By Kevin Birnbaum | Catholic News Service

Seattle -- Despite the devastation caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Catholics and others there are buoyed by the support they are receiving from around the world, according to a U.S. priest who has lived there for decades.

"The prayers and support from around the world are a great source of strength and reinforce the image of us all sharing a common humanity under God our Father," said Maryknoll Father Jim Mylet in an email to The Catholic Northwest Progress, Seattle archdiocesan newspaper.

Father Mylet, who grew up in St. Margaret of Scotland Parish in Seattle and graduated from O'Dea High School, first went to Japan as a seminarian in 1970. He is now the pastor of two parishes in the Diocese of Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan's second-largest island.

"All the parishioners here and I are physically OK but depressed by the overwhelming devastation dealt to our nation," he wrote.

The two dioceses most affected by the earthquake and tsunami, he said, are Saitama and Sendai. One priest, a 76-year-old member of the Quebec Foreign Mission Society, died of a heart attack at the time of the earthquake, and another priest is missing, he said.

"Because the church tends to build on hills everywhere, only two places were affected by the tsunami, although there was damage from the earthquake," he added.

There are about 509,000 Catholics in Japan out of a total population of more than 127 million, according to Vatican statistics.

"Right now Japan is like Israel when they came back from the exile and found the Temple destroyed and their homes occupied: homeless (in the case of Japan, homes destroyed)," said Father Mylet. "It is a time when people lose heart, and the church is trying to be a beacon of hope in these difficult circumstances."

A few other Seattle priests have connections to Japan.

Father Richard Hayatsu, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Seattle, told the Progress that he has several relatives living in Japan. He visited them a few years ago, but had to communicate through a translator since he grew up in the United States and does not speak Japanese. He had not been in contact with his relatives in the days following the earthquake and tsunami.

Although he knows they live in Fukushima prefecture, where one of the affected nuclear plants is located, "I haven't got a clue how close they are to any of that," he said.

Jesuit Father Ignatius Ohno, assistant to the vice president for student development at Seattle University, was born in Japan and has relatives living there. He was on his way to a conference in Philadelphia when he heard about the earthquake and tsunami.

His family quickly went to work trying to get information about his youngest sister, Mary, who teaches English north of Tokyo.

"I have other siblings who took on the task of tracking her and finding out that she was OK," he said. But in the chaos following the disaster, solid information was hard to come by.

"Several aunts, uncles and cousins also live in Japan, near Tokyo, ... identified her location as being within the 50-mile zone of Fukushima set by the U.S.," Father Ohno said, referring to the area around the nuclear plant that residents were urged to evacuate because of possible radiation contamination.

"More recently, I heard that she was in Sendai, and now, might be in Tokyo. Transportation is a mess. I am not sure what her plans are," he added.

Father Ohno said the Jesuit community has been praying for all those affected and specifically for his family.

During this Lenten season, "it seems ... "a very large concern and we fervently hope for Easter resurrection," he said.