Can Japan's tiny Catholic minority survive country's secularisation and low birth rate?

In the broad daylight of a turbulent history, Catholicism in Japan faces two new challenges, as I learned on a recent visit to the country: a dwindling population and an increasingly non-religious society. The situation leaves the Church's leadership there mulling over Christianity's survival.

Japan's fertility rate has fallen to its lowest since records began, meaning – as is happening across all areas of the country's population – Catholic communities are growing smaller, church attendances are down and there's a shortage of priests.