Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle

Who was Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle?

Aiun-ken Hugo Makibi Enomiya-Lassalle was a German Jesuit priest and one of the foremost teachers to embrace both Roman Catholic Christianity and Zen Buddhism.

Enomiya-Lassalle joined the Society of Jesus on 25 April 1919. At the end of the usual Jesuit spiritual and academic training he was ordained priest on 28 August 1927.

He travelled to Japan as a missionary in 1929 and became interested in that country's Buddhist practices. In 1940, he became the vicar of Hiroshima, and on 6 August 1945 he was critically wounded by the nuclear blast in that city. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Germany.

In September 1946, he had an audience with Pope Pius XII, in which he revealed his plan to build in Hiroshima a cathedral dedicated to the idea of world peace. Designed by Japanese architect Togo Murano, construction on the cathedral began in 1950 and on 6 August 1954, the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace （ja）was dedicated.

In 1956, Enomiya-Lassalle began studying Zen with Harada Daiun Sogaku. In 1958, he published Zen: A Way to Enlightenment, but the Holy See ordered him not to continue publishing on the subject.