Overseas Missionary to Japan: Personal Reflections
by Father Ward Biddle, C.P.
Holy Cross Province began the Japan Passionist mission in 1953. Several years ago I met Father Ward Biddle, C.P. With energy, reflection, and thanksgiving he spoke to me about his mission experience in Japan since the early 1950s. I was impressed by his kindness and honesty. Consequently, as part of the centennial celebration of Holy Cross Province he graciously accepted my invitation to write a personal reflection on his Japan missionary experience. He was born in 1923 in Kansas City, Missouri. He professed his Passionist vows in 1944 and was ordained in 1951. He remains active in Japan. His email is kolbe@ba.wakwak.com. -editor
“Man proposeth, God disposeth.” In one form or another that old adage comes true and is recognized as truth in all of our histories. And of course it holds true for the history of the Passionists in Japan.
In 1951 the Holy Cross (Chicago) Province of the Passionists decided to accept an invitation from Bishop Paul Taguchi to make a foundation in his Osaka diocese. Surely the Provincial at the time, Fr. James Patrick White, spent many a sleepless night wondering whom he should appoint to this mission. After much prayer and discussion with his consultors he chose a man who by common consent was well suited for the task, Fr. Julius Busse. He was a purple heart decorated veteran chaplain of the Pacific front in World War II. A strapping man, blessed with courage and ingenuity, warm and optimistic by nature, he was chosen and consented to take on the responsibility. So man proposed, until... A medical exam revealed inoperable cancer. Fr. Julius made an enviably resigned and expeditious passage, not to Japan, but to heaven. Thus did God dispose.
It can be reasonably assumed that Fr. James Patrick at that point spent many more nights tossing and turning in bed as he sought a replacement for that excellent first choice. Now, after 50 years have passed perhaps it can be safely tested in the wind that Fr. Barnabas Ahern was the man who put the proverbial bug in the ear of the provincial to choose little Fr. Matthew Vetter as the superior of the Japan Mission. However the appointment came about, Fr. Matthew and his Passionist companion, Fr. Carl Schmitz, set out from San Francisco in late February for the 16-day voyage to Japan. They landed in Yokohama on the 9th of March, 1953. Was this proposal of man also the disposition of God? Only time would tell.
In many ways the opposite type of character of Fr. Julius, Matthew Vetter proved to be a spiritually wise and holy founder of the Passionists in Japan. In the summer of that same year three other men were sent to join them-Frs. Paul Placek, Clement Paynter and Peter Kumle, the latter two having been ordained but a year before. These five original men made their home in an old, formerly Buddhist school, remodeled into a monastery and quasi retreat house, in the suburb of Osaka, called Hibarigaoka. Japan in those days after the War was still poor, as was their dwelling, but they got busy at once at language schools and in giving English retreats to the many foreign missioners. It was not long before they were conducting parish missions as well as retreats of all sorts in Japanese.
In the years that followed others were sent from the Chicago Province, and in 1957 the Passionist Nuns arrived from Pittsburgh, along with Frs. Denis McGowan and Ward Biddle, on the Topa Topa, an old beatup freighter. The Nuns took over the Hibarigaoka house as the Fathers moved to a newly acquired property and house about 10 miles away in an area called Mefu. This Mefu Retreat House has become well known throughout the Japanese Catholic Church for its pine and maple tree studded grounds with the outdoor Stations of the Cross on the extensive hillside closeby. How well I remember the dedication of those Stations with a diocesan priest and his group of Catholic students.
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