You are misrepresenting history to score a point. Christianity was outlawed and brutally persecuted under the Tokugawa regime until the Meiji era, when legal toleration was restored in 1873, which forced thousands of faithful underground. Those “Hidden Christians” preserved baptismal formulas, prayers, and Christian identity for generations without regular clergy and when missionaries returned in the 1860s–1870s many identified themselves and rejoined full communion with the Catholic Church. Scholars make a crucial distinction between those faithful Kakure Kirishitan who returned to Rome and later Hanare Kirishitan sects that developed syncretic practices. Conflating the two is a category error. What some sources call “Buddhist statues” were often Marian or Christian images intentionally disguised as local figures for survival. This was camouflage, not confession of Buddhist worship. The modern demographic collapse on islands like Ikitsuki, where recent reports estimate under 100 elderly practitioners, is a sociological fact, not proof that these families all went to hell. Your sweeping moral verdict is theologically rash and historically uninformed. Historical fidelity under persecution deserves respect, not ridicule.
PS: Statements like “if you cease to practice the Faith, you cease to be Catholic” border on Pelagianism because they ignore God’s grace, the indelible mark of baptism, and the reality that the Faith can be preserved even under centuries of persecution without priests.
Yes, not all the hidden Christians lost the Faith. And yes, God preserves those under such trying circuмstances.
However, if one is delusional as to think THEY are in such a situation TODAY, counting on God's help to miraculously preserve their Faith despite the existence of plenty of great Traditional chapels to do the job, they can and should expect no help.
God isn't going to step in and save one from his own stupidity, just because a man decided (foolishly) to follow bad advice, like the Home Aloneism of a Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer.
If you find yourself in persecution, you can trust in God's help.
If you place YOURSELF in a situation on purpose where you will be persecuted -- you will be "on your own" or required to win on your own strength -- which means you are toast. Without God's grace to sustain you, human beings can't overcome their nature regarding things like torture.
That is my main point.
My second point is that by bringing up "the Hidden Christians" so often, it tends to downplay the importance of PRACTICING the Faith. The Faith is a habit of life.
If you never "do" Catholic, you will eventually cease to BE Catholic. Unless you are forced to not "do" Catholic, because you're in a gulag or something. In which case, you can count on God to sustain you.
My third point: you need to understand the wisdom of "fake it till you make it". That is absolutely a "thing" or reality of human nature. You start out honoring a special buddhist-looking statue, understanding it to be the Blessed Mother in disguise (wink, wink). But eventually you, or your kids, lose the "subtext" and start soaking up some serious Buddhism. It's how human beings work. Habits for beliefs, and vice-versa. It's one of the principles of the Faith, and the Traditional Movement.
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi. "The law of prayer is the law of belief." Or, the way you pray is the way you believe.When you stop genuflecting to the Blessed Sacrament for decades, eventually you lose belief in the Real Presence. We have proof now, with the Novus Ordo! That is precisely what happened. And it should come as no surprise to anyone with wisdom.
Topic: Hidden Christians were no prize! (Read 441 times)