The Franciscans in Japan in the Sixteenth Century, a Favorable Reception of the Sacred Poverty of the Missionaries

The Franciscan mission in Japan  in the XVI century  was initiated  by a group of friars leaded by Father Juan Bautista.   They  came from  Manila  (the Philippine Islands) to  Japan in 1590  . This mission  was  a response to a request of a Japanese diplomatic mission  that arrived in Manila in 1587. The Japanese asked  the ecclesiastical  authorities of  Manila to send Franciscans to Japan since they  were very much respected in Japan, because of their humility and their vow  of poverty. As the petition said “su pobreza y habito tan humilde son dos cosas que mucho aprecian en el Japón. ( ALVAREZ TALADRIZ, “ Entrada en Japón de los franciscanos” , in SANCHEZ  Victor, España en Extremo Oriente- Filipinas , China, Japón”, p. 4)
The Franciscan mission was established in Kioto, where it founded a hospital for lepers, in Osaka and in Nagasaki , where they build their convent.
The  favourable  reception  of a Franciscan mission by Japanese Christians, opposed the political interests of  emperor Hideyoshi, who considered that the presence of Franciscans missions in his territories  jeopardized the process of unification of Japanese principalities under  one leadership. So he ordered  in an edict published in 1596, to arrest Japanese Franciscans and Spanish missionaries who came from the Philippines and crucify them in Nagasaki, on the Tateyama hill. The Japanese society paid a tribute to crucified Franciscans , among them  Felipe de Jesus, and founded in the XX century,  in Nagasaki a museum  dedicated to the 26 martyrs .