Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo, who will be installed as a cardinal on Dec. 7, spoke to the Vatican new agency Fides about the present and future state of the country.
The archbishop said that “an aging society like Japan’s will not be able to survive,” pointing to the dangers of the country’s demographic winter.
Faced with this reality, he noted that the government “is hesitant to fully accept migrants” for fear of entering into territory never previously explored in Japan, a nation little accustomed to receiving migrants.
“Until now, Japan has been a remarkably homogeneous country. However, the reality is that without the presence of migrants, Japanese society cannot sustain itself. This is a fact. It’s true that migrants come in with different types of visas but, due to the reluctance of institutions, many of them are forced sooner or later to face bureaucratic problems related to their immigration status,” he said.
Kikuchi said that Japanese society often perceives migration as a “problem” and that even within the Church there is talk of the “immigrant problem.” The archbishop believes that this language reflects the “negative perception” of many Japanese about this reality.

Bishop Ruperto Santos of Antipolo, the vice-chairman of the Philippine Bishops’ Commi-ssion on Migrants and Itinerant People, said that the Church is in solidarity with Filipino convicts abroad, Radio Veritas Asia (RVA) reported on Saturday.
“We continue to advocate for your rights and seek justice on your behalf,” Bishop Santos said in a message broadcast via Chur-ch-run Radio Veritas Philippines, while assuring them that they were not forgotten. According to the state-run Department of Migrant Workers, 44 migrant Filipinos are on death row – 41 in Malaysia, two in Brunei and one in Saudi Arabia.
Urging the Filipinos on death row to find strength in the knowledge that they are not alone, Bishop Santos emphasised that the entire nation is standing behind them, praying for them, and hoping for a “just resolu-tion,” of their cases.
The prelate made the remarks after Filipino woman Mary Jane Veloso, who spent 14 years on death row in Indonesia after being charged with drug trafficking, was reportedly being pardoned by Indonesian government.
Last week, Philippine Presi-dent Ferdinand Marcos confir-med that Indonesian authorities have approved Veloso’s repatri-ation to the Philippines, media reports say. Veloso was arrested in Indonesia in 2010 while carrying a suitcase lined with 2.6 kilograms of heroin. She was sentenced to death by firing squad.
The case of the mother-of-two sparked an uproar in the Philippines. Veloso’s family and supporters repeatedly claimed that she was innocent and had been set up by an international drug syndicate. Bishop Santos said Filipino bishops make renewed appeals to governments, particularly in Asia, to ensure the rights of migrant workers with due process and show compassion for those caught in legal battles.

St Gregory’s High School & Co-llege, a historic Catholic educational establishment in Dhaka founded in 1882. Located in the old city, it has closed its doors indefinitely after it was damaged from recent violence involving thousands of students, with at least a hundred injured, plus wi-despread destruction of its facilities.
At the same time, a leader of Bangladesh’s Hindu minority, the cleric Chinmoy Krishna Das of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), was arrested yesterday afternoon, at the capital’s airport, on charges of “sedition.” These two incidents say a lot about the early days of the country’s interim government under Muhammad Yunus. After more than one hundred days, it has failed to stop a rising Islamist wave against minorities, despite several attempts at reforms.
The Nobel Prize laureate who took over the country to lead it towards democratic elections is not living up to the hopes of those who thought that the flight of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, after 15 years in power, would allow Bangladesh to really turn the page, and build a country without discrimination and inclusive of all. On Nov. 24, around 5 pm, a mob of more than 500 unidentified people attacked St. Gregory’s High School & College. The attackers broke through the security fence, injuring two guards, Nazmul Haque and Suman Gomes, who were hospitalised. The crowd vandalised classrooms, shattered window panes, destroyed documents, and damaged CCTV cameras, even with explosives. Brother Placido Peter Ribeiro, the principal, expressed his dismay at the destruction. “This was a premeditated assault,” he said.

