@Ufbad - I am not sure how big a deal this is, it just didn't sit right with me.  This is the first time for me to see such a thing.  I understand that this locality has a big Buddhist altar business.  Maybe they were just trying to drum up business with the Catholics.  The shopping arcade that we walked down yesterday boasts of four Buddhist altar shops.  A Buddhist style altar is set up to worship the spirits of dead relatives, who have supposedly gone on to become gods in the afterworld.  The God of the Bible tells us that we have no business doing this, and we are not to worship anything or anyone else.  We are not to attempt or have contact with the dead.  I have no problem with keeping a picture of Grandpa on the wall.  We do it to remember someone that we loved and still love, but we don't worship Grandpa, pray to his spirit or expect him to be able to do anything to alter the course of affairs in this world.  I can totally understand that Japanese Catholics would want to honor the memory of their dearly deceased, but I have trouble with them imitating Buddhist practices.  This is dangerously close to ancestor worship.  You would have to know more about a Buddhist family altar and its meaning to be able to understand what I mean, I think. 

My mother in law has one in her house that she prayed to and left food and tea in every morning and evening, and I can't see that it ever did her a bit of good.  I kind of felt like the living were kept enslaved by the dead in some ways.  The priest would come for the local temple on the 4th of every month (Grandpa died on June 4) and collect $50 for five minutes worth of sutra chanting.  Nice business.  To see a Catholic "Butsudan" Buddhist altar just didn't sit well with me.  I am tempted to go back and ask the nuns in the store about this.  I would not do it in a judgemental way, I just want information.  I might ask them where in the Bible we are instructed to enshrine our relatives, though.  Since MIL is no longer able to live in her own home, I have felt free to close down the family altar and put all of the implements used in worhip away in the name of keeping the amount of dust down in a house where no one is living.  I kind of considered that a little victory that I was finally able to do this, and then I see Christians setting up the same kind of altar.  It was disturbing.

You can probably guess my feelings about Buddhism, but I have to choose my battles carefully.  I would actually like to do away with the entire business, but that would be rather anti-social of me and destroy any chances to talk about Christianity.  Whenever MIL came back to her own house for a visit, I would always be sure there were flowers near the altar just to make her happy.  I can't worship at the altar myself, but I did get the flowers for her that she was no longer able to get herself, just as an act of love or respect.  If I have to go to a Buddhist funeral, I don't have to make a fuss against Buddhism that will make a sad situation worse.  It just isn't the time or the place.  I can hold babies, pour tea or be of service in some other way.  If I have to attend a Buddhist memorial service I can take pictures of the people gathered and make them an album.  If I have to complete MIL's "let's move the family bones of several people from the country into a city temple" project, I have to do it.  The cubby hole was already paid for, but the bones had to be recremated.  Yep, loaded them up in the urns with chopsticks and carted them back to the city in the bullet train.  Took 'em all out to Starbucks, too.  There was a fee to have sutras read when the urns were put into the temple cubbyhole.  I had to tell the temple that I was a Christian and didn't have a clue about such things, and they were very up front about providing the financial information - standard fee of $100, plus $100 every year for maintenance.  Gotta pay it, what can I do?  Can't have the bones lying in the street.

@gelatinemonkey - This Catholic altar, yes, that's what is was, an altar, was so close to a Butsudan that it was creepy.  When a person dies and has a Buddhist funeral, the relatives pay a temple a handsome fee for a nice posthumous Buddhist heavenly name (戒名　かいみょう)　which is written on a small piece of wood and enshrined in the family altar.  The more money you fork over the better the posthumous name.  This Catholic altar had a similar piece of wood with the name of the deceased (their own name, not a kaimyo), but a cross had been drawn in above the name.  But it was too close to a Buddhist altar for me not to be shocked.  The temptation to worship the dead Christian would seem very great here.  Well, maybe I should not be too shocked after all.  In the shop Mary clearly outstaged Jesus, and I know that saints are prayed to and relics venerated.

According to Buddhist custom, the dead person supposedly becomes a god who protects or punishes good or errant family members.  The dead are fed, talked to and prayed to.  It is often very hard to draw the line between what is custom and what is religion.  Especially when visiting in the countryside, people first go and light a stick of inscense at the host's family altar as an expected form of greeting.  I really try to think of it as family repect and wish that I could dismiss it all as such, but it goes beyond just having a picture of Grandpa on the wall.  We have one lovable crazy "very religious" auntie in the family who says that people have come out of their graves to talk to her.  She used to dislike me until she decided that I must have been Japanese in a former life.  Allllll right, whatever.  People have to give up worshipping their dead relatives if they become Christians, and most are not willing to abandon that entrenched custom.  In that respect, it will keep them from entering the Kingdom of God, and thus cannot be dismissed as mere family respect.  I once heard a Japanese pastor ask what we thought the dead would say if they could really speak out of the family altars.  Think about it.

And Catholics would condone imitating this??

@gelatinemonkey - Drag all you want.  If the Buddhist associations were lost over time it would be better, but I think still not best.  It is a very difficult thing for a Japanese to throw out parts of his culture, and one must also be careful not to demand that Japanese observe Christianity according to a filter of American culture.  I can very well understand that a Japanese Christian might find some comfort in having an altar for their dead relatives when it is normal practice for other families to have a Buddhist altar, really.  I would like to be able to say, "Isn't that nice?"  But where is the focus of the altar and the worship that takes place there, on God or on the dead?  To whom is thanks being offered?  Scripture is to be our guide, not a cultural mileau.  A Japanese Christian might be comfortable worshipping at a family altar as his Buddhist neighbors do, but Romans exhorts us not to be influenced by the patterns of this world.  I also see many times in the Old Testament where God demands that altars of other gods be broken down, destroyed and done away with.  I see too great a temptation for a Japanese Christian to be praying to the dead at a family altar.  But in Catholicism this seems to be not an uncommon thing, as dead saints are venerated and prayed to.  Where in the Bible does it say that we are to do that?  Nowhere.  Maybe I would have to have to do the Reformation all over again with whoever is trying to sell these things.  We are not to encourage praying to or worshipping the dead.  This goes for Catholicism and Buddhism alike.  This family altar Christian Butsudan thing is disturbing to me on many fronts.

I have also heard that when Japanese think they are worshipping their relatives at a Butsudan that they are actually worshipping demons.  Now mind you, I have never seen any little fellers with pitchforks dancing around in a Butsudan, but the idea is rather disconcerting and something to think about.  Why would I want to think about trying to clean that up and imitate it?  I feel like the doors of a Butsudan are little gates to Hell.  Forgive me for sounding narrow minded, but if the dead could speak to the living, they would say, "BELIEVE IN CHRIST AND DON'T COME HERE!!"  I have waited so many years to be able to close the "gates of Hell" in MIL's house.  Why would a Catholic Christian or any Christian want to be in danger of opening those doors up again in the name of Christ?  I am not meaning to argue here, just thinking out loud.