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Father Hubert Schiffer (1915 - March 27, 1982〔Monsignor. Nicholas I. Puhak, "Prayer spared Jesuits in Hiroshima bombing," http://standardspeaker.com/opinion/letters/priest-prayer-spared-jesuits-in-hiroshima-bombing-1.946489〕) was one of eight German Jesuits who survived the nuclear bomb "Little Boy" dropped on Hiroshima. He was only eight blocks away from ground zero when the explosion occurred. Some Catholics believe the survival of the priests to have been a miracle. The group of Jesuits survived not only the explosion, but also the effects of the radiation (the doctors were amazed they did not present any radiation illness). Skeptics counter that while people inside Nagasaki's Urakami Cathedral were afforded no special protection, there were non-Catholic survivors even closer to the center of the blast in Hiroshima. Eiko Taoka and nine other people survived in a streetcar which was 750 meters from ground zero.〔The Story of Hiroshima, Hibakusha Stories, http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/twocities/hiroshima/page14.shtml〕 One survivor, Akiko Takakura, was in a bank 300 meters away from the blast.〔 Eizo Nomura survived just 170 meters away from the blast, in the basement of the Hiroshima Prefecture Fuel Rationing Union.〔Hiroshima Testimony: Special Exhibit 3, http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0203_e/exh02033_e.html〕 According to the account of Jesuit priest Fr. John Seimes, who had been on the outskirts of the city: Another account adds that he had just finished saying Mass, and had gone to eat breakfast when the bomb hit: He looked around, and there were no buildings left except for the church house. It is frequently claimed that everyone else within a radius of roughly 1.5 kilometres was killed instantly, and many of those outside of this range died of radiation within days. In contrast, the only physical harm to Fr. Shiffer was that he could feel a few pieces of glass in the back of his neck. It's also said that after the surrender of Japan, the American army doctors explained to him that his body would begin to deteriorate because of the radiation; yet to the doctors' amazement, Fr. Schiffer's body appeared to contain no elevated radiation or ill-effects from the bomb. In fact, he lived for another 33 years in good health, and was present at the Eucharistic Congress held in Philadelphia in 1976. At that time, all eight members of the Jesuit community from Hiroshima were still alive. The surprising survival of the Jesuits in Hiroshima is similar to that reported in Nagasaki, where a Franciscan friary built by St. Maximilian Kolbe also went unaffected. Since the bombs were dropped, the priests have been examined over 200 times by scientists. Each time the priests repeated the same explanation for their survival: ==Notes== 〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hubert Schiffer」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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