"Conservative" Catholic writer appointed to Japan Post board member

Writer Sono 'to be Japan Post board member'

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The government is set to appoint writer Ayako Sono as an external board member of Japan Post Holdings Co., according to an informed source.

Sono, 78, will assume the post as early as Wednesday following an official decision by Japan Post's appointment committee--comprising external board members led by Toyota Motor Corp. Senior Adviser Hiroshi Okuda--and approval at the company's extraordinary shareholders meeting.

According to the source, Sono was strongly recommended by Shizuka Kamei, state minister in charge of financial services and postal reform, and Jiro Saito, president of Tokyo Financial Exchange Inc., who has informally been named as the next president of Japan Post.

The board's decision to plump for Sono, who reportedly has accepted the invitation, is being seen as an attempt to garner opinions on postal reforms from people outside business circles.

Sono reportedly favors the government's basic policy to review postal service privatization.

Born in Tokyo, Sono is known for producing work in a wide range of fields as well as her deep insight into religion, war and social issues. Her novels include "Kami no Yogoreta Te" (The Soiled Hands of God). She received the Imperial Award of the Japan Art Academy in 1993 and was designated a Person of Cultural Merit in 2003. In 1997, an entity over which Sono once presided won the Yomiuri International Cooperation Prize.

She served as chairman of the Nippon Foundation between 1995 and 2005 and has also held other prominent positions, including serving on government committees for judicial system reform and educational reform.

Regarding the appointment of Japan Post's top management, Kamei suggested he would not insist solely on appointing managers from private companies, saying, "I want to include creditable people from a wide range of sectors."

Although Kamei initially planned to renew the entire management section, he recently has been more flexible about allowing some members to stay on, with the caveat that they cooperate with the new president.

(Oct. 27, 2009)

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20091027TDY01302.htm

Ayako Sono, a well known "conservative" Catholic writer in Japan is very respected by many conservative Catholics because of her patriotic statements on politics and other temporal issues. However, her belief as Catholic is not always in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Sono supports the worship at Yasukuni Shrine by prime minister where the spirits of the soldiers, politicians and patriots who dedicated their lives for the Japanese Empire until the end of the Pacific War are enshrined as gods. In the shrine, people who died after the War has never been hallowed there. In newspapers and magazines, she often wrote articles defending the worship.

While she follows the Catholic teaching which prohibits abortion she actively opposes to abortion in Japan, on the other hands, she contributed to so-called "Program of Reproductive Health" including sterilization launched by Peruvian ex-president Alberto Fujimori during 1990s.

Peru Plans a Hot Line to battle Forced Sterilizations
http://www.zenit.org/article-2233?l=english

Fujimori contines to justify his "Program of Reproductive Health" which caused about 300，000 of victims in forcible sterilizations even after his exile to Japan claiming there was no forcible sterilizations and people profited from the program.

THERE WERE NO FORCED STERILIZATIONS (Part I)
http://albertofujimori.org/en/index.php?selection=health&articleId=374

THERE WERE NO FORCED STERILIZATIONS (Part II)
http://albertofujimori.org/en/index.php?selection=health&articleId=375

At that time, Sono was chairman of the Nippon Foundation which Ryoichi Sasagawa, famous right-wing activist and philanthoropist found by profits gained form boat races. She detailed her involvement with "Program of reproductive Health" and her offering of housing to Fujimori in an article of the Mainichi Shimbun dated December 3, 2000.

Fujimori shi e no yado teikyo? Watashi wa unmei ni shitagatta dake (Did I offer housing to Mr. Fujimori? I just followed my destiny)
(Japanese Article)
http://nippon.zaidan.info/kinenkan/moyo/0000266/moyo_item.html

I this article, she wirtes "the family program targeted Indios in the mountains. It offers sterilization operations to either husbund or wife only if they already had a lot of children and they consented completely." This is apparently a violation of the teaching of Catholic Church. After writing this article, Sono has never mention her involvement with "Program of Reproductive Health". She may have realized how sinful it was but as long as I know, she has never done anything to compensate for the victims of forced sterilizations.

Strange enough, both liberals and conservatives in Catholic Church have never accused her. Liberal Catholics are usually very sensitive to the violation of human rights just like left -groups and conservative ones are strict to the teaching of the Catholic Church which prohibits any artificial method for contraception. I wonder why they cannot do anything to her.

But it is not only her fault that she supported sterilization in Peru. Recently some bishops and priests in Catholic Church have been very chilly to the encyclical "Humanae Vitae" by Pope Paul VI which prohibit any artificial contraception as well as abortion. Fr. Momose Fumiaki S. J. who studied in Germany and deeply influenced with the progressive theologians like Karl Rahner. He later became professor of theology at Sophia University. Fr. Momose claimed in a book written for catechumen that the Church should reconsider her policy on contraception although he maintains to prohibit abortion.

When the Vatican questioned him because he indirectly denies the resurrection of Our Lord, some high rank clergies like Late Cardinal Stephen Hamao Fumiro who was bishop of Yokohama Diocese at that time defended him very much. Because of his radical theological views, he once left for the Philippines.

It seems almost impossible that any Catholics either in Japan or Peru remind her of the is and urge to compensate for the victims of sterilization in Peru.