One of Japan’s foremost Church leaders has called for an honest examination of Japan’s past colonial policies.

Leo Jun Ikenaga, archbishop of Osaka and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan, made the appeal ahead of next month’s 10 day peace activities, when Japanese Catholics commemorate the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, from August 6, the date the atomic bomb was dropped, until August 15.

Referring to the centenary of the 1910 annexation that made Korea a colony of Japan, he said “it is essential that we all re-examine everything related to Japanese colonialism, including the responsibilities of the Catholic Church in Japan, at this important turning point in history. What happened and what sort of harm did it bring to others?”

His remarks echo the Bishops’ Conference ‘Appeal for Peace’ in 2005, which urged a retrospective acknowledgement and reflection on Japanese military aggression in World War II.

“Courageously owning up to our sins before God and seeking His forgiveness is not an act of self-abasement,” he said in a statement, “but rather a way for us to become truly human in the way demanded by Christ.”

“This year, voices speaking out for peace in Japan and abroad have swelled into a thunderous cry,” he continued. He offered the international moves toward nuclear abolition and the reaction against the Futenma military base in Okinawa as examples of the calls for peace.

He also mentioned Nagasaki’s famous “Bombed Maria” statue, which was recently exhibited in New York by Archbishop Joseph Mitsuaki Takami, to advocate nuclear disarmament. “We all bear a responsibility to the future and our first obligation is to heed the cries of victims,” said Archbishop Ikenaga.

This August, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is scheduled to visit Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

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