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 Japan’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 believers to shape their 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 found in Catholicism an alternative way to keep “tradition” and negotiate modernity since the late nineteenth century.

An examinination of the role that Catholic missionary orders played in the dissemination of accounts of Christian martyrdom in Japan. The author offers an overarching portrayal of the writing, printing, and circulation of books of “Japano-martyrology.”

The earth is the common home of humanity. It is a gift from God. Yet man’s abuse of freedom threatens that home. In his encyclical Praise Be to You (Laudato Si’), Pope Francis challenges all people to praise God for his glorious creation and to work to safeguard her. The encyclical letter takes its name from St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures, which depicts creation as “a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us”. “This sister”, Pope Francis declares, “now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her”. He calls for an “integral ecology” based on what Pope St John Paul called an “ecological conversion”—a moral transformation linking the proper response to God for the gift of his creation to concern for justice, especially for the poor. He challenges people to understand ecology in terms of the right ordering of the fundamental relationships of the human person: with God, oneself, other people, and the rest of creation. Francis examines such ecological concerns as pollution, waste, and what he calls “the throwaway culture”. Climate, he insists, is a common good to be protected. He explores the proper use of natural resources and notions such as sustainability from a Judeo-Christian perspective. The loss of biodiversity due to human activities, decline in the quality of life for many people, global inequality of resources, as well as concerns over consumerism and excessive individualism also threaten the good order of creation, writes Pope Francis. While valuing technology and invnovation, he rejects efforts to repudiate the natural order, including the moral law inscribed in human nature or to rely simply on science to solve ecological problems. Moral and spiritual resources are crucial, including openness to God’s purpose for the world. Expounding the biblical tradition regarding creation and redemption in Christ, Francis stresses man’s subordination to God’s plan and the universal communion of all creation. “Dominion”, he maintains, means “responsible stewardship” rather than exploitation. He rejects treating creation as if it were “divine” and insists on the primacy of the human person in creation. He also explores the roots of the ecological crisis in man’s abuse of technology, his self-centeredness, and the rise of practical relativism. Without rejecting political changes, he implores people to change their hearts and their ways of life. Popes Benedict XVI, St John Paul II, and Blessed Paul VI addressed key themes regarding stewardship of God’s creation and justice in the world. But Pope Francis is the first to devote an entire encyclical to the subject.

A Survey of Catholic History in Modern Japan discusses Japanese Catholic history from the Meiji period (1868-1912) to the present. The aim of this highly original book is to consider the relevance of Japanese Catholics to political and cultural circumstances in modern and contemporary Japan.

In Search of Japan's Hidden Christians is a remarkable story of suppression, secrecy and survival in the face of human cruelty and God’s apparent silence. Part history, part travelogue, it explores and seeks to explain a clash of civilizations—of East and West—that resonates to this day. For seven generations, Japan’s ‘Hidden Christians’ preserved a faith that was forbidden on pain of death. Just as remarkably, descendants of the Hidden Christians continue to practise their beliefs today, refusing to rejoin the Catholic Church. Why? And what is it about Japanese culture that makes it so resistant to Western Christianity?

This volume provides a new history of Christianity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Japan by depicting the world of ordinary Japanese Christians. It examines their religious expressions, as well as textual expositions given to them, within the context of Japanese religious culture.

In many parts of the world, the Roman Catholic Church in the twenty-first century finds itself mired in scandal, and its future prospects appear fairly dim in the eyes of many social critics. In From Situated Selves to the Self, however, Hisako Omori finds a radically different situation, with jubilant Roman Catholics in an unexpected place: Tokyo, Japan. Based on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork, the author provides a culturally sensitive account of the transformative processes associated with becoming Catholic in Tokyo. Her ethnographically rich narrative reveals the ways in which Christianity as a cultural force can effect changes in one's personhood by juxtaposing two models of the self—one based on conventional Japanese social ideals and the other on Roman Catholic teachings. Omori takes readers to a living room ("ochanoma") in a parish, a Catholic bar in a nightclub area, Catholic charismatic meetings, and busy intersections in Tokyo. In so doing, she traces subtle yet emerging changes in women's agentive power that accompany the processes of deepening faith. From Situated Selves to the Self gives us a rare glimpse into Christianity as a cultural force in an East Asian context where Confucianism has historically been the dominant ethical framework.