The oman Catholic Church held its first-ever beatification ceremony in Japan on Monday for 188 martyrs who refused to give up their religion despite persecution centuries ago.At the ceremony in Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins delivered blessings on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI on those killed between 1603 and 1639. Beatification is a stage that comes before sainthood inCatholicism.Among those blessed on Monday were Julian Nakaura, who was a member of a delegation sent to Rome to receive blessings from the pope, and Petro Kibe, who was the first Japanese to visit Jerusalem.The beatification ceremony in Japan was realised 27 years after then Pope John Paul II told an archbishop in Nagasaki during his trip to the country in 1981 that Japan is a country of martyrs and that they should be recognised.Since then, the Catholic community in Japan had made preparations for the ceremony, and Pope Benedict decided in June last year to hold the event.Before Monday’s ceremony, which was organised by the Japanese Catholic Church, 42 people from Japan had reached sainthood and 205 Catholics with ties to the country had been beatified — all at the initiative of the Vatican.
