Not content with what had been accomplished in India he set out for Japan (1549) in company with a Japanese convert, who assisted him to acquire a knowledge of the language. He landed at Kagoshima, where he remained nearly a year learning the language and preparing a short treatise in Japanese on the principal articles of faith. When he had overcome these preliminary difficulties he began the work of evangelisation, and notwithstanding the energetic opposition of the bonzes or native priests he formed a flourishing community. Through central Japan he made his way preaching with success in the principal towns, but the political troubles then raging in the capital proved a serious obstacle to the success of his work. For two years and a half St. Francis continued his apostolic labours in Japan, and then returned to Goa, not indeed to rest but only to prepare for a still more hazardous mission. In Japan he discovered that one of the principal arguments used against the acceptance of the Christian faith was the fact that the Chinese, to whom the people of Japan looked with reverence, still preferred Confucius to Christ. Inspired by the hope of securing the Celestial Empire for the Church, and of ensuring thereby the conversion of the entire Eastern races, he had himself appointed ambassador to China and set off to reach the capital. On the voyage, however, he became to seriously ill that it was necessary to land him on the little island of Sancian, where in a rude hut constructed to shelter him he breathed his last. During the ten years of his mission he had won close on a million people to the faith, and he had given Christianity a hold on the people of India and Japan which no political revolutions or religious persecution could ever loosen. He was canonised in 1622.
After the death of the Apostle of India the work that he had begun was carried on by his brethren of the Society of Jesus in face of very serious difficulties. They were opposed by the Brahmins, who tried to stir up persecutions, and their progress was impeded by political disturbances. The arrival of the Jesuit, Robert de' Nobili (1577-1656), in 1605 marked a new stage in the history of the conversion of India. After a visit paid to the city of Madura,[3] where one of his brethren had been labouring for years without any visible fruit, de'
Nobili came to the conclusion that the comparative failure of the Christian missionaries was due to the contempt of the Brahmins for them as Portuguese or friends of the Portuguese and as associates of the pariahs, who were regarded by the Brahmins as being little better than beasts. He determined to adopt new methods, to come to them not as a Portuguese but as a Roman, to avoid all contact with the pariahs or outcasts, to respect the national customs and caste divisions of the country, and to secure a sympathetic hearing from the Brahmins by his learning and specially by his intimate knowledge of the Indian literature.
His method was crowned with instant success. In a short time he had made hundreds of converts in the very city where his colleague had laboured in vain for years; and he had secured his converts, not by minimising or corrupting Catholic truth, but by a prudent regard for the caste system and for certain rites and customs connected with it, which he tolerated as partaking of a national rather than of an essentially religious character. Objections were raised against his methods by his fellow Jesuit in Madura. He was charged with countenancing superstition by allowing the use of pagan rites, and with encouraging schism and dissension by permitting no intermingling between the Brahmins and the pariahs even in the churches. In justice to Father de' Nobili and to those who favoured his methods, it ought to be said that they did not like the system of castes. They hoped that under the influence of Christian charity such divisions might disappear, and that just as the Church undermined rather than condemned slavery in the first centuries, so too the missionaries in India might respect the prejudices of the Brahmins till these prejudices should have been extinguished by a closer acquaintance with the doctrines and spirit of Christianity. The highly coloured reports sent in against him produced an unfavourable impression on his superiors, but when his defence was received at Rome Gregory XV.
refused to issue any condemnation (1623).
During the lifetime of Father de' Nobili he pursued his own method with success, though at the same time he never neglected an opportunity of providing secretly for the spiritual welfare of the poorer classes. After his death in 1656 many of the Jesuits continued his policy, notwithstanding the fact that grave objections were raised by some of the other religious orders. A crisis came, however, in Pondicherry which belonged to the French. The Capuchins were in charge of the mission, and attended both to the colonists and the natives.
The bishop decided to share the work between the Capuchins who were left in charge of the colonists, and the Jesuits who were entrusted with preaching to the natives (1699). The Capuchins appealed to Rome, and brought forward against the Jesuits the old charges that had been levelled against Father de' Nobili, and that had given rise to such bitter controversies. The question of the Malabar Rites was carried once more to Rome, and de Tournon, Patriarch of Antioch, was sent as legate to investigate the case (1703). After remaining eight months in the country, and before he had an opportunity of considering both sides of the question, he decided against the Jesuits (1704). This decision was confirmed by the Pope in 1706. The controversy continued, however, till 1744, when Benedict XIV. in the Bull, /Omnium sollicitudinem/, issued a final condemnation of the Malabar Rites (1744).