NAGASAKI, Japan (AFP) — As church bells ring and grey-robed nuns hurry to Mass in this Japanese port city, a dark chapter in Christianity's past is being revisited with the beatification of 188 martyrs persecuted for their faith.

The Catholic Church hopes the special ceremony for the Christians killed in the 17th century will generate more interest in the history of a religion that has so far failed to take root in a country dominated by Buddhism and Shinto.

"We have a history of religious persecution that has no similar example in Japan nor in the world," said Father Isao John Hashimoto of Nagasaki's Catholic Centre, which is organising the event on November 24.

"We would like this to be an opportunity for Japan, including the government, to dig deep into our past and learn about this part of history. Japan has a tendency to erase histories that make it look bad," he said.

As many as 30,000 Christians are believed to have been martyred since the religion was banned by the government shortly after it was introduced to Japan by the Portuguese Jesuit priest Francis Xavier in 1549.

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Did you know that Japan had such a history involving Christian martyrs?  Please comment, and remember all comments are moderated first.

Comments

[ASimpleSinner]

I was aware of this great persecution of the Christians of Japan. Interestingly, the death toll for the Catholic Church was still greater in Korea, from whence we get fully one quarter of the canonized and beatified martyrs on or martyrology today... Or at least that was true before the beatification of 498 Spanish Civil War martyrs.

Sadly, the inroads made at one poing in Japan, are not as apparent today. Pray this is not permanant.

[Tom]

Shusaku Endo, a 20th Century Japanese Catholic, wrote a prizewinning novel called "Silence," about the persecutions of the 17th Century. (The favored means of punishing Christians was hanging them upside down over a fetid pit until they died or apostasized.)

Martin Scorsese is working on a film verson of the novel that is scheduled to be released in 2010.