Photo/Illutration Lower House Speaker Hiroyuki Hosoda is swarmed by reporters in the Diet after a plenary session of the Lower House on Oct. 6. (Koichi Ueda)

Lower House Speaker Hiroyuki Hosoda has acknowledged that he took part in another four meetings connected to the Unification Church.

He disclosed to the chamber’s Rules and Administration Committee the results of what he called a "re-investigation of his ties with the church," known formally as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, that emerged after the July 8 slaying of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

He had initially only admitted in a statement on Sept. 29 to attending four meetings hosted by groups tied to the organization between 2018 and 2019. But this latest revelation brings the number to eight.

He also admitted he sent congratulatory messages to three church-affiliated meetings.

Hosoda has been under fire from the opposition parties over not disclosing all his interactions with the controversial religious organization, with the Diet erupting in raucous shouting at one point over the matter this week.

Before he became Lower House speaker, Hosoda headed the ruling party’s largest faction. But he was not required to report any links he had to the church since, as speaker, he does not sit with the LDP caucus.

Hosoda reported the new details privately to Shunichi Yamaguchi, chairman of the Lower House’s Rules and Administration Committee, and its two leading directors--Masahito Moriyama of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Hirofumi Ryu of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

They met at the official residence of the speaker of the Lower House on the morning of Oct. 7.

Yamaguchi then spoke with reporters about it.

Hosoda was not willing to take questions from reporters. He presented only a document and did not hold a news conference.

The document was written in accordance with the eight inspection items that the LDP had requested party lawmakers to submit during its internal investigation into their ties with the church.

The four meetings Hosoda admitted to attending are one held in Shimane Prefecture in February 2014; another in the same prefecture in March 2016; one in Tokyo in March 2017; and a meeting of the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace in Japan held in the Diet in June 2021.

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