Catholic Schools in Japan: Context and Contemporary Challenges

For several decades in the 16th century, seminaries and colleges fl ourished in Japan. Francis Xavier’s dream to start a university was on the way to realization. There are still extant textbooks and curricula printed with presses brought from Europe. The missionaries did not use the language of their homeland but Latin and Japanese. This “Christian Era” came to a tragic end at the turn of the 17th century. Martyrs numbered in the thousands; the Church went underground, and Japan began two and a half centuries of exclusion from the rest of the world. Immediately upon the restoration of the Emperor in the 19th century, proscription of Christianity ended and Christian communities surfaced; they had maintained their faith for over two centuries despite having had no priests to serve them.