Word: takayama
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Dates: during 1956-1956
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...subsidy by the MacArthur constitution, which divorced Japanese church and state, most of Kyoto's temples began charging admission fees in order to support themselves. The result was a bonanza of tax-free riches. This delighted the Buddhist and Shinto priests but filled Kyoto's Mayor Gizo Takayama, a Congregationalist, with ill-concealed envy. To Mayor Takayama, whose father founded the first Y.M.C.A. in the city, the sightseers' gold was an asset that should be shared by the temples with the city as a whole. To help pay off his city's deficit...
...Temple insisted nevertheless that one bad priest should not be used to damn the entire clergy. The priests found an unexpected ally in Kyoto's Communists who. bitterly opposing the mayor on any count, promptly joined the fray with a sound truck that blared out the charge that Takayama was "persecuting religion." With their most pious mien, the priests thereupon barred the doors of their temples to all but "genuine worshipers," whom they admitted free. The definition of a "genuine worshiper"? One who agreed to make a "voluntary" (and hence taxfree) donation later...