Japan: Shigemi Fukahori, Catholic and Nagasaki Survivor, Dies at 93

Shigemi Fukahori was 14 years old when the United States dropped the bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, killing tens of thousands of people, including his family. He was working that day in a shipyard about 3 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. It occurred three days after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, which killed 140,000 people. Japan then surrendered, ending World War II.

He often spoke to students, hoping they would take up what he called "the staff of peace." In 2020, Shigemi Fukahori represented the bomb victims at a ceremony, declaring his "commitment to peace … so that Nagasaki will be the last place where an atomic bomb is dropped."

August 9, 1945, 11:02 a.m.

Japanese radiologist Paul Nagai, a convert from Shintoism and baptized on June 9, 1934, at the age of 26, witnessed the nuclear explosion descend on the city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, in the Catholic neighborhood of Urakami. His wife, who was in their home near the epicenter of the explosion, was reduced to a few bone fragments, including those of her hand wrapped in her rosary.

He was in a hospital, which was further away from the explosion. Thus. he remained alive but irradiated. Suffering from leukemia due to his professional activity, the disease was aggravated by the radioactivity. He died on May 1, 1951. On May 3, 1951, his coffin was carried to the cathedral where the funeral Mass was celebrated by Bishop Yamaguchi in the presence of 20,000 people. The congregation accompanied the deceased to the cemetery where he was buried next to his wife, Midori.

On November 23, 1945, a funeral service was held for the victims of the bombing at the site of the destroyed Notre-Dame Cathedral. Various testimonies from members of the clergy were read, and the Bishop of Nagasaki asked Paul Nagai to bear witness on behalf of the laity. His words, of high Christian elevation, deeply touched the Japanese people, and the entire world. Here are excerpts:

"In an instant, 8,000 Catholic souls were sent to the judgment seat of their Creator, and a devastating fire reduced this Christian city to ashes in a few hours. That same day at midnight, the cathedral caught fire and was destroyed."
 

"On August 15, the Imperial Edict ending the fighting was promulgated, and peace began to shine upon the world once again. On that day, the Church celebrated the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, to whom our cathedral was dedicated. Can all these coincidences be fortuitous? Can we not rather see in them the delicate work of God's will?”

"Nagasaki, until then a 'reserve target,' was finally chosen [by the Americans]. I learned that, when the bomb was dropped, the wind blew it north of the munitions factories that were the target, exploding over the cathedral. Thus, the Urakami district was never targeted by the American pilots. But it was God's Providence that guided the bomb."

"Could there not be a mysterious connection between the cessation of the war and the destruction of Urakami?" 

"For our humanity, heir to the sin of Adam and the blood of Cain, for our humanity that turned to idols, forgetting its divine filiation, for this humanity ignorant of Charity and hating it, wounding itself... for all these horrors and hatreds to end and for the blessings of peace to flourish again, for this great redemption, repentance was not enough; a suitable sacrifice was required to obtain God's forgiveness.”

"Our church in Urakami kept its faith intact for 400 years in a Japan that proscribed it. It endured many long persecutions. And throughout this war, she never ceased to pray for the return of peace. Was this church not worthy of being chosen as a holocaust on God's altar, so that tens of millions of people would no longer perish, victims of the ravages of war?”

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. It is faithfully and to the end that we must travel our painful path. As we follow it, hungry, thirsty, despised, scourged, sweating, we will surely be helped by the One who carried His Cross to the summit of Calvary: Jesus Christ."

"'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord.' Let us thank Him that Urakami was chosen for sacrifice. Let us be grateful to Him since, through this sacrifice, peace was restored to the world and the freedom to believe in Japan."