Japanese Bishops’ Extraordinary View on the Use of Natural Law

In 2013 the Roman Curia published a questionnaire in preparation for the October 2014 Synod of Bishops on the family. I took a look at it early on with a view to responding and soon gave up; I’ve rarely seen a more tortuous and convoluted example of Geek-speak. Thankfully, some enlightened dioceses – including our own A&B - produced simplified versions, but I suspect that much goodwill and momentum had already been squandered.  

Few countries have made public the full results of their own national questionnaire (although Germany, which has a few axes of its own to grind, was an early exception).

Now Japan is the first Asian country to publish the results of its survey, according to today’s ‘Sunday Examiner’ newspaper, which is published by the Bishop of Hong Kong.

The Japanese bishops, in a report on the survey, complain that when Church leaders cannot justify things, they ‘call it natural law and demand obedience on their say-so.’ The bishops further question why natural law needs to be taught if it is indeed natural, and add that, in Japan, ’it is perceived as abstract and out-of-touch.’  

Not surprisingly, the questionnaire found that Japanese Catholics absorb many of their post-modern society’s views on divorce, remarriage, contraception and abortion

However, there was one aspect of the Church’s activity in Japan that was new and surprising to me. Apparently, as a way of introducing people to the Church, Japanese priests (with Rome’s permission) have been conducting marriages according to the Church’s rites between two non-baptised and non-believing persons…in other words between a male non-Christian and a female non-Christian. There is some pre-marital instruction on the Church’s vision of marriage, and there can be no canonical impediments to it ‘though individual pastors generally tend towards leniency.’

Well…

I was concerned that the Synod of Bishops on the family might be a non-event. Maybe not, for it seems that we have bishops looking for …forms of communications that persuade rather than instruct, that rely on informed consent rather than obedience, and that lead to an infectious joy in living and sharing Christ’s message - rather than the undertaking of a half-hearted duty...as a recent posting put it.Springtime for Adult Formation in A&B?