THE HIDDEN CATHOLICS OF JAPAN - THE JESUITS AND THEIR LEGACY
THE HIDDEN CATHOLICS OF JAPAN THE JESUITS AND THEIR LEGACY "Arrival of a Portuguese Ship". On St Patrick’s Day 1865, Father Bernard Petitjean, a priest of the Societe des Missions Etrangeres, was in the chapel he had constructed and dedicated to the Japanese martyrs in Nagasaki, Japan, when he was visited by a group of Japanese men and women. From the time of his arrival in Japan until that day in March 1865, Father Petitjean had had no visitors. At that time in Japan, during the Meiji Restoration, foreigners had been granted access to the country after two centuries of isolation. However, all contact by native Japanese with foreigners, especially missionaries, was strictly forbidden under threat of execution - conversion by a Japanese to Christianity was a capital offense and even a conversation with a priest was illegal. “But here, standing before him are these 15 people, looking very frightened and not a little unsure of themselves . . .” An article in the Japan Times, ...