What to make of Akita

Was the message of this alleged Marian apparition in Japan plagiarized?

Our Lady of Akita has garnered renewed attention recently, spurred by the passing of Sister Agnes Sasagawa, the alleged seer of the apparition, and the recent impassioned exhortations by Bishop Joseph Strickland to heed its warnings. Given these developments, it is timely to take a closer look at this reported Marian apparition, examining its message, status, and the ongoing discussions surrounding its authenticity and relevance within the Catholic Church.

I do not intend to provide an extensive analysis of the Akita apparition here, but I would like to raise three issues that lead me to doubt its authenticity: its unclear and somewhat convoluted approval process, the origins of the statue connected to the apparitions, and the text of the messages attributed to Our Lady of Akita.

Because it is a private revelation, no one is required to believe Akita is authentic, nor does anyone have to pay attention to its messages. That said, there is no official condemnation of the apparition (in fact, it received the approval of a past diocesan bishop), and many sincere Catholics believe it to be a truly miraculous phenomenon.

Backstory

The discussion centers around the reported apparitions and messages received in Akita, Japan, in 1973 by Sister Agnes Sasagawa, a sister of the Institute of the Handmaids of the Holy Eucharist. Over the course of several months, Sister Agnes claimed to have witnessed a series of miraculous events, including hearing the voice of the Virgin Mary emanating from a wooden statue. These phenomena were accompanied by three “messages” from Mary that warned of future trials and divine chastisement if humanity did not amend its ways. She also claims to have received three messages from her guardian angel — two in 1973 and a third in 1981.

Beginning in late 1973, the same statue reportedly wept human tears, bled, and perspired. The statue is said to have stopped weeping in 1981, after 101 occurrences. The statue's tears were observed and documented by numerous witnesses, and the events have been a subject of both veneration and scrutiny within the Catholic Church.

No new revelations were reported until Sister Agnes said that an angel appeared to her on October 6, 2019, and told her, “Cover yourself in ashes, and please pray a Rosary of reparation every day. Become like a child. Please offer sacrifices every day.”

Is it approved?

Devotees of Our Lady of Akita will be quick to note that it received the official approval of Bishop John Shojiro Ito of the diocese of Niigata, Japan in 1984. Given that the documents remain hidden from the public, the history of the Church’s investigation into the phenomenon is largely shrouded in mystery. What we do know is pieced together in a series of anecdotes, many of which are provided by a rather one-sided source — Bishop Ito’s letter of approval.

According to Bishop Ito, this is the chronology of events:

I went to Rome to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1975 where I consulted Archbishop Hamer, deputy secretary of this Congregation, and whom I already knew. He explained to me that judgment regarding such a matter falls under the jurisdiction of the local Ordinary (bishop) of the diocese in question.

In 1976, I asked the archbishop of Tokyo for the creation of a commission of inquiry. This first commission declared that it was not in a position to prove the supernatural events of Akita. In 1979, I presented to the Congregation a request for the formation of a second commission of inquiry. This second commission permitted us to examine the facts still more in detail.

In 1981, a letter of the Congregation, unfavorable to the events, was sent to the nunciature in Tokyo. But this letter contained some misunderstandings. Esteeming it my duty to restore the exactitude of the facts, I re-examined all the facts in 1982 at the time that the mysterious events, seemingly, came to an end. Through the intermediary of the Apostolic Nuncio in Tokyo, I sent the complete dossier, augmented with the new facts, to Rome.

At the time of my trip to Rome in the month of October last year (1983) I was able to meet with three officials charged with the matter in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. At the end of this meeting we had decided that the dossier should remain under examination.

So in Bishop Ito’s own words, the first commission of inquiry (created by the Archbishop of Tokyo in 1976) “declared that it was not in a position to prove the supernatural events of Akita.” He asked the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) for a second commission in 1979, submitted the results to the CDF, and the CDF replied with a negative judgement in 1981.

In 1982, Bishop Ito undertook another round of inquiry and submitted a new dossier, “augmented with the new facts,” to Rome. He then says that in 1983, he and three CDF officials “decided that the dossier should remain under examination.”

That the bishop was strongly convinced of the authenticity of the apparitions is clearly evident in the letter. Regarding the tears that flowed from the statue, he wrote, “I twice tasted this liquid. It was salty and seemed to me truly human tears.” He goes on to list conversions and healings attributed to Our Lady of Akita.

It seems that the bishop acted unilaterally in April 1984 in approving the apparition. The previous month, he turned 75 — the age at which bishops are required to submit their retirement letters to the pope (his would be accepted just days before his 76th birthday the following year). At the beginning of the letter he admits that his support for the apparitions in Akita were “a preoccupation” for him.

Based on his own account, he laid down the law on his authority as local bishop alone, overruling the results of the commissions set up by the archbishop of Tokyo and the CDF:

I hand down the following conclusions in my position as Bishop of Niigata:

1. After the investigation conducted up to the present day, I recognize the supernatural character of a series of mysterious events concerning the statue of the Holy Mother Mary which is found in the convent of the Institute of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist at Yuzawadai, Soegawa, Akita.

I do not find in these events any elements which are contrary to Catholic faith and morals.

2. Consequently, I authorize, throughout the entire diocese, the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita, while awaiting that the Holy See publishes definitive judgment on this matter.

To the bishop’s credit, he adds:

And I ask that it be remembered that even if the Holy See later publishes a favorable judgment with regard to the events of Akita, it is a question only of a private Divine revelation. Christians are bound to believe only content of public Divine revelation (closed after the death of the last Apostle) which contains all that is necessary for salvation.

Later developments

There are several anecdotal accounts suggesting later developments regarding Our Lady of Akita. I have been unable to track down official or original sources for each of these, but they are widely circulated and are worth noting.

The first anecdote is a claim that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect of the CDF, personally approved the message in 1988. Here is how this is framed on one pro-Akita website:

In June of 1988, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, imparted the definitive judgment regarding the events and messages of Akita, judging them to be trustworthy and worthy of faith. The Cardinal observed that Akita is a continuation of the messages of Fatima.

Other websites don’t go as far as saying Ratzinger gave a “definitive judgement,” but many report that he privately affirmed his belief in the authenticity of the apparition during a meeting with the retired Bishop Ito. Another popular account repeated in multiple publications is the claim that Ratzinger told Howard Dee, the former Ambassador to the Vatican from the Philippines, that the messages of Fatima and Akita are “essentially the same.”

These accounts do not correspond, however, with a September 13, 1988, article in UCA News. In it, Bishop Ito clarified that Cardinal Ratzinger’s “limited remarks only indicated that he did not object to the pastoral letter which the bishop wrote in April 1984.” In other words, there is no indication that Ratzinger ever affirmed the message, much less the alleged supernatural events at Akita.

Three other widely circulated anecdotes lend support to the position that the official position of the Church is, at most, one of toleration of the Akita phenomenon. All are listed on the Miracle Hunter website and are quoted nearly verbatim in publications and on other websites.

The first is from April 1990, and reaffirms the 1988 UCA News article:

The apostolic nuncio in Japan, Bishop William Aquin Carew in an interview with 30 DAYS, a Catholic Magazine, noted of Cardinal Ratzinger that: “His Eminence did not give any judgment on the reliability or credibility of the ‘messages of the Virgin.’ According to the transcription of the meeting, he simply affirmed that ‘there are no objections to the conclusions of the pastoral letter.’”

The second is from July 1990:

The president of the Japanese bishops’ conference, Peter Seiichi Shirayanagi, told 30 DAYS,” that, “The events of Akita are no longer to be taken seriously. We think they do not now have a great significance for the Church and Japanese society.” (30 DAYS Magazine, July - August 1990, “The Tears of Akita,” by Stefano M. Paci, p. 45).

The third is from December 1999:

The Apostolic Nuncio in Tokyo, Ambrose de Paoli, in response to a query from the editor of a British Catholic magazine Christian Order, stated: “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has asked me to respond to your query re: Akita. ... The Holy See has never given any kind of approval to either the events or messages of Akita.” (Christian Order, December 1999, p. 610.)

If the now-renamed Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) releases a statement rejecting the Akita apparitions in the near future, it will not have been unprecedented. On July 11 of this year, the DDF issued a press release publicizing the CDF’s assessment of “The Lady of All Nations” apparitions in Amsterdam, which took place from 1945 to 1959. In 1974, the CDF issued a judgement of “constat de non supernaturalitate,” a negative judgment.

Prior to the press release this year, however, the status of the Amsterdam apparitions remained in question due to conflicting statements from Rome and from Dutch bishops, with one local bishop even declaring the apparitions to be “of a supernatural origin” in 2002.

The problem of the statue

In addition to the questions surrounding the approval process, the events at Akita are not an “apparition” in the same sense as Lourdes and Fatima, but involve a statue of Mary speaking to Sister Agnes.

Although talking icons are not foreign to the Catholic tradition (Christ on the San Damiano Cross speaking to St. Francis of Assisi comes to mind), the specific statue in Akita is a bit problematic: it is modeled after The Lady of All Nations.

Oops…

The history of the confusion surrounding the Amsterdam apparitions was recounted in the 2024 norms:

An example worth recalling is a case involving alleged apparitions from the 1950s. In 1956, the Bishop issued a final judgment of “not supernatural,” and the following year, the Holy Office approved the Bishop’s decision. Then, the approval of that veneration was sought again. In 1974, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared the alleged apparitions to be “constat de non supernaturalitate.” Thereafter, in 1996, the local Bishop positively recognized the devotion, and in 2002, another Bishop from the same place recognized the “supernatural origin” of the apparitions, leading to the spread of the devotion to other countries. Finally, in 2020, at the request of the Congregation, a new Bishop reiterated the Congregation’s earlier “negative judgment,” requiring the cessation of any public disclosures regarding the alleged apparitions and revelations. Thus, it took about seventy excruciating years to bring the whole matter to a conclusion.

If The Lady of All Nations apparition has been deemed false, then it would seem very odd that a statue based on it would deliver authentic messages. It seems logical that the two apparitions would fall together.

Plagiarism of a fake Fatima secret?

Finally, many have noticed the striking similarities between the messages of Akita and a text purporting to be the third secret of Fatima,¹ which was published in the German Magazine Neues Europa in 1963. Both strike an apocalyptic tone and warn of severe chastisements. Both messages speak of fire falling from the sky and a large part of humanity being annihilated. Both messages also predict infiltration of evil within the Church.

The two messages do not merely share thematic parallels, however, but some strikingly similar predictions.

Here are some examples of concordances between the two texts:

Akita 1: “The Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge.”

Neues Europa 1: “God will punish men still more powerfully and harshly than He did by means of the Flood.”

Akita 2: “Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad … The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead.”

Neues Europa 2: “Then fire and smoke will fall from the sky … Millions and millions of men will lose their lives from one hour to the next, and those who remain living will envy those who are dead. … The good will die with the wicked.”

Akita 3: “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church.”

Neues Europa 3: “Even in the highest positions, it is satan who governs and decides how affairs are to be conducted. He will even know how to find his way to the highest positions in the Church.”

Akita 4: “one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops.”

Neues Europa 4: “Cardinals will be against Cardinals and bishops against bishops.”

Although some Fatima conspiracists will argue that the general thrust of the Neues Europa text rings true, most concede that the document itself is a fabrication — if for no other reason than the fact that it predicts, “The greatest World War will happen in the second half of the 20th Century.”

And if it is a fabrication, what are we to make of the oddly specific assertions it shares with the Akita message (that the coming chastisement will be greater than the great flood, that the living will envy the dead, “cardinals against cardinals”)?

My hunch — which seems plausible given the convent’s devotion to The Lady of All Nations — is that Sister Agnes and her community were not strangers to apocalypticism and apparition-chasing, and she had read and (consciously or otherwise) retained the substance of the false Fatima message.

I will be interested to see if the DDF makes a ruling on the Akita phenomena. If a positive judgement is given, I will study the matter further. At the moment, however, I very much doubt its authenticity. And given its harsh and violent messages about the future, I have trouble imagining what spiritual fruits it might yield.

1. This is a link to the Fatima Center website, which promotes outlandish conspiracy theories regarding Fatima and other apparitions. I added this link because it provides the full text of the false Neues Europa secret. I do not endorse or recommend anything else on the Fatima Center site.