Catholics from South Korea and Japan have jointly marked the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of two Catholics who were martyred for their faith in Japan.
Catholics from the Archdiocese of Daegu in Korea and the Archdiocese of Nagasaki in Japan joined the ceremony to honour Blessed Kaiyo and martyr Diego Koichi, at the St. Philip Cathedral in Nagasaki on Nov. 15.
Bishop Jonh Bosco Jang Shin-ho, vicar general of the Daegu Archdiocese, cele-brated a memorial Mass on the occasion concelebrated with Archbishop Michiaki Nakamura of Nagasaki. A group of Korean Catholic pilgrims, including priests, led by the Korean Women’s Association, joined the ceremony as part of their tour of holy sites in Japan. ”Let us join hands with the two martyrs and become one in love and forgiveness,” Archbishop Nakamura said in his homily. “Let us all become one in acce-ptance, prayer, and evangeli-zation to all.”After the Mass, a wreath-laying ceremony was held at the monument to the two martyrs in the 26 Saints Memorial Hall.
The Archdiocese of Daegu and the Archdiocese of Nagasaki jointly erected and blessed this monument in 2016.The two dioceses have maintained ex-changes for a long time. The common denominator is that they are the closest countries and the churches have grown based on devotion to the two martyrs.

The Divine Mercy Chapel in Bang Bo District, Samut Prakan Province, is being hailed as a landmark of environmentally conscious design that integrates faith and care for creation. “Root-ed in the principles of Laudato si’, the chapel is built as an energy-efficient structure that respects and celebrates the natural world,” said Fr. John Wirach Amornpattana, a Redemptorist priest overseeing the project. Speaking to LiCAS News, the priest described the chapel as a tangible manifestation of Pope Francis’ call for ecological conversion.
Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato si’ addressed the global environmental crisis, urging collective action to protect “our common home.” Fr. Amornpattana said the chapel’s construction reflects the document’s principles and aligns with broader sustainability efforts. “Beyond just advocating for ecological conversion,” he explained, “Laudato si’ aligns with the global move-ment toward sustainability, as articulated in the United Nations’ Sustainable Deve-lopment Goals (SDGs). However, we must remem-ber that true care for creation springs from our faith in God as the Creator.”
The Thai Catholic Church has embraced this mission, incorporating ecological awareness into diocesan projects, schools, parishes, and community initiatives.
Fr. Amornpattana pointed to widespread efforts to instill the idea that “the world is our common home,” inspiring collective action across various levels of society.
The Divine Mercy Chapel itself exemplifies this commitment. Designed with sustainability in mind, the building features a 12-meter-high ceiling and strategically placed wall panels to optimize light and airflow.

In a video message addressed to partici-pants at the Asian Forum on “Celebrating Synodality & Indigenous Living Tradition in the Asian Church” in Nepal, Cardinal Michael Czerny, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, emphasized the importance of recognizing and dialoguing with the Indigenous peoples. “For recognition and dialogue will be the best way to transform relationships whose history is marked by exclusion and discri-mination,” said Cardinal Czerny, underscor-ing the Church’s role in fostering inclusivity.
Speaking to an audience of bishops, Indigenous pastoral leaders, priests, nuns, lay leaders, and theologians from across Asia, he highlighted the significance of indigenous traditions, wisdom, and spiritual practices, encouraging the Church to embrace these as valuable contributions to synodality. “As members of the Church in Asia, you have the opportunity to deepen your engagement with the Indigenous peoples as principal dialogue partners with their chanters, healers, herbalists, midwives, shamans, wisdom keepers, and sharers,” Cardinal Czerny said.
The forum, organized by the faith-based group Circle of Sacred Rice, provided a platform for faith leaders to reflect on how the Church can incorporate Indigenous per-spectives while advancing social justice, environmental protection, and cultural pre-servation.

The Philippine Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) announced its readiness to assist 370,000 undocumented Filipinos living in the United States who might be deported following the election of Donald Trump. The DMW is set to help returning Filipinos with financial aid and job placement, but is also consi-dering the possibility of sending workers to other countries (in particular Croatia, Slovenia, Ger-many, Hungary, and Japan).
According to Rappler, a Phi-lippine online news website, to meet its commitment to 370,000 returnees, the Philippine govern-ment would have to find 18.5 billion pesos (over 5 million) to ensure proper assistance for all. Between 2014 and 2024, about 10,600 Filipinos were expelled from the US (a thousand per year on average), including some 3,500 during Trump’s first term in office (2017-2021).
The Philippine ambassador to the United States, Jose Manuel “Babe” Romualdez, issued an advisory telling undocumented Filipinos to leave the country voluntarily. Most Filipinos in the US are granted a regular work visa, but once it expires, many prefer to stay, often working illegally.
Irregular migrants in the United States do not come only from Latin America. The latest data (2022) indicates that about 1.7 million out of 11 million are from Asia. More than half are from India and China, followed by the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, Pakistan, Nepal, Thai-land, Afghanistan, and Bangla-desh. In 2023-2024, 1,100 In-dians were deported out of an estimated population at 725,000 unauthorised Indian immigra-nts in 2022.

Founded in 2015, the Catholic University in Erbil, located in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, offers education, scholar-ships and support to the Iraqi minority groups that suffered under ISIS. In 2014, so-called Islamic State swept across nor-thern Iraq, capturing vast swathes of territory. The invasion led to mass displacement, particularly of minority groups such as Christians, Yazidis, Turkmen and Shabak. Many of these re-fugees fled to the Kurdish region of northeast Iraq, where – says Fr Karam Shahmasha, a priest of the local Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese – the local Church sought to provide them with housing, food, and medical care.
In time, Fr Shahmasha tells Vatican News, these charitable initiatives gave rise to an even bigger project: the founding of the Catholic University in Erbil, or CUE, which aimed to be a “beacon of light in the midst of chaos”. The goal was to welcome students of all backgrounds, particularly to those who had suffered the most from recent violence.
In a talk at Boston College in 2023, Archbishop Bashar Warda, CUE’s Chancellor and Chairman of the Board of Trustees, stressed that “We opened the doors of CUE to those most affected by ISIS: the forcibly displaced, the Christians, and the Yazidis … We are committed to being a strong voice for the hurt.”

On November 7, Israeli police entered the grounds of the Pater Noster Church on the Mount of Olives, briefly detaining two French security officers and igniting a diplomatic dispute. The site, managed by France for over 150 years, is one of four proper-ties in Jerusalem under French control, but this unprecedented breach has stirred deep concerns in Paris.
France’s Foreign Minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, had been set to visit the church complex–known as Eleona in French – but abruptly canceled after learning of the police intrusion, calling it “unacceptable.” France’s Mini-stry of Foreign Affairs responded swiftly, declaring it would summon Israel’s ambassador to address what it described as a violation of diplomatic protocol.

The parish priest of St Joseph’s Church in Upper Bukit Timah, Singapore, was stabb-ed during Mass on Saturday evening, re-ported Channel News Asia. Father Christo-pher Lee, 57, whose stabbing occured dur-ing Communion, was taken to Singapore’s National University Hospital and is said to be in stable condition. The attacker, a 37-year-old Singaporean, has been arrested.
According to Singapore’s Police Force, he had been disar-med by members of the congre-gation, before later being arrested by police officers, the Singapore Police Force said in a statement, noting the assailant has past antecedents for serious hurt and misuse of drugs offences. “Based on the preliminary investigations, the man,” they noted, “is believed to have acted alone and the police do not suspect that this is an act of terrorism, for now.” “The public,” the po-lice urged, “is urged to remain calm and refrain from specula-tion as investigations are ongoing to ascertain the motive behind this incident.”
Cardinal William Goh, the head of the Catholic Church in Singapore, said he was “shocked and deeply saddened that violence has been committed against one of our beloved priests in the house of God while he was celebrating Mass.” “I am also very concern-ed,” he added, “about the psy-chological impact this incident may have had on our children and all who witnessed this attack.” “I ask,” Cardinal Goh urged, “the faithful to remain calm, not to speculate on the incident or pass judgment without knowing all the facts. We must allow the authorities to investigate the matter.”