Kirishitan - Propagation Strategy

Propagation Strategy

The Jesuits believed that it was better to seek to influence people in power and then allow the religion to be passed downwards to the commoners later. They tried to avoid suspicion by not preaching to the commoners without permission from the local rulers to propagate Catholicism within their domains. As a result, several daimyo became Christians, soon to be followed by many of their subjects as the Dominicans and Augustinians were able to begin preaching to the commoners. After the edict banning Christianity, there were communities that kept practicing Catholicism without having any contact with the Church until missionaries were able to return much later.

When Xavier disembarked in Kagoshima, the principal chiefs of the two branches of the Shimazu family, Sanehisa and Katsuhisa, were warring for the sovereignty of their lands. Katsuhisa, adopted Takahisa Shimazu who in 1542 was accepted as head of the clan having previously received the Portuguese merchants on Tanegashima Island, learning about the use of firearms. Later, he met Xavier himself at the castle of Uchiujijo and permitted the conversion of his vassals.

Having a religious background, Takahisa showed himself to be benevolent and already allowed freedom of worship but not helping the missionaries nor favoring their church. Failing to find a way to the centre of affairs, the court of the Emperor, Xavier soon tired and left to Yamaguchi thus beginning the Yamaguchi period. Xavier, stayed in Yamaguchi for two months on his way to an abortive audience with the Emperor in Kyoto. Yamaguchi was already a prosperous and refined city and its leaders, the Ouchi family, were aware that Xavier's journey to Japan had begun after the completion of his mission in India.

They took Catholicism for some sort of new sect of Buddhism and were curious to know of the priest's doctrine. Tolerant but shrewd, their eyes less on baptism than the Portuguese cargoes from Macao, they granted the Jesuit permission to preach. The uncompromising Xavier took to the streets of the city denouncing, among other things, infanticide, idolatry and homosexuality (the last being widely accepted at the time). Misunderstandings were inevitable.

Christian books were published in Japanese from the 1590s on, some with more than one thousand copies and from 1601 a printing press was established under the supervision of Soin Goto Thomas, a citizen of Nagasaki with thirty Japanese working full-time at the press. Liturgical calendars were also printed after 1592 until at least 1634. Christian solidarity made also possible missionary mail delivery throughout the country until the end of the 1620s.