From the Friars: The Church in Japan

The Catholic Faith was brought to Japan first by St. Francis Xavier in 1549 and the Jesuits did great work building up the church in the following decades. Franciscan missionaries began arriving in 1593 and were also initially very successful.

But some Buddhist monks became concerned over these developments and other political factors brought the Ruler Hideyoshi to turn against the missionaries. In 1596 the Spanish ship, San Felipe, was shipwrecked off the coast of Japan. Foolish bragging by the ship’s pilot led Hideyoshi to believe that the Christians, the Franciscans especially, were part of a Spanish plot to invade his country.

This led to the arrest and martyrdom of St. Paul Miki and his companions that we celebrate this week on February 6th. There were 26 martyrs including six Franciscan missionaries, 17 lay Japanese and Korean Franciscans and three Jesuits. They were tortured and marched for over 600 miles through 30 towns on display to discourage people from becoming Christians. Their hearts were pierced as they hung on crosses in Nagasaki.

Growth of the Church did continue until 1614 when a fiercer and more widespread crackdown began, and the last friar died there in1640. It seemed that Catholicism no longer existed in Japan. In the 1850’s the country re-opened to the West. A French priest, Bernard Petitjean, was sent as a missionary to the land of the Rising Sun. He built a church in Nagasaki dedicated to the 26 martyrs. Soon after it opened, he was approached by a small group of Kakure Kirishitan (hidden Christians).

A woman asked to see the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary to confirm that this church was indeed of the same faith. This was the beginning of the discovery of thousands of Christians who had gone underground in the 17th century and had managed to preserve their faith for over two centuries. Bl. Pope Pius IX called it the “miracle of the orient.” Pope Francis made a special recognition of these heroic faithful in 2014: “When a child was born, the father or mother baptized him, …They survived by the grace of Baptism!”

May the holy martyrs help us to persevere in fidelity to Jesus and His Church, come what may.

–Fr. Peter