Shusaku Endo's "Silence"

The Film

• Some thoughts on Silence Opus Publicum 01/17/17:

  ... Silence is not a movie for the immature, nor is it a work that can be comprehended by modern sensibilities. The Tridentine Catholicism that not only animates the plot but supplies the movie’s richest symbolisms is thoroughly alien to an era shot through with religious indifferentism and cultural relativism. Protestants, no less than secularists, are apt to misunderstand the film’s fusion of sign and substance, particularly the torment that surrounds the mere possibility of trampling upon an image of Christ. Moreover, by quietly pointing to the kenotic Christ, that is, the Savior who suffers not just for us but with us, Silence taps into a rich tradition of authentically Catholic spirituality, one that is infused not just with the history of Japanese Catholicism, but Eastern Slavic piety as well.

• Some thoughts on the movie Silence by Dr. Philip Blosser 01/29/17:

  ... I think that not only the temptations but the consequences of apostasy were shown by both novel and film in a faithful light: the temptations were beyond ingenious, with the voice of Jesus seeming to come from His image on the fumie itself ("Step on me.") as if Christ Himself were counseling the mercy of apostasy as the path to redemption; and both apostate priests ended their lives by faded into oblivion, morphing into gollum-like shadows of themselves; and the Japanese Catholics (not all, but many) who witnessed their apostasy were significantly demoralized by it.

  Remarkably, however, when Catholic priests returned to Japan after the Meiji Restoration of the mid-nineteenth century, they encountered Kakure Kurishitan (hidden Christians) who came out of hiding once again to present rosaries and crucifixes and statues of Maria Kanon that doubled as secret images of the Madonna, showing that the Faith had not been entirely wiped out. The price of persecution as well as apostasy was high. Only something like one tenth of 1% of Japanese people are Christians, and of these, half (about 509,000) are Catholic.

• Scorsese's 'Silence' is his most Catholic film, by Sr. Rose Pacatte. National Catholic Reporter 12/21/16:

  At the top of the thematic list are faith and doubt as partners in a dangerous dance from the moment the priests first find out about Ferriera's apostasy. They leave Portugal and Rome