Vatican Library, Japan to catalogue lost archive

Martin Scorsese's movie adaptation of Endo Shusaku's "Silence," about the persecution of Christians in Japan is due to enter production in June of this year. Japanese persecution of Christians may become the focus of International attention.

I'm sure there's heeeeeaps of other treasures like this stored away in secret places of the vatican. millions upon millions of (insert currency here) worth, brought back some other countries but i'm it's always 'unclear when exactly then papers arrived in Rome'

. I'm sure there's plenty of movies already out about christians persecuting other religions - also 400-500 years ago....

Don't let Japanese 'historians' in on it... it will suddenly "not have happened".

And invent proof that Japan owns the islands in contention between South Korea and China and that the invasion of China, Korea and Southeast Asia was ' God's Will '? These sneaky short people are going all out on a masquerade never seen before with the chief clown, Shinzo Abe leading the troop to drown in the river like the Pied Piper.

I wonder if they will include St. Lorenzo Ruiz, a Filipino saint who was killed under the Tokugawa Shogunate in the 17th century for refusing to leave Japan and renounce his faith.

Just to give some historical perspective.

Catholic Church started sending evangelists to Japan in mid 1500s, when Japan was in Sengoku (War) period. Various Japanese warlords accepted evangelists and the Catholic belief started to spread in Japan. But at some point, the warlords realized that the Catholic belief comes hand in hand with colonization by Spain or Portugal. The information is said to be brought to Japan by Dutch merchants, because the Netherlands were at the 80 year war with Spain, and Dutchmen were mainly Protestants. In 1612, Tokugawa Shogunate prohibited Christian belief, especially Catholic belief in Japan, but Dutchmen somehow persuaded Tokugawa that protestant is different from Christianity, and stayed in Japan.

In 1637, the biggest Christian rebellion in Japan, Shimabara Rebellion took place in Kyushu. The rebellion was subdued in the next year and most of the Christians who took part in the rebellion were killed. Dutch gunships took part in bombing the Christian rebels at Hara Castle, which was the stronghold of the rebels. Dutchmen attacked the Christian rebels because most of them were Catholics under Spanish influence, and Spain and the Netherlands were at the 30 year war at the time. As a reward, Dutch merchants get monopoly, as a European nation, of trade with Japan.

In Kyushu Japan, many daimyos became Christians, We were shocked (in Japan) when Nagasaki was A-bombed until we learned it was because weather problem that Kokura was avoided and went Nagasaki. Why we were shocked? Because our history books (WW II time) had articles about Kakure kirishitan (Christians pretended that they were not Christians) in Shimabara area. Sorin Ohtomo and his clasn were Christian daimyos.