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Jesuit Asia Missions
The Jesuits, or Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic religious order, have had a long history of missions in East and South Asia from their very foundation in the 16th century. St. Francis Xavier, a friend of St. Ignatius of Loyola and co-founder of the Society, visited India, the Moluques, Japan and died (1552) as he was attempting to enter China. See also *Christianity in China *Christianity in India *Christianity and the History of the Catholic Church in Japan *Christianity in Taiwan *Jesuit China missions * Pedro Arrupe *Roberto de Nobili *Matteo Ricci * Thomas Stephens (Jesuit) * Alessandro Valignano * Ferdinand Verbiest * Ivan Vreman *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 ... References {{RC-society-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Society Of Jesus
The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola and six companions, with the approval of Pope Paul III. The Society of Jesus is the largest religious order in the Catholic Church and has played significant role in education, charity, humanitarian acts and global policies. The Society of Jesus is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 countries. Jesuits work in education, research, and cultural pursuits. They also conduct retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, sponsor direct social and humanitarian works, and promote ecumenical dialogue. The Society of Jesus is consecrated under the patronage of Madonna della Strada, a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is led by a superior general. The headquarters of the society, its general ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The Catholic Church In Japan
Christian missionaries arrived in Japan with Francis Xavier and the Jesuits in the 1540s and briefly flourished, with over 100,000 converts, including many ''daimyōs'' in Kyushu. It soon met resistance from the highest office holders of Japan. Emperor Ōgimachi issued edicts to ban Catholicism in 1565 and 1568, but to little effect. Beginning in 1587, with imperial regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi's ban on Jesuit missionaries, Christianity was repressed as a threat to national unity. Jansen, p. 67 After the Tokugawa shogunate banned Christianity in 1620 it ceased to exist publicly. Many Catholics went underground, becoming , while others died. Only after the Meiji Restoration was Christianity re-established in Japan. Background Portuguese shipping arrived in Japan in 1543, and Catholic missionary activities in Japan began in earnest around 1549, performed in the main by Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits until Spanish-sponsored Franciscans and Dominicans gained access to Japan. Of the 95 J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferdinand Verbiest
Ferdinand Verbiest, (9 October 1623 – 28 January 1688) was a Flemish Jesuit missionary in China during the Qing dynasty. He was born in Pittem near Tielt in the County of Flanders (now part of Belgium). He is known as Nan Huairen () in Chinese. He was an accomplished mathematician and astronomer and proved to the court of the Kangxi Emperor that European astronomy was more accurate than Chinese astronomy. He then corrected the Chinese calendar and was later asked to rebuild and re-equip the Beijing Ancient Observatory, being given the roles of Head of the Mathematical Board and Director of the Observatory. He became close friends with the Kangxi Emperor, who frequently requested his instruction in geometry, philosophy and music. Verbiest worked as a diplomat, cartographer, and translator; he spoke Latin, German, Dutch, Spanish, Hebrew, Italian and Manchu. He wrote more than thirty books. During the 1670s, Verbiest designed what some claim to be the first ever self-propell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 introduction of Catholicism to the Far East, and especially to Japan. Education and commission Valignano was born in Chieti, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, son of a Neapolitan aristocrat and friend of Pope Paul IV. He excelled as a student at the University of Padua, where he first obtained his doctorate in law at the age of 19. After several years in Rome, he returned to Padua in 1562 to study Christian theology. After spending a year in gaol, he returned to Rome in 1566 where he was admitted to the Society of Jesus. Valignano's insights into the Christian message convinced many within the Church that he was the perfect individual to carry the spirit of the Counter-Reformation to the Far East. He was ordained in the Society of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Stephens (Jesuit)
Thomas Stephens Society of Jesus, SJ ( – 1619) was an English Society of Jesus, Jesuit Catholic priesthood, priest, missionary, writer, and linguist of Marathi language, Marathi and Konkani language, Konkani in Portuguese India. Educated at University of Oxford, Oxford, he was one of the earliest Western Christian missionaries to early modern India. He, along with Roberto de Nobili, helped in converting the top class of Indian society by adopting local practices and writing books in local languages, to appeal to the local people. He is famous for having written the ''Krista Purana'' (Story of Christ) laid down in meters of bhakti poetry. Early years and studies The son of a merchant, Thomas Stephens was born a Protestant in Bushton, Wiltshire, England. He was first educated at Winchester College, then at University of Oxford, Oxford, before becoming a Catholicism, Catholic. He went to Rome where he entered the Society of Jesus in 1575. He did philosophical studies at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci (; ; 6 October 1552 – 11 May 1610) was an Italian Jesuit priest and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions. He created the , a 1602 map of the world written in Chinese characters. In 2022, the Apostolic See declared its recognition of Ricci's heroic virtues, thereby bestowing upon him the honorific of Venerable. Ricci arrived at the Portuguese settlement of Macau in 1582 where he began his missionary work in China. He mastered the Chinese language and writing system. He became the first European to enter the Forbidden City of Beijing in 1601 when invited by the Wanli Emperor, who sought his services in matters such as court astronomy and calendrical science. He emphasized parallels between Catholicism and Confucianism but opposed Buddhism. He converted several prominent Chinese officials to Catholicism. He also worked with several Chinese elites, such as Xu Guangqi, in translating Euclid's ''Elements'' into Chinese as well as the Confucian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roberto De Nobili
Roberto de Nobili (1577 – 16 January 1656) was an Italian priest, a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), who worked as a missionary in Southern India. He used novel methods to preach Christianity, adopting many local customs of India which were, in his view, not contrary to Christian principles, and he won papal approval for a policy of accommodation that allowed coverts to Christianity to continue to engage in Hindu practices deemed social practices rather than expressions of Hinduism. Biography Born in Montepulciano, Tuscany, in September 1577, Roberto de Nobili arrived at the ports of the Portuguese in Goa and Bombay in western India on 20 May 1605. It is probable that he met here Fr Thomas Stephens (Jesuit), Thomas Stephens, a Jesuit who had arrived in Goa in 1579, and was probably then in the process of composing his ''Krista Purana, Khristapurana'', an epic poem using Hindu literary forms to tell Christ's life story. Roberto de Nobili, nicknamed the White Brahmin, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pedro Arrupe
Pedro Arrupe y Gondra, (14 November 1907 – 5 February 1991) was a Spanish Catholic priest who served as the 28th superior general of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983. He has been called a second founder of the Society, which he led in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, especially with regard to faith that does justice and preferential option for the poor. Born in 1907 in Bilbao, Arrupe joined the Jesuits in 1927 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1936. While serving as a novice master outside Hiroshima in 1945, Arrupe used his medical background as a first responder to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. In 1983, paralysis from a stroke caused Arrupe to resign from office. He lived on until 1991, when he died in the local Jesuit infirmary. His cause for sainthood was opened by the Jesuits and the Diocese of Rome in 2018. Education and training Arrupe attended school at the Santiago Apostol High School in Bilbao. In 1923, he moved to Madrid to atten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jesuit China Missions
The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of Foreign relations of China, relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of knowledge, science, and culture between China and the West, and influenced Christianity in China, Christian culture in Chinese society today. The first attempt by the Jesuits to reach China was made in 1552 by Francis Xavier, St. Francis Xavier, Navarrese priest and missionary and founding member of the Society of Jesus. Xavier never reached the mainland, dying after only a year on the Chinese island of Shangchuan. Three decades later, in 1582, Jesuits once again initiated Mission (Christian), mission work in China, led by several figures including the Italian Matteo Ricci, introducing Western science, mathematics, astronomy, and visual arts to the Chinese imperial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity In Taiwan
Christianity in Taiwan constituted 3.9% of the population, according to Taiwan's 2005 census. Christians on the island included approximately 600,000 Protestants and 300,000 Catholics. Estimates in 2020 suggested that the portion had risen to 4% or 6%. Due to the small number of practitioners, Christianity has not influenced the island nation's Han Chinese culture in a significant way. A few individual Christians have devoted their lives to charitable work in Taiwan, becoming well known and well liked—for example, George Leslie Mackay (Presbyterian) and Nitobe Inazō (Methodist, later Quaker). A few presidents of Taiwan have been Christians, including Republic of China's founder Sun Yat-sen (Confucian- Congregationalist), Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (both Buddhist-Methodists), and Lee Teng-hui (Presbyterian). Ma Ying-jeou apparently received a Catholic baptism in his early teens but does not identify with any religion or with Chinese folk religion pract ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity In Japan
Christianity in Japan is among the nation's minority religions in terms of individuals who state an explicit affiliation or faith. In 2022, there were 1.26 million Christians in Japan, down from 1.9 million Christians in Japan in 2019. In the early years of the 21st century, between less than 1 percent and 1.5% of the population claimed Christian belief or affiliation. As of December 31, 2023, according to the Department of Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Culture of Japan, the total Christian denominations in Japan numbered 2,383 parishes (communities), 4,367 clergy, and 300,921 followers (0.73% of the total population of Japan). Although formally banned in 1612 and today critically portrayed as a foreign "religion of colonialism", Christianity has played a role in the shaping of the relationship between religion and the Japanese state for more than four centuries. Most large Christian denominations, including Catholicism, Protestantism, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Orthodox ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. O'Collins, p. v (preface). The church consists of 24 ''sui iuris'' (autonomous) churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies around the world, each overseen by one or more bishops. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles, and that the pope is the successor of Saint Peter, upo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
