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Similar considerations were voiced at a press conference given by Bishop Lawrence Nagae of Urawa, Japan, who maintained that Catholicism had made such slow progress in his country (with 300,000 Catholics) because its presentation had been too Western. "If Catholicism is to be recognized and accepted by the working class, which makes up the bulk of the Japanese population, it is necessary for the Catholic Church to appear as a very modern and dynamic spiritual and social force." The Catholic Church must have something special to say to modern man and something special to give him, he went on. "Modern Japan, seeing only ceremonies and institutional practices in the Catholic Church, considers the Catholic religion on a par with its own traditional religions, outdated and defunct, incapable of making any serious and worth-while contribution to modern Japanese life."
He therefore called for a simpler liturgy and a more direct approach, so that the people might be able "to participate more immediately with the priest." He also called for the elimination from the liturgy of elements such as genuflections, which, he said, stemmed from Western culture and were meaningless to the Japanese. "In our country, where we make a profound bow to show reverence, we would prefer to use that motion in place of the genuflection." Other ceremonies and symbols, too, were unintelligible to the Japaneseーfor instance, the kissing of objects during liturgical services. This practice should be made more infrequent, he said, since "the kiss in the Orient is out of place." He also said that the sign of the Cross should not have to be made so frequently.
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