![]() Other Christians are imprisoned there as well, and the guards surprisingly allow the priest to visit them twice a day to pray, hear confession, and perform his priestly duties. Kichijiro asks the priest for absolution for his sin, but even as he does so sells Rodrigues out to Japanese officials, who capture the priest and take him to a newly-built prison. Rodrigues wanders into the hill country, believing that he will be safer there, and soon runs into Kichijiro, who fled Tomogi after he apostatized. As Rodrigues flees, he wonders why God does not speak or intervene when his followers suffer. They split up, hoping that at least one priest may survive and minister to Japan. The priests are disturbed, feeling as if they have brought suffering upon the villagers, and when news arrives that the officials are preparing to search the mountains as well, Rodrigues and Garrpe decide they must flee. Although Rodrigues advises them to apostatize, only Kichijiro does so, and the other two men are returned to the village where they are tortured for several days until they die of exhaustion in front of the villagers. Three men-including Kichijiro-are chosen to travel to Nagasaki with the officials, and apostatize before the magistrate’s office to prove that their village is not Christian. When he returns, officials of the Japanese government are in Tomogi, having been informed that there are practicing Christians present, though they don’t yet know of the priests. Villagers from a neighboring island beg the priests to visit, so Rodrigues travels there alone. Despite their attempts to remain hidden, Kichijiro-whom the priests discover is a Christian who apostatized years before-spreads word to other villages that there are foreign priests in Japan once again. ![]() The villagers shelter the priests, hiding them in a charcoal hut atop a nearby mountain, where the priests wait silently during the day and then minister to the villagers at night, only one or two at a time. Kichijiro helps the priests find an isolated Christian village called Tomogi, though the Japanese peasants have not had a priest for six years. They smuggle themselves and Kichijiro onto the shores of Japan, landing in the mountains near Nagasaki. A Portuguese superior of the Church warns them of a magistrate named Inoue, a particularly cruel and devilish persecutor, but nevertheless helps Rodrigues and Garrpe commission a Chinese ship and crew. While there they are joined by Kichijiro, a pitiful and drunken man about their age whom they suspect is a Christian, though he adamantly denies it. ![]() The pair travel from Portugal to China, hoping to find a covert way to reach Japan. The Church is both confused and disturbed by this news, and several of Ferreira’s former students (he was a seminary professor before going to Japan) launch an expedition into Japan to continue Ferreira’s former evangelistic work and discover the truth about his apostasy, even though the Japanese government brutally oppresses Christianity.įathers Rodrigues and Garrpe, former students of Ferreira, are Portuguese priests in their late 20s. In 17th-century Portugal, the Roman Catholic Church learns that Father Ferreira, a highly-respected missionary who has worked in Japan for over 20 years, has somehow been made to commit apostasy, renouncing Christianity by stamping his foot on a picture of Jesus Christ.
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