Japanese Catholics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 45, 10 November 1904, Page 29

Japanese Catholics

In the ' Les Missuns Calholiqucs ' of July 2!) aie some interesting lacts showing how the Catholic rcngison was extirpated in, Japan 300 years ago. That country, which is evidently destined to play an important part in the arlairs of the world, might have been won to the Church (s a ys the New \o-k 'Freeman's Journal ') if the labors of the successors of St. Francis Xavier had not been biought to naught by violent persecutions, which destioycd the seeds of Christianity planted by Catholic missionaries. The Jesuits had ame and zealous assistants in the Dominicans, tlie first of whom landed at Nagasaki in 1592. He had come m\the character 'of an envoy from the King of Spam. Shortly afterwards a band of Dominicans, landed in the island af Coy lqui. TTie progress made in convert 'no; the Japanese was such that it iustiried the hopes the zealous missionaries entertained of making great spiritual conquests. These hopes, however we-'o suddenly blasted. The story of how this

happened is thus told in the ' Les Missions Catholi. oues ' :—: — 1 Captain William Adams, in command of an English vessel, had invited some Japanese Mandarins to pay a visit to Ins ship Ihc Japanese visitors naturally asked many questions about Europe. Finally the knglisli captain took a map of the world, and, spreading it out be-lore Ins guests, was amused at the astonishment the Mandarins expressed at the si7.e of the Western kingdoms. At that time Spam was in the zenith of her power. The Japanese officials were amazed at the extent of her colonies as shown on the map. ' How is it," said one of them, " that the king of Spain Has been able to conquer luie world? " The English" 1 captain answered . "It is easy enough, lie first senAs Ins missionaries to prepare the way. His soldiers follow soon after " Ihe Japanese Mandarins reported this statement to the Emperor Taico-Sama. Shortly afterwards the first edict against the Catholics made its appearance, it was issued in 1614.' This first edict was not aimed at the lives of the Catholic missionaries. It simply ordered them to leave the country. It, however, did not deal so leniently with the native converts, who were subjected to fearful tortures to make them apostatize. In 1617 the persecution spread far and wide. The heroic missionaries, who did not desert their post in the hour of danger, weie obliged to hide themselves. Two of them— a Jesuit and a Dominican— fell into the hands of the officers of the emperor, who was so cniaged on learning that the European priests had not obeyed his edict that he ordered a strict sea - ch to be made for the missionaries, at the same time decreeing a general massacre. Father Navarelle, who at that time was Superior of the Dominican Mission, went from one Christian community to another, keeping alive the faith of the neophytes and inspiring all with a desire to die for Jesus Christ, lie was at Icngtri arrested and beheaded in the island of Tpcaxina. on June 1, 1617. For live years the Dominicans and the Jesuits bravely faced death. At the end of that time there took plate a massacre the memory of which was revived m <>it own days, when, on July fi, 1867, the Church solemnly beatified the two hundred Japanese martyis who laid down their lives in defence of the faith. This human holocaust did not daunt the ardor of the Catholic missionaries, whfj still labored to bring the Japanese villini the fold of the Church In 1630 there was another mas>sacie Ten years later the last of the Catholic missionaries received the ciuwn of martyrdom, and Japan was closed to Europe for two hundred vcais It is to'iclrng; to read how, afte~ this long interval, many ot r.e .Janane^e converts of the sixteenth and seventeenth cent ones weie found still clinging to the I u!h when Catholic missionaries once more visited them in the nineteenth ccntuiy \ve translate from the ' Los Misskiis Cat' 1 O'i,|UPS ' "—" — 'It vvos only in 1856 that the Catholic missionaries weie ag,i n able to enter Japan furtively. They weie not Dominicans, but fathers of the Society of Foieipn Missions \\hat was their surprise on finding that the Christian communities had remained almost uitar'l S 1 < h vas the spnit breathed into these communities by the eaily missionaries that these noor Ja'mnf^e had carefully guarucd the hentage af faith J ft t by tiu'ii tMhers and had transmitted it from genelaiion (,<> c,e'Tr,il irn in Ibe crniidcnt expectation that then spintual Fauieia from the West would return once moie to tiM'm '1 heir 1 nowledge of the past was so accurate Ui\t some of them refused to recognise the Fat he «of the Fo'Tip-n Missions as the successors of the onginal missionaries, because they did not wear the \viut<? habit ol the Dominican, and in Church ceremonies did not follow tl ose that are special to the Dominican Order.' When Si Francis Xavier devoted his life to the conversion of the Janancse nation the worldly wise at that time may have thought that he was wasting energy which in their opinion might have been better employed in Europe The Japanese inhabited a remote corner of the world and aoparcntly it made no difference, so far as the general interests of Ihe Church were concerned, whether they wee Catholics or pagans. But the greatest of missionaries since the days of St. Paul did not take this view. There weie souls to ho saved and that was enough for St. Fr?ncis Xavier. We now see $iat if the seed planted by him had not been violently' uprooted by persecution another nation might have been added to the Christian fold. The tenacity displayed by the Japanese Catholics in holding by the faith .. during the two hundred years they were cut off from Europe is suggestive of the strong hold the Catholic Church would have by this time in the island empire if she had bee p free to carry out the great work inaugurated by St. Francis Xavier.