<\/a>In 1946, Monsignor Fraser once again set sail for China and continued his work in Kinhwa. Three years later, he returned to Toronto to attend the second General Chapter of the Society in 1949. He never returned to China. Shortly after his departure, communist forces seized power and China was closed to any missionary endeavours. Fraser’s fellow Canadian missioners who remained in China were arrested and eventually expelled from the country.<\/p>\nUndaunted by the closure of the China mission, Monsignor Fraser soon accepted an invitation from Bishop Yamaguchi of Nagasaki, Japan to establish a new mission in that country. In May 1950, at 73, he boarded a train in Toronto en route to a new life in Japan.<\/p>\n
As in China Monsignor Fraser was tireless in his efforts to bring the Christian faith to the Japanese people: building churches and establishing schools in Nagasaki, Fukuoka and Osaka.<\/p>\n
In September, 1962, at the age of 85, worn out by his years of service to the Church, Monsignor Fraser died peacefully at his residence in Osaka. He is buried in Shukugawa Catholic cemetery in Osaka.<\/p>\n
John Fraser was a true visionary and a man of tremendous courage and energy. He saw the vast mission field of China and realised the need to organise mission societies, which would bring the message of Jesus to the people of that huge country. Fraser not only founded the Scarboro Foreign Mission Society (Scarboro Missions) but was instrumental in establishing the Society of St. Columban in Ireland. Early on he recognised the importance of ordaining not only Chinese priests for the Church in China but also the importance of establishing a Chinese hierarchy to lead the local Church. Today, his zeal and hard work bear fruit in the legacy of well established churches in China and Japan, as well as the missionary societies he inspired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fr. John Fraser, the founder of Scarboro Missions, was born to a Scottish immigrant family living in Toronto in 1877. He finished his undergraduate studies at St. Michael’s College and wishing to study for the priesthood was sent to Collegio Brignole Sale in Genoa, Italy. Here, he met missioners returning from their work abroad and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":407,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-426","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/426\/revisions\/500"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}