Francisco Cabral, SJ (1529 - 1609) was a Portuguese

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest and missionary in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Early life

Cabral was born in the castle of Covilhā,

Diocese of Guarda The Diocese of Guarda () is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic church in central eastern Portugal, a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the Latin Patriarchate of Lisbon in southern Portugal. The present episcopal seat is in Guarda C ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

in 1529. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1554.

Work in Japan

Cabral arrived in Japan in the spring of 1570 to serve as Superior of the Jesuit Japan Mission. Cabral implemented several changes to refocus the Japan mission. He forbade the local Jesuit missionaries from wearing the orange silk robes worn by Buddhist priests, a practice that had begun under

Francis Xavier Francis Xavier, Jesuits, SJ (born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta; ; ; ; ; ; 7 April 15063 December 1552), venerated as Saint Francis Xavier, was a Kingdom of Navarre, Navarrese cleric and missionary. He co-founded the Society of Jesus ...

so that missionaries would be taken more seriously by locals. Cabral viewed these garments as a cape used by the devil while infiltrating the mission, and insisted that priests wear the traditional black

cassock The cassock, or soutane, is a Christian clerical clothing, clerical coat used by the clergy and Consecrated life, male religious of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, in addition to some clergy in ...

. He also stopped observing Japanese dietary customs, had fewer missionaries learn the Japanese language, and rejected other forms of cultural accommodation to the Japanese. Cabral also resisted the training of Japanese priests, believing that they may come to despise Europeans. These policies led to a decline in morale among local missionaries. Church membership in Japan grew to 130,000 during Cabral's leadership, as a number of ''daimyo'' converted to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

, some with the intention of having better trade conditions with

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

. However, the isolated Jesuit mission lacked funding. Cabral believed that the mission had been abandoned by God due to the sins of its members, and by 1576 had asked the General of the Society to let him return to Europe. A number of Jesuits, including the canonical Visitor to the Eastern Missions

Alessandro Valignano Alessandro Valignano, S.J., sometimes Valignani (Chinese: 范禮安 ''Fàn Lǐ’ān''; February 1539 – January 20, 1606), was an Italian Jesuit priest and missionary born in Chieti, part of the Kingdom of Naples, who helped supervise the i ...

and Father Gnecchi-Soldo Organtino, were opposed to Cabral's policies and openly resisted them. Valignano opened a school for the training of lay ministers in 1580 over Cabral's objections. Valignano formally criticized Cabral in a letter to the General in October 1580; Cabral later asked Valignano to relieve him of his post as Superior, and left Japan in 1581, being replaced by

Gaspar Coelho Gaspar Coelho ( – 1590) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary. He replaced Francisco Cabral as the Superior and Vice-Provincial of the Jesuit mission in Japan during the late 16th century. He catalyzed the disfavor of Toyotomi Hideyoshi against th ...

. Following his departure from Japan, Cabral advised the General that Japan should be evangelized through assertion of Jesuit identity and profound spiritual life. Cabral also supported the role of military force in evangelization, proposing in 1584 a Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese invasion of China which never realized.

Later life

Cabral served as the Rector of the Colégio de São Paulo in

Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...

, and later as the Jesuit

Visitor A visitor, in English and Welsh law and history, is an overseer of an autonomous ecclesiastical or eleemosynary institution, often a charitable institution set up for the perpetual distribution of the founder's alms and bounty, who can interve ...

to India. He died in Goa in 1609.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cabral, Francisco 1529 births 1609 deaths Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries 16th-century Portuguese Jesuits Portuguese expatriates in Japan Roman Catholic missionaries in Japan People from Guarda, Portugal 17th-century Portuguese Jesuits Jesuit missionaries