Daily Saint

In 1596, the Spanish galleon San Felipe was shipwrecked off the coast of Japan. While local authorities were confiscating its cargo, the Spanish captain reportedly boasted during negotiations about the Spanish conquest. The information was communicated to the Japanese ruler, who saw it as confirmation of his fears that missionaries were part of a Spanish plot to conquer Japan. As a result, St. Paul Miki and 25 other Christian missionaries and converts were arrested and executed in 1597. While the Japanese government laxly enforced the 1587 edict for a period, the San Felipe incident dramatically shifted the government’s policy toward severe Christian persecution. The persecution drove Japanese Christians underground, leading to the survival of Catholicism in Japan through the “hidden Christians” communities that kept their faith and passed it on to the next generations in secret for centuries.

Christianity was legalized in Japan in 1873, when the Meiji government lifted the ban on the religion. Previously, an initial edict banning foreign religions was ordered in 1857, which led to the martyrdom of the 26 Japanese Martyrs. An official ban on Christianity was declared in 1614. The continued persecution drove Japanese Christians underground. These “hidden Christians” (Kakure Kirishitan) preserved their faith in secret for centuries, without priests and without contact with the outside Church. The concept of freedom of religion in Japan resulted from a broader effort to modernize and open the country to Western influence after centuries of isolation. In 1889, a constitution further solidified religious freedom, explicitly granting liberty of religion and conscience. Today, about two million Christians live in Japan, which is about 1% of the population. Christianity is more prevalent in western Japan, the region where missionaries first had success. Catholics and Protestants combined make up about 70% of the Japanese Christian population.