Carrying on from Tuesday, this is the end of the report of the May meeting of Jinja Honchō’s (神社本庁) Oversight Council (評議員会), based on the articles in the June 2nd issue of Jinja Shinpō.
After the motion to withdraw the report on the disputed presidency was very narrowly defeated, the report itself was presented. This basically set out the Tanaka (田中) faction’s view of the dispute, and the secretariat once again stated that they were considering civil and criminal actions against those who were involved.
The report looked into the causes of the problem, and found five.
- There were places where the relevant regulations were unclear.
- The attempt to change the registered head of Jinja Honchō was made “by force” while discussions were still in progress, without notifying the secretariat.
- People were making mistaken assertions about the position and authority of the chairman.
- People had a mistaken understanding of the role of the Jinja Honchō Kenshō (憲章) and of the relationship between a religious corporation and a religious group.
- People were stating their opinions from a subjective rather than an objective position, and rather than making their own judgement, were
behaving like Japanese peopleadapting themselves to the opinions of those around them.
They then gave a list of names of people who they thought bore responsibility, including Revd Nishitakatsuji (西高辻), who had just been elected chairman of the Oversight Council, six others, one of whom was later elected to the Board of Directors, “Hana Shōbu no Kai” (花菖蒲ノ會), the formal group of people opposed to the current management of Jinja Honchō, and the Kanagawa, Fukushima, and Okayama Prefectural Jinjachō.
Next, they listed the four things that they would do to avoid a repeat of these problems.
- Manage Jinja Honchō in line with court decisions.
- Work to revise the regulations to remove unclarity.
- Call on people to reflect on their behaviour and properly accept responsibility.
- Include training on the regulations of Jinja Honchō for new priests.
They then criticised Hana Shōbu no Kai for “deliberately and maliciously” pushing an interpretation of the Chairman’s role that contradicted the court decision, and seeming to attempt to make him responsible for it. “What would you think if something like this happened in your jinja?”
Then, there were “various opinions” from the floor. First, Revd Ashihara (芦原) restated his disagreement with the Tanaka faction’s interpretation of events. Revd Nishitakatsuji expressed some reluctance to give his opinion, as the chairman, but said that there was no basis in the regulations for the vote censuring him in the Board of Directors, and he had to wonder whether it was really acting openly. He was not convinced that suppressing the minority was really the best thing for the prosperity of Shinto.
There was time for a few more comments, but they were already well past the scheduled finishing time, so the second day was closed.
On the third day (May 24th), Revd Tanaka announced that he had spoken to the current chairman, Revd Takatsukasa (鷹司), and ascertained that he was willing to continue as chairman. Revd Nishitakatsuji asked whether there were any objections.
Someone immediately said that they were opposed. They said the chairman was not supposed to sully his hands with management issues. Someone else said that this was very insulting to the chairman. Then Revd Takatsukasa was reappointed by majority vote. This is possibly unprecedented — I think it has always been unanimous in the past. The auditors were then “safely elected, after a bit of chaos” (no, I don’t know exactly what that means), and the final bits of business, including closing remarks, tidied up.
After the Oversight Council was closed, a meeting of the Board of Directors was held, and Revd Tanaka was re-elected as president, and appointed by the chairman.
This is a very strange result on the surface, and it looks to me as if a compromise was stitched up between the leaders of the two factions to avoid a split in Jinja Honchō. Given the results of the votes, and the comments in the Oversight Council, I don’t think everyone was on board, and there is clearly still a lot of work to be done to heal the wounds. However, they did succeed in holding Jinja Honchō together, at least for now, and that is a victory.
The editorial in that issue of Jinja Shinpō naturally addressed the meetings. It said that the editorials had, in the past, lamented that the Oversight Council had become a formality at which no-one spoke, and expressed a wish for more active participation. (Be careful what you wish for…) This time, they expressed the hope that people would continue to speak out in the future, but in ways that were actually productive for the future of the Shinto community.
One can hope.