catholics remember the A-bomb in particular ways, as I show in my research on memory in Nagasaki. My work has involved interviewing nine Catholic survivors of the atomic bombing, as well as three other non-Catholic survivors, and members of the Urakami community.

The Catholic interviewees explained that their grandparents had been exiled to other regions of Japan in the 1860s and 1870s due to their return to Catholicism after 250 years of “hidden Christianity”.

One interviewee, Matsuo Sachiko, explained that her grandmother was a double survivor, having first survived the Christian exile (referred to as the 4th exile) imposed by the government in 1867-73 and then later, the 1945 atomic bombing. She says:

Bombing survivors
“Yes… my grandmother was one of the Urakami Fourth Exile survivors and at that time there were still some of those survivors who were alive… these people still believed, everyone was able to stick at it and get through… Within their testimony, they didn’t talk about their pain.”

Orphaned Ozaki Tōmei adopted a new name after the bombing, as a novice at a Polish monastery in Nagasaki. Normally Japanese monks would adopt the name of a Western saint, but he selected a Japanese saint, Ozaki Tōmei, who is a child martyr of 1597 from Nagasaki.

Ozaki remembered his mother telling him that the 26 martyrs of 1597 were marched directly past his childhood home in the middle of winter on the way to their execution.

The child martyr Ozaki had been separated from his mother and was marched to Nagasaki from Kyoto. Along the way, he was able to write a letter to his mother, in which he reflected on the “transience of the world”.

My informant Ozaki linked his own experience to this boy of 1597, writing:

“The experience of the atomic bombing was exactly like that. Everything in the world is breakable and vanishes. As far as the atom bomb went, there was nothing to be known of reality which was not destroyed.

“Koware-iku sonzai ni tayotte wa naranai. We cannot depend on a life so fragile. Nonetheless, after that, staring at reality, what I saw was the indestructible God’s existence.

“The Lord God who holds all created things, the source of love and life is the God I know. This is also the source of faith.”

Tragic loss
Despite the destruction around him and the tragic loss of his mother, Ozaki, orphaned monk and survivor of the atomic bombing, held on to the faith of his ancestors.

His resilience might be considered one fruit of the missionaries whose ambivalent lives are depicted by Scorsese in Silence. Ozaki turned 88 this year and continues to write prolifically on his blog.

Silence was originally controversial among Christians in Japan for the perceived faithlessness of its priest protagonists. Nevertheless, Scorsese’s film version – which has taken 27 years to make – is eagerly awaited in Nagasaki, where the descendants of the hidden Christians still continue to be a practising community of faith.

The 26 Martyrs’ Museum, just down the road from the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, frequently posts updates on the progress and making of the movie on its blog.

Meanwhile, another interviewee, Matsuzono (a pseudonym) told me:

“Soon Martin Scorsese will release the movie, so the things we locals talk about will spread around the world…”

Gwyn McLelland is an oral historian and associate, Japanese history, Monash University. He is currently completing his PhD dissertation at Monash University on the basis of oral history interviews conducted amongst Catholic survivors of the atomic bombing. He was the beneficiary of a Japan Study Grant from the National Library of Australia in 2015. This article was first published by The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.