Venerable Satoko Kitahara

Satoko Kitahara (北原 怜子, Kitahara Satoko; 22 August 1929 – 23 January 1958) – later known as Elisabeth Maria Kitahara – was a Japanese Roman Catholic. Kitahara was descended from aristocrats and samurai warriors; she worked in an airplane warehouse during World War II and became disillusioned after she and others learnt of Japanese atrocities during the conflict. She discovered Roman Catholicism and after a period of being exposed to churches decided to learn catechism so she could be baptized. Upon her baptism she selected the name "Elisabeth" and upon her Confirmation added the name "Maria". Kitahara made it her goal to tend to the impoverished and orphaned as well as the sick and poor who were suffering as a result of the damage inflicted during the war. In 1950 she first met the Conventual Franciscan friar Zenon Żebrowski and the two worked together to care for destitute people and children in the riverside Ants Village. This work became the focus for Kitahara's life until she died from tuberculosis in 1958. The beatification process had been proposed since the 1970s and had opened in 1981 which made Kitahara known as a Servant of God. In 2015 she was named as Venerable after Pope Francis confirmed her life of heroic virtue. Satoko Kitahara was born in Tokyo on 22 August 1929 as one of five children (four girls and one boy). Kitahara was descended from samurai warriors and was raised in a Shintō household (she was also descended from Shintō priests). The Kitahara's supported the Japanese war effort during World War II with both her father and brother-in-law being sent to fight. Her older brother was summoned to work in the Nakajima Airplane Warehouse which prompted Kitahara to join him there during the course of the war. Her time there was interrupted with frequent warning sirens due to continuous bombings and she even survived a U.S. bombing of the plant (sending her into deep shock) but contracted tuberculosis as a result of the attack.