Cross

In his book “The Silence,” the Japanese Christian author, Shusako Endo, tells a story about the persecution of the Japanese Christians during the Sixteenth Century. In Shusako Endo’s story, a Jesuit priest named Rodrigus travels to Japan to visit his old Japanese friend, who had taught him the faith.

Soon after his arrival in Japan, Rodrigus is arrested by the authorities who place him in a tiny dark cell. From cramped quarters, he thinks he hears the sound of snoring. He supposes that it is the snoring of some drunken guards. Then he is told that it is not the snoring of drunken guards, but the labored, awful breathing of some Christians who, after much torture, have forsaken their Christian religion, and now hang upside-down with their faces half-buried in mud and slime.

Rodrigus is horrified at the thought of their plight. His captors tell him that they will free these prisoners if he, the Jesuit priest, will himself forsake his Christian religion. If…