Xavier's Legacies

Japan has had three Catholic prime ministers, and its current empress was raised and educated in the faith. How did a non-Christian nation come to foster more Catholic leaders than the United States, particularly when Protestantism is said to define Christianity in Japan and Catholicism is believed to be but a fleeting element of Japans so-called Christian century? This volume reveals that, far from being a relic of the past something brought to Japan by missionaries and then forgotten Catholicism offered, and continues to provide, an authentic and alternative way for Japanese believers to maintain tradition and negotiate modernity.