A young Spanish Jesuit is missioned to Japan, where he experiences events that will affect the rest of his life.

The animated short film “Arrupe in Japan” is a collaboration between the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific, the Digital Arts and Computer Animation Department of the Ateneo de Naga University in Naga, Philippines, and Elisabeth University of Music in Hiroshima, Japan. It takes a look at the early years of Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ, former Jesuit Superior General, when he was a young man in pre-World War II Japan. In 1945, when he was the Master of Novices in Nagatsuka, a mere six kilometres outside of Hiroshima, he experienced the onslaught of the atomic bomb dropped by an American warplane over the city. With his medical knowledge, Fr Arrupe helped victims who flocked to their house. One young man whose wounds were treated by Fr Arrupe would survive his injuries and later become a priest himself.

Today, 78 years after the bombing of Hiroshima, Fr Arrupe’s light shines ever brighter. His words about being men and women for others still resonate five decades after he shared them in Valencia, Spain, when he addressed a gathering of Jesuit alumni. Fr Arrupe was certainly himself a man for others—not only in Japan, where he was side by side with the Japanese people during one of the most difficult moments of history—but also throughout his entire life.

The cause for Fr Pedro Arrupe’s beatification and canonization was opened in February 2019.

Watch the film: