Series | Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies
Volume 23 | Monograph | A Failing Mission?
A Failing Mission?
Salvation in the Jesuit Mission in Japan Under Francisco Cabral
open access | peer reviewed- Linda Zampol D’Ortia - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email
Abstract
The Jesuit textual production from the sixteenth century leaves no doubt that the Japanese evangelising enterprise was publicised as the epitome of success. Francisco Cabral, third superior of the mission, who had initially shared this judgement, in time began fearing that the mission was, instead, doomed to failure. As he perceived the loosening of the internal ties of the Society of Jesus, and the salvation of the catechumens as more and more independent of that of the Jesuits, Cabral concluded that God had abandoned the mission. This study, using little-known manuscript sources, examines Cabral’s attitudes towards his confreres and the Japanese people, to illuminate how particular salvation mechanics could define early modern Catholic missions.
Keywords Catholic soteriology • History of Catholicism in Japan • Early modern Catholicism • Early modern Jesuit missions • Japanese Jesuit mission
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-793-7 | e-ISBN 978-88-6969-793-7 | ISBN (PRINT) 978-88-6969-764-7 | Number of pages 184 | Published Jan. 31, 2024 | Accepted Sept. 25, 2023 | Submitted June 21, 2023 | Language it, en
Copyright © 2024 Linda Zampol D’Ortia. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
