What's new

How many catholics are there in Japan?

Hanneesh

Kouhai
22 Apr 2006
58
1
18
How wide spread is catholicism in Japan?

Is there at least one catholic church in each main area/city?
i'm a catholic and i want to keep up the faith when i go over there. I hope there are more catholic japanese than any other christian faction as catholocism is the biggest world wide. I saw an interesting picture of Japanese Mary and Jesus.
 
Yes, there are Catholics here in Japan, as the link points out, and I would think that would at least be one church in any major city--even one the size of Matsumoto.

At the same time, I think you'll find as many, if not more worshipers from the Philippines (or other people) there as you would Japanese. Also, in Japan you'll find more protestant churches than Catholic.
 
Well, my educated guess is that American missionaries pushed their book a lot harder and stronger than did the American and/or European Catholics. The catholic church seems to have been stronger before WWII, but then again, Christianity had not been so favored before that time as a whole.

The population of Matsumoto is around 210,000 people, there is one catholic church here, near the castle (downtown), but there are at least 4 protestant churches in the radius of two kilometers, and at least another 8 (one very large) in the rest of the city. (and that includes those of the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon)

Catch you later !
 
1 Catholic and 2 Protestant churches in my city

The city I live in has a population of 118,000 and 2,900 of them are foreign residents.
And we have one Catholic and two Protestant churches.
(Thousands of small shrines and temples here, by the way.)
 
Mars Man said:
Well, my educated guess is that American missionaries pushed their book a lot harder and stronger than did the American and/or European Catholics. The catholic church seems to have been stronger before WWII, but then again, Christianity had not been so favored before that time as a whole.

Well, I'll tell you quite a big reason why the Catholic Church was indeed stronger in Japan BEFORE WWII. Nagasaki used to be home to MANY of Japan's Christians (at that time, all or almost entirely all Catholic), of course I don't think I need to explain much more than that.

Perhaps the best book I can recommend to learn about Christianity in Japan after the war is God's Samurai: Lead Pilot at Pearl Harbor by Gordon W. Prange, which is also an EXCELLENT historical book as it follows Mitsuo Fuchida leading up to and during the war as well. Furthermore it's just one of the most inspiring books I think I've read in a long time, I would highly recommend it especially to Japanese Christians.
 
Thanks for the info irishlight42 san. Yes, that is what I have heard to--in fact hearing about some of the German (I think it was) Catholics had helped after the bomb had been dropped. I had used the term 'educated guess' because although I have read on it, I have not studied it in depth.

Sounds like a good book. If I ever find the time, I might check it out. Thanks !
 
irishlight42 said:
Well, I'll tell you quite a big reason why the Catholic Church was indeed stronger in Japan BEFORE WWII. Nagasaki used to be home to MANY of Japan's Christians (at that time, all or almost entirely all Catholic), of course I don't think I need to explain much more than that.
Perhaps the best book I can recommend to learn about Christianity in Japan after the war is God's Samurai: Lead Pilot at Pearl Harbor by Gordon W. Prange, which is also an EXCELLENT historical book as it follows Mitsuo Fuchida leading up to and during the war as well. Furthermore it's just one of the most inspiring books I think I've read in a long time, I would highly recommend it especially to Japanese Christians.

oh man thats tight. (manchunian expression for unfair or cruel)
i wonder how many missionaries and preachers and stuff there are.
Damn you american government!!!
i too will check out that book.
 
Hanneesh said:
oh man thats tight. (manchunian expression for unfair or cruel)
i wonder how many missionaries and preachers and stuff there are.
Damn you american government!!!
i too will check out that book.

I think you will find that the Japanese government likely did a far better job of persecuting and executing Japanese Christians as a matter of policy than the American government ever did unintentionally.
 
Noone probably cares, but here are some religion numbers I have:

Faith Adherents Percent
Shinto and Buddhist 105899800 84%
other 20171400 16%
Christian 882400 .7%
Jehovah's Witnesses 350618 0.27%
Seventh-day Adventists 29044 0.02%
Latter-day Saints 117329 0.093%

They might be a bit off but should be pretty accurate.

I can't get the rows to line up properly, sorry about that. It seems like the forums always wants to remove all my spacing..
 
I think there are quite a few Catholics in Nagasaki - mainly for historical reasons I suppose. I saw the churches when I visited last year.

My boss is Catholic, but I'm not sure where in Japan he is from.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, there's definitely pretty few Christians in general in Japan (btw, I would tend to include Mormons among Christians; yes they're different, aren't we all? Still they believe in Christ dying on the cross for all the world's sins; anyways no big deal though just saying). Yes, Christians were persecuted in Japan for many many years, but there also were indeed more Catholics in Japan before the bomb was dropped.

You'll find the book interesting though I think, not to mention probably inspiring (I found it to be), as Mitsuo Fuchida, the man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, had an incredible conversion to Christianity and was then greatly responsible for the conversions of many others to Christianity in Japan.
 
Back
Top Bottom