ESJ-4 2022 – Press Release
4th Evangelii Summit Japan
‘STRENGTHENING THE FAMILY IN TURBULENT TIMES’
ZOOM Online Conference – December 3-4, 2022
Press Release
June 28, 2022
Evangelii Summit Japan, December 3rd – 4th, 2022 (formerly National Catholic Awareness Conference Japan) is the 4th edition of this annual event that brings together, leaders and well-known personalities from the Catholic world to speak at a two-day open online conference, based in Japan.
This year’s Summit theme is, ‘Strengthening the Family in Turbulent Times’, a topic which in recent years has become an increasing concern for people and society in general. Today, families face not only the familiar temporal challenges such as daily living expenses, education for children and healthcare but also a pervasive materialistic secular culture, a persuasive mass media machine, and ideologies that breakdown the nuclear family and traditional family roles. Success in life is trumpeted as a measure of worldly possessions, popularity, and power.
Family Challenges in Japan
Though the traditional family unit in Japan has long been a central, stabilizing, and cohesive structure in society, it too today has been encountering the same social maladies that dominate families across the world. Poor spiritual life, hikikomori (acute social withdrawal), suicide, loneliness, materialism, pressure to ‘succeed’, pressure to be popular, karoshi, (death by overwork), absent fathers, bullying at school, single mothers and fathers, domestic violence, and harassment.
In addition, there is the shocking grief that families experience in the face of sudden death of loved ones from natural disasters, such as the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Painful too is the grief of families on the approaching death of a parent, especially those suffering from dementia, or the loss of a young child, or the untimely end of life of a family member through an accident or sickness.
Highlights of Speaker Presentation Topics
In this year’s summit, we are delighted and honored to present to you a selection of motivational talks by an inspiring, knowledgeable, and family-affirming speakers from both Japan and abroad. This Zoom online summit is free and open to everyone, (religious and non-religious) with an interest in the challenges that families face today. Online attendee registration is now open.
— As the family goes, so goes the world —
Pope Saint John Paul II
About Evangelii Summit Japan
The Evangelii Summit Japan is a grassroots annual event, organized by a lay-Catholic group, Evangelii Network Japan, which consists of volunteers from the parish of St. Ignatius Church, Tokyo, and other parishes.
Email: contact@evangeliinetwork.org
ESJ-4 2022 – Flyer
ESJ-4 2022 – Program
