Name

Kamata Catholic Church

Dedicated to

St. Philip

Date of Establishment

April 19, 1961

Parish Priest

Alexander Kunio  Momma

Number of Parishioners

512 (as of Dec.31,2019)

Sunday Mass

9:00 am (in Japanese)

Weekday Mass

First Friday Mass（Except Easter season）

Address

1-13-12 Shinkamata, Ota-ku, Tokyo 144-0054

Telephone

03-3738-0844

Fax

03-5703-8045

Facilities for the Handicapped

Slope (or Barrier free) , Toilet

Directions

12 minutes walk from JR Kamata Station. Parking available. GoogleMap

Parish History

History

In 1958, Archbishop Peter Doi began the preparations for building Catholic Kamata Church. In 1960, the property was obtained. The next year, the Kamata Parish was founded with support from Köln Diocese. On May 11th, 1961 by the earnest prayers and generous support of Köln Diocese, Kamata Church has been constructed at the corner of Jounan area in Tokyo and the Church had given a new birth being dedicated to St. Philip. Archbishop Peter Doi had offered the dedication Mass solemnly together with many attendants including priests and religious sisters. Under the pastoral care of Fr.Francis of Assisi, Yutaro Ide , the chaplain, and Fr. Martial Kazuyoshi Aoyama, the vice chaplain, the Church has been started with 300 Catholics who moved from Omori parish, Senzoku parish, Denenchofu parish and other parishes to this Church. After that the chaplain has been changed to Fr, Kazuyoshi Aoyama, Fr. Francis Xavier Zengo Yoshida and Fr. Michael Cox. Fr. Alexander Kunio Monma is the present chaplain with 450 parishioners of the Church.

Present Situation

The cherry trees which has been planted by Fr. Ide’s mother has grown up to big trees and many people enjoy the beautiful cherry blossoms every Spring. In the end of 1997 renovation of the Church had been made to maintain the chapel and other facility buildings to maintain for another 25 years’ use and then it has restored the beautiful appearance of its original state. The Church is offering the space for the regular meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous rehabilitation program as the Church always stands by the week. In 1995 with the permission of Cardinal Peter Seiichi Shirayanagi who was the Diocesan administrator of Archdiocese of Tokyo at that time, the Church shared the space of ” the room for cook” as an emergency shelter for the supporting group to the severely handicapped children of Oota Ward in Tokyo. Now it is called as ” the house of friendship” and is used by many people. Though the Church building can not rebuild for the use of the social services as a rule, the present service is highly evaluated by other public organizations and Oota Ward. It is said that the wood building of Kamata Church give us the homely atmosphere and feeling at ease in the chapel. Family atmosphere in the Church is important and we will keep it on. But we have to consider the future vision of the Church and investigate what the church should be by reflecting the reality not only the place of socialization and friendship club. From now on we are facing the problems in aging of the parishioners and decreasing in young generation due to less child birth so to call “doughnutized phenomenon” in the total population shape up, which shows the central part of the doughnut is small with less children and outer part of the circle is big with many aging people. For the problem are many but we will follow the way of the Lord faithfully with the motto of ” praying & working Church ” by witnessing the living Lord Jesus in our various activities. Archdiocese of Tokyo News Vo. 150, Feb. 1998 by Mr. Tsuchiya