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For Japan's Catholics the years before 1945 had turned on one question: was a visit to a state shrine a religious act or a civic one? The affair of 1932 and the Holy See's instruction of 1936 had both been shaped by the government's answer that shrine rites were patriotic, not religious.
The occupation's memorandum of October 4, 1945, had already assured "complete religious freedom."On December 15, 1945 General Headquarters issued SCAPIN-448, the , to the Japanese government.It prohibited the "sponsorship, support, perpetuation, control, and dissemination of Shinto" by national, prefectural and local governments, ended all public funding of shrines, and abolished the Shrine Board of the Home Ministry.Shinto teaching was to be removed from publicly funded schools, and no such school was to organize shrine visits.It also declared that no one "will be discriminated against because of his failure to profess and believe in or participate in" State Shinto "or of any other religion."
The directive described State Shinto as the branch that the government had "classified a non-religious national cult."It stated its own purpose plainly: "to separate religion from the state, to prevent misuse of religion for political ends, and to put all religions, faiths, and creeds upon exactly the same legal basis."Shrine Shinto could continue as a religion if its followers wished, with the same protection as any other.
Two weeks later, on December 28, 1945, the Religious Corporations Ordinance replaced the 1939 .
The Constitution of Japan, dated November 3, 1946, made the principle permanent. Article 20 begins: "Freedom of religion is guaranteed to all." It adds that "No person shall be compelled to take part in any religious act, celebration, rite or practice," and that the State shall refrain from religious education or activity.Article 89 forbids public money for any religious institution.Under Article 100 it took effect six months after promulgation.