{"id":4411,"date":"2023-10-27T00:32:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T15:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/?p=4411"},"modified":"2024-06-13T23:55:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T14:55:37","slug":"nagasaki-was-a-strike-against-japan-and-the-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/news\/nagasaki-was-a-strike-against-japan-and-the-catholic-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Nagasaki Was A Strike Against Japan And The Catholic Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Victor Gaetan<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington DC (INPS Japan) \u2014 The closer we look at decisions to deploy a second atomic weapon against Japan on August 9, 76 years ago, the more morally audacious the tactic appears. Step outside the American explanatory cloud\u2014we bombed military installations to force unconditional imperial surrender\u2014defining public understanding to see: the US Government explicitly targeted civilian populations, a violation of international law and codes of military conduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diplomats and archivists at the Vatican are convinced the attack against Nagasaki was a strike against Japan and<\/em> the Catholic Church. They provide a rationale rarely discussed, in the face of general puzzlement over unexplained aspects of the tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ground Zero: A Catholic Spiritual Center<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Urakami
Urakami Tenshudo (Catholic Church) Jan.7, 1946.\/ Photo by AIHARA,Hidetsugu. \/ Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The second atomic attack was a near-direct hit on Asia\u2019s largest cathedral<\/a>, in the country\u2019s renowned Catholic settlement, Urakami, a residential district of Nagasaki\u2014significantly north of the city\u2019s commercial center and Mitsubishi\u2019s shipyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ties between Nagasaki and the Catholic Church go way back: A lord donated land to Jesuit missionaries from Portugal in 1580. The new religion spread so quickly it was outlawed as a threat to local rulers. Twenty-six martyrs were crucified in the city\u2019s hills in 1597. The only port continuously open to foreign trade, it was a stronghold of secret faith during the long suppression of Christianity<\/a> (1614-1873).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFat Man,\u201d the plutonium implosion bomb detonated over Urakami, killed about 40,000 people immediately and another 30-40,000 by the end of the year. It decimated 71 percent of the Catholic community, many descendants of the \u201cHidden Christians\u201d (Kakure Kirishitans<\/em>), who concealed faith<\/a> behind Shinto and Buddhist practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was impossible for military planners not<\/em> to know the area\u2019s history and Catholic significance. So famous was this region as a spiritual center the charismatic Polish Franciscan, St. Maximilian Kolbe, opened a monastery there<\/a> in 1930. (Eleven years later he was murdered in a concentration camp.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. required visual bombing, not radar reliance. In the late morning on August 9, bombardier Kermit Beahan recalled seeing clouds open<\/a>, and \u201cthe target was there, pretty as a picture.\u201d What does the mission\u2019s target map look like? We can\u2019t know\u2026it\u2019s missing<\/a> from the National Archives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hidden Hand Adds \u201cNagasaki\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Harry Truman learned about<\/a> the atomic weapons program when he took office. By then, operational momentum for testing both \u201cgadgets,\u201d a uranium bomb and plutonium implosion device, saturated decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Nagasaki,
Nagasaki, Japan, before and after the atomic bombing of August 9, 1945., Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A \u201ctarget committee\u201d appointed by the military, comprised of officers and nuclear scientists, zeroed in on<\/a> the least humane option: detonating the bombs to maximize damage to entire cities of at least three miles diameter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, experienced war hands such as Dwight David Eisenhower, General of the Army, and General Omar Bradley, opposed their use. Eisenhower explained later<\/a>, \u201cJapan was already defeated and\u2026dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Declassified documents portray Stimson as ambivalent: He decried civilian casualties of incendiary bombings, telling Truman<\/a> on June 6 he didn\u2019t want the US \u201cto get the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities.\u201d While in Potsdam, he went directly to the president to request protection<\/a> for the ancient city of Kyoto based on cultural value<\/a>. Stimson reported in his diary, the president concurred<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nagasaki did not show up on hit lists generated in May and June. Its mountainous, irregular terrain failed target committee preferences. Instead, the city was subjected to five rounds of brutal incendiary attacks. Top-tier A-bomb targets escaped firebombing so the catastrophic blast would get full credit for destruction. Allied POW camps in Nagasaki<\/a> argued against obliterating it, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the very last minute, Nagasaki appears as a potential target on a draft strike order dated July 24\u2014as a handwritten add-on, coinciding with the July 24 Stimson-Truman meeting on targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A typed, Top Secret document commands that the US \u201cwill deliver its first special bomb\u201d to \u201cHiroshima, Kokura, and Niigata in the priority listed.\u201d In pen, someone struck \u201cand\u201d as well as \u201cin the priority listed,\u201d inserting with an arrow \u201cand Nagasaki\u201d after \u201cNiigata.\u201d The amended strike, order with Nagasaki added, was officially circulated<\/a> the next day. According to historian Alex Wellerstein who first highlighted the document<\/a>, the hand that added Nagasaki is unidentified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Series of Unfortunate Events<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Persistent American accounts of the second bombing mission posit a series of unfortunate events<\/a>: The B-29<\/a> carrying Big Boy had fuel pump problems. It wasted inflight time waiting for a camera plane that never showed. Three times, it tried to target Kokura but couldn\u2019t eyeball the hit. Then, its next target, Nagasaki, was concealed by cloud cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japanese commentators have various theories but few think the US annihilated Urakami by mistake. Some believe the historic site was destroyed because the cathedral was used to store rice and other food supplies<\/a> for the imperial army. An immediate scapegoating reflex emerged among non-Catholic Nagasaki survivors who blamed the blasphemous worship<\/a> of a foreign god for bringing ruin to their city.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Takashi
Takashi Nagai, taken in 1946, during mourning of his wife\/ Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Several recent studies explore how Urakami\u2019s Catholic hibakusha<\/em> <\/em>(atom bomb survivors) deployed the theology of martyrdom and forgiveness to make sense of the incomprehensible. Gwyn McClelland in Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests, and Catholic Survivor Narratives<\/em><\/a> and Chad Diehl in Resurrecting Nagasaki<\/em><\/a> both point to the key role played by Dr. Takashi Nagai, a Catholic lay leader, hibakusha,<\/em> and author of The Bells of Nagasaki<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a eulogy for the dead in front of the cathedral\u2019s ruins, Nagai called the bombing<\/a> an act of providence: the sacrifice of innocent blood atoned for the sins of a world at war. This framing reassured Christian victims, but it had a silencing impact\u2014reinforcing the self-suppression they practiced for 250 years. US command helped make \u201cthe saint of Urakami\u201d a bestselling author: Nagai was the only hibakusha<\/em> allowed to publish internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, occupation forces appropriated Nagai\u2019s explanation, as did the Japanese\u2014Emperor Hirohito visited Nagai personally\u2014because it absolved both of responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Rome Believes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vatican has never publicly discussed the bias it sees behind US willingness to stab Japan\u2019s Catholic heart on Aug 9, 1945, but privately, archivists and experts in Rome remind me of an intense diplomatic row between Washington and Rome over Japan that marred relations throughout the war.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Pius
Pius XII with tabard, by Michael Pitcairn, 1951\/ Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor<\/a>, Pope Pius XII established diplomatic ties<\/a> with the imperial power in Tokyo. When the Church informed allied officials, they howled. Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles called the pope\u2019s decision \u201cdeplorable.\u201d<\/a> President Franklin Roosevelt found it \u201cunbelievable.\u201d Pius\u2019 response to Washington, according to a US envoy living in the Vatican<\/a> was self-evident: diplomatic relations don\u2019t mean approving all actions of a foreign interlocutor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interstate diplomacy is an essential way the Catholic Church protects its believers and advances its mission. When the emperor\u2019s envoys approached Rome in 1942 with a proposal Rome had long sought, the Church, pragmatically, agreed. In its view, the Church had no choice but to engage because the empire\u2019s advancing military was bringing more Catholics under Japanese control<\/a>. Protecting the spiritual interests of some 20 million Catholics in Japanese-occupied territory was a fundamental responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dealing \u201cwith the Devil in Person\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pope Pius XI once said: \u201cWhen there is question of saving souls, or preventing greater harm to souls, we feel the courage to treat with the devil in person.\u201d The Holy See\u2019s view of diplomacy as a forum for ministry to a broken world is often unappreciated by both secular and religious commentators who assume the Church should not compromise by engaging with immoral actors. Yet, in Pius XI\u2019s view\u2014as pontiffs before and since have concluded\u2014the only way to influence a malevolent regime is to deal directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Urakami cathedral suffered a direct nuclear hit and the most historic Catholic community in Japan was obliterated, the Vatican saw it as American payback for its willingness to humanize an American enemy.[INPS Japan \u2014 October 27, 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Gaetan is senior international correspondent<\/a> for the National Catholic Register<\/em> and a contributor to<\/a> Foreign Affairs magazine. His book God\u2019s Diplomats: Pope Francis, Vatican Diplomacy, and America\u2019s Armageddon<\/em><\/a> was published last month by Rowman & Littlefield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original: https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2021\/08\/nagasaki-was-a-strike-against-japan-and-the-catholic-church\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was published with author’s permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image: Nagasaki bombing from Library of Congress. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Victor Gaetan Washington DC (INPS Japan) \u2014 The closer we look at decisions to deploy a second atomic weapon against Japan on August 9, 76 years ago, the more morally audacious the tactic appears. Step outside the American explanatory cloud\u2014we bombed military installations to force unconditional imperial surrender\u2014defining public understanding to see: the US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,26,41,16,32,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-archive","8":"category-culture-art-religion","9":"category-japan","10":"category-news","11":"category-regions","12":"category-viewpoints"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4411"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7476,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411\/revisions\/7476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}