On the Question of the Ancestor Venerationin the Contemporary Japanese Catholic Church
In comparison to other Christian confessions, Catholic Church has the longest history of missionary work in Japan. Nevertheless, it is still facing a lot of problems in adaptation of its doctrines and rituals to the Japanese soil. One of the main issues in this process is the attitude of the Church to the ancestor cult which is deeply rooted into Japanese culture, religion and society, and to the complex of Buddhist-style burial and memorial rites connected with it. Nowadays Japanese Cath- olic Church prefers to compromise its teachings with the Japanese tradition, trying65to justify the rites of the ancestor cult from the Christian point of view. However, such inclination of the Church at some point comes into contradiction with the official policy of Vatican and with the original Christian doctrines.