Published on December 6, 2019.
This chapter introduces Masayuki Takayama’s serialized column “The Pope and Donations,” published in Shukan Shincho.
It discusses the establishment of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire, the destruction of pagan faiths, the killing of Hypatia, indulgences, inquisitions, witch hunts, Jesuit missions in Japan, hidden Christians, Vatican finances, the Pope’s visit to Japan, and the issue of donations.

December 6, 2019.
The believers became angry, attacked her, scraped the flesh from her entire body with oyster shells, and brutally murdered her.
Christianity was characterized by its intolerance and cruelty toward other religions.
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s serialized column, which closes the issue of Shukan Shincho released yesterday.
This essay too proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
The Pope and Donations.
The Roman emperor Constantine was the first to permit the propagation of Christianity, which had been treated as an evil religion ever since Nero.
In the Roman Empire at that time, in addition to the gods of Greek mythology, people freely worshipped the Middle Eastern god Mithras, the Egyptian goddess Isis, Baal, whom the Jews regarded as their archenemy, and others.
Christianity was now formally added to these faiths.
But the believers were not satisfied with that.
They incited Emperor Theodosius to make Christianity the state religion and to ban all other religions.
The believers thoroughly destroyed Delphi, the sacred place where the Greek gods were worshipped, and smashed the temple of Baal, just as Gideon had done in the Old Testament.
When the believers began loudly speaking of “the miracles of Jesus, who healed incurable diseases and raised the dead,” Hypatia, the beautiful philosopher of Alexandria, criticized them, saying, “Superstition should not be taught as truth.”
The believers became angry, attacked her, scraped the flesh from her entire body with oyster shells, and brutally murdered her.
Christianity was characterized by its intolerance and cruelty toward other religions.
Churches were built in the centers of towns, people attended Mass every week, and when babies were born, baptismal ceremonies were conducted there.
Each time, the church demanded large donations.
Catholicism especially emphasized sin and made money by selling indulgences at high prices.
It also eagerly carried out inquisitions and witch hunts.
Wealthy Jews were targeted, their thumbs were crushed, and during inquisitions in which they were made to wear heated iron shoes, once they confessed to being witches, they were burned at the stake and their property was confiscated.
The Vatican, the headquarters of the church, hated the Amish.
They lived according to the Bible and did not go to church.
If they did not come to church, no donations or baptism fees could be collected.
Therefore, whenever they were found, they were immediately killed.
Kanzo Uchimura, who advocated non-church Christianity, would also have been destined to be killed had he lived in a different age.
In the sixteenth century, the Jesuits also came to Japan to propagate narrow-minded and cruel Christianity.
Oda Nobunaga, like Constantine, allowed it, saying that “the seven sects have merely become eight,” but they soon revealed their true nature.
Ukons Takayama, the Christian daimyo who entered Takatsuki Castle, destroyed the shrines and temples in the castle town and killed the monks.
Hideyoshi admonished such narrow-mindedness, and because they still did not reform, Iemitsu banned the religion.
Thanks to that, Japan alone was able to remain outside the bounds of barren and cruel religious wars.
The West did not realize this until this century.
The Boston Globe exposed a priest who had violated 130 boys, and this triggered the exposure of sexual abuse by priests one after another in Britain, France, Germany, and elsewhere.
Christianity was not only narrow-minded and cruel, but also lewd.
The drift away from the church spread rapidly.
As a result, donations to the church decreased, and the Vatican’s finances also began to falter.
The Pope’s visit to Japan was aimed at acquiring new believers who would lead to donations.
In particular, the number of believers in Japan is only 0.03 percent of the population.
In fact, MacArthur also attempted to Christianize Japan, to the extent of calling in 1,500 missionaries.
However, a Salesian priest, driven by an illicit love affair, murdered a Japanese woman.
Because the Vatican helped him flee the country, the number of believers decreased.
There is such a past.
The Pope should have proceeded more carefully, but before coming to Japan he made a major mistake.
It was his handling of the hidden Christians.
Before the Meiji Restoration, hidden Christians appeared at Oura Cathedral.
This is what is called the “discovery of believers.”
However, the hidden believers were divided into those who returned to the church and those who continued their faith quietly.
The Pope cherished the church faction, which led to donations, calling them “latent Christians,” and they even became a World Cultural Heritage site, while the other “hidden” Christians were cast aside.
It seems to have been the advice of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan, but through this discrimination, the pettiness of the Vatican also became visible.
It was good that the Pope visited Nagasaki and Hiroshima and called for the abolition of nuclear weapons, but for some reason he also met evacuees from TEPCO Fukushima and spoke against nuclear power.
The Bishops’ Conference is also connected to the Article 9 Association, China, and South Korea.
They probably piled up mountains of donations and used the Pope politically.
It is because Christianity engages in such schemes that it is disliked.
The Pope too must have been left with a bad aftertaste.