Samurai Mission to Pope in 1615
[Updated on Nov. 30, 2011]
In Tokyo Prefecture with 12 million population, registered foreigners are only 370,000. (They mostly live in concentrated places of the metropolitan area.)
Naive comparison of Tokyo with New York is not productive as well as that between a single-race nation, Japan, and a multiethnic nation, the U.S.
In addition, the situation is now changing. The US population reached 300 million plus 20 million Mexicans inside the border.
Accordingly, "Clash of Civilizations" by Samuel P. Huntington was translated into Japanese and reasonably sold.
Meanwhile Japanese companies invested total 1.1 billion dollars into Mexico in 2005 to boost their economic ties. Even the Japanese version of NAFTA was concluded between the two countries.
Though it is said that the poor accounts for 80% of the population of Mexico, the last year's Presidential election was remarkably fairly conducted, according to a Japanese businessman there. (The advertisement industry in Mexico seems to be one of focal points to be improved. Now, you know where to invest.)
I really want to say, "May God bless Mexico!"
* * *
In 1615, a Japanese envoy to the Vatican led by the samurai Tsunenaga Hasekura was granted an audience to Pope Paulus V in Rome.
(A Japanese samurai is not only a warrior, but also a bureaucrat, a financial manager, and sometimes a scholar, different from traditions of separation of swords and the pen in China and Korea.)
Though Hasekura was not sent off by a Shogun, he represented one strong samurai clan who wanted to strengthen its power base, against the Shogun's clan, with a support of the then superpower Spain, a Catholic empire.
Hasekura on board a Spanish ship crossed the Pacific Ocean and landed on Acapulco of Mexico, then a colony of Spain. He got to the other side of the land and went on to Europe across the Atlantic with help from Spain. Finally, his greeting behavior to Pope Paulus V was highly praised; and the envoy suffered no humiliation, though some members got determined not to go back home but stay and live in Spain.
Soon after Hasekura's coming back to Japan, the Shogun closed the country, severely banning the religion Christianity and the diplomatic relation with Spain while sacrificing the hegemony over the East Pacific which consequentially fell into the hand of the West until 1858 when a Japan-US treaty was signed resulting in opening the country again.
Nonetheless, a fact has remained that a Japanese samurai envoy arrived at Rome and officially met Pope Paulus V before the Mayflower left Southampton for America in 1620.
(According to Malachy's prophecies, Pope Paulus V should be concerned with Gens Perversa or the "wicked race." People suspected that Pope Paulus V might be wicked. But, it is apparent that the "wicked race" means Japanese in light of the above episode; actually Catholicism had been banned in Japan for 250 years under the Tokugawa samurai regime.
Now, we have only one or two Popes left, according to the prophecies: Gloria Olivae and Petrus Romanus.
But mankind must survive and progress with Jesus Christ.
[And, Paulus V was actually nice to Japan; you should not harm his dignity.])
* * *
"To the Vatican over Mexico" was reality for some samurais in 1615.
But, venturing a remark, where over America should pious descendants of the Pilgrims go on for their holy mission? Mesopotamia?
"I WILL CONFIDENTLY WAIT FOR GOD"