Local Adaptations

Controversy over the Yasukuni shrine should be of special interest to Catholics. An incident there in 1932, described by scholars such as Klaus Schatz, SJ, and others, provides a footnote to Bass’s grand themes of human rights and international law. It can also be understood as yet another variation on the political and cultural decolonization so evident since the retreat of European empires in the mid-twentieth century.

The incident began when the colonel in charge of the military-cadet program at the Jesuit-run Sophia University in central Tokyo announced that the cadets would walk to the Yasukuni shrine. As they marched across the campus, some of the Catholic cadets encountered the university’s rector, Fr. Hermann Hoffmann, a German Jesuit. They queried Hoffmann: Should they participate in ceremonies at the shrine?

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