Why Life Is Worth So Little in Prosperous Japan by Sandro Magister

One suicide every 15 minutes, in the most efficient country in the world. An exclusive survey analyzes the reasons. The bishop and the nuncio: there is an absence of faith in a personal God, in a people that honors eight million gods

Mr. Magister writes:

The history of Christianity in Japan is a history of martyrs. No other civilization in the world has shown itself more impenetrable to Christianity than that of Japan. In the past, by killing its messengers. In more recent times, by accepting it courteously, but without ever responding to it with waves of conversions.

For their own part, however, the proclaimers of Christianity in Japan have so far been unable to penetrate the depths of that civilization's mystery, in order to "inculturate" their message.

What are the cultural and psychological obstacles to conversion? The Japanese people have known suffering and yet this has not been an impetus to mass conversion.