On March 17, 1865, Fr Bernard Petitjean found 15 Japanese outside the door of a new church built to serve Nagasaki’s European community.

Three women knelt and said to the priest, “The heart of all of us here is the same as yours.”

Rumors had long circulated that despite more than two centuries of persecution, Christians still lived in Japan — the kakure kirishitan, or “hidden Christians,” who had secretly passed their faith from generation to generation. Those who risked their lives to visit Oura Church proved the rumors true.

Persecution and its roots

Christianity had been outlawed in 1587. Persecution began 10 years later with the execution of 26 Christians in Nagasaki — possibly the most brutal and systematic persecution of Christians until modern times.

The evangelization of Japan began with St Francis Xavier in 1549. Like much missionary work of the era, it aimed at baptizing as many people as possible. Catechesis was not stressed. We still see this influence in Latin America and the Philippines, where the Church has a broad but not always deep presence.

In Japan, some Christians eventually established lay leadership structures. When driven underground, better-prepared communities survived. But over two and a half centuries, doctrines were forgotten. Books were too dangerous. Most kirishitan were illiterate.

Faith kept in secret

They gathered in secret to recite prayers before bundles of cloth hidden inside Buddhist altars. Inside were medals, statues, or crucifixes passed down through generations. Their religion became a mix of Buddhism, Shinto, and half-remembered Catholicism.

Village elders led worship. Discovery meant death. Yet these small communities held to a Christian identity even as the theology largely disappeared. Loyalty to ancestors and to one another bound them together.

Coming out of hiding

When missioners like Fr Petitjean met the kirishitan, they faced a dilemma. The people called themselves Christian, but their beliefs and practices had drifted far from Church teaching. The response was to call upon them to renounce ancestral traditions and enter the Church anew.

About half of the estimated 30,000 kakure kirishitan did so. The rest refused, unwilling to abandon a faith they had protected through centuries of persecution.

Today, descendants of the kakure kirishitan form the core of the Catholic Church in Nagasaki. They are proud to be descendants of men and women who remained faithful in spite of persecution, even though their beliefs had strayed from true Catholicism.

A church that now shares

But that is changing. From a Church that keeps the faith, it is becoming one that shares it. These Catholics revere their ancestors while deepening their own understanding for the sake of mission today.

The wider Church has something to learn from Nagasaki. We have emerged from decades in which “keeping the faith” took priority over sharing it — in danger of becoming a closed community of the elect, protected from the ways of the world.

In Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis calls us to proclaim the Joy of the Gospel. That is not merely the name of a document, it is the definition of the Church.

Like the Catholics of Nagasaki, we must proclaim that God’s love is stronger than sin, stronger than persecution, stronger than death.

With the early Church, it is time to come out of hiding and into the open with faithfulness to each other and to the Lord.

• William Grimm a native of New York City, is a missioner and presbyter who since 1973 has served in Japan, Hong Kong and Cambodia. A graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York, he is the publisher of UCA News.
• Based on a piece first published in UCANews.com.