Japan has had three Catholic prime ministers, and its current
empress was raised and educated in the faith. How did a non-Christian
nation come to foster more Catholic leaders than the United States,
particularly when Protestantism is said to define Christianity in Japan
and Catholicism is believed to be but a fleeting element of the
country's so-called Christian century?
Far from being a relic of the past – something brought to
Japan by sixteenth-century missionaries such as Francis Xavier and then
forgotten – Catholicism offered, and continues to provide,
an authentic way for Japanese to shape their own cultural identities.
This volume documents the appeal of Catholicism not only among farmers
and fishers but also among scientists, diplomats, novelists, and
members of the imperial household who have answered the challenge of
Christianity and found inspiration in Catholicism since the late
nineteenth century. Associated with the past, Catholicism has offered
many Japanese an alternative way to maintain “tradition”
and negotiate modernity.
This path-breaking exploration of
Catholicism's long-term influence on Japan challenges the
deep-seated tendency to juxtapose the traditional, non-Christian East
with the modern and Christian West.
