The history of the Catholic Church in Japan is one of triumph, tragedy, but above all perseverance.
After St Francis Xavier and his fellow missionaries entered the country in the 1540s, the Church’s efforts were a striking success, bringing in 300,000 converts over the next 60 years. But local leaders resented these dramatic inroads from abroad, and issued a nationwide ban on Christian missionaries – followed by a ruthless campaign of persecution, forcing the faithful to go underground for centuries. (This harrowing story is told in John Dougill’s In Search of Japan’s Hidden Christians: A Story of Suppression, Secrecy and Survival.)
