Luis Sotelo
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Blessed Luis Sotelo OFM | |
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25 August |
Luis Sotelo, OFM, in English known also as Louis Sotelo, (September 6, 1574 – August 25, 1624) was a Franciscan friar from Spain who died as a martyr in Japan, in 1624, and was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1867.
Early life
Luis was born in
In 1608, Pope Paul V authorized Dominicans and Franciscans to evangelize in Japan, heretofore the preserve of the Jesuits. Sotelo spent four years in Manila, learning the Japanese language before going to Japan and taking a leading role there.
Proselytism in Edo
Sotelo tried to establish a Franciscan church in the area of
After the healing in Edo of a concubine of the powerful
Embassy project
Sotelo, fluent in Japanese, planned and acted as translator on a Japanese embassy sent by Date Masamune to Spain on October 28, 1613. The embassy was headed by
The embassy was a product of ambitions of Sotelo to increase the spread of the church in Japan and of Date Masamune to provide more priests to man the churches of his Christian subjects and to establish trade between Sendai and New Spain,[3] and it had the approval of the shōgun, Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Sotelo remained for a full year in Madrid on the return journey, along with the rest of the embassy, delayed because Christianity was being harshly repressed in Japan, and because he was awaiting consecration as second Bishop of Japan. Pope Paul V had appointed him as such, pending the approval of the King of Spain, but, primarily because of rivalries between Franciscans and Jesuits, he was never consecrated. However, the Catholic Council of the Indies sent him back to Nueva España in 1618, to pursue his missionary activities there. Most of the Japanese samurai sent with the mission, who had converted to Christianity, remained at Coria del Río, near Seville, where their descendants live to this day. Sotelo accompanied ambassador Hasekura and the remains of the embassy back to Veracruz and Acapulco, where the San Juan Bautista, requested by the outgoing Viceroy of the Philippines to convey him to the Philippines before returning to Sendai, diverted their course to Manila, arriving there in 1620.
The ambassadors' plan to return to Sendai from Manila was obstructed first by pirates and contrary winds. When Hasekura finally was able to return, the Spanish authorities impounded Sotelo in Manila, having no desire to stir up conflict with the Portuguese Jesuit mission in Macao by allowing a second, rival Franciscan bishop to be consecrated in Sendai, in addition to the existing Jesuit Bishop of Japan, previously ruling the
(the late-1613 closure of Japan to outside influences except for very carefully controlled trade through south-western ports), along with Spanish insistence that all trade to the East be channelled through the Philippines, would make this impossible.Return to Japan and Martyrdom
When
He was beatified by Pope Pius IX on 7 July 1867. In the Roman Catholic Church, his feast day is celebrated on 25 August,[6] as well as 10 September, the anniversary of the massacre of 205 Japanese martyrs.
References
- ^ "Bl. Luis Sotelo—Priest and Martyr", The Cathedral of saint Patrick, Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte
- ISBN 978-83-7318-736-8
- ^ "Documents related to Date Masamune", Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Volumes 20-21, 1893, pp. 87-93
- ISBN 83-85304-50-9
- ^ Boxer, Charles Ralph. The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650, University of California Press, 1951, p. 436
- ^ Borrelli, Antonio "Blessed Michael Carvalho, Jesuit martyr", 2005-02-22
Sources
- 'The Christian century in Japan 1549-1650 C. R. Boxer ISBN 1-85754-035-2
- Histoire de la Religion Chrétienne au Japon depuis 1598 jusqu'a 1651... by Léon Pagès, 1869. Paris: Charles Douniol. (Annexe 3, pp. 137–161: letters in Latin of Luis Sotelo).
- Amati, Scipione, 1615. Historia del regno di Voxu del Giapone... Rome: G. Mascardi.