5237(III)_Long-time missionary to Japan publishes major work

October 28, 2019

By SC Japan

Tokyo, Japan, 27 October 2019 -- Fr Gaetano Compri, who will be a nonogenarian in March next year and has spent 64 years as a missionary in Japan, many of those years spent educating youngsters in school, has published a new book entitled 人間としての哲学 (Ningen to shite no tetsugaku) or, in English, broadly speaking, 'The philosophy of the human being: how we live and how we should live'. This work, published in September 2019 by major Japanese Publisher Magazinehouse, is 180 pages, and addressed to Christian and non-Christian alike because, as Fr Compri explains, 'We are all alike, including us Christians, and to be truly Christian it is first essential to be truly human (as created by God).

In practical terms, this work is one of moral anthropology written in such a way that non-Christians too can understand the basis of our teaching and be prepared to accept the teaching of Jesus who was also truly a man.

Fr Compri has drawn on his own studies of philosophy and theology in addition to his missionary experiences. He has sought to use language that everyone can understand, and the 180 pages are an attempt to range across the problems of human existence, addressing modern society in particular.

Fr Gaetano Compri is already well-known to Salesians for his collation of items, including not only written works but artifacts relating to the Venerable Don Cimatti, many of which are maintained in the Cimatti Museum at Chofu near Tokyo, a must visit for any Salesian coming to Japan. He is known to the wider Church for his studies on the Holy Shroud of Turin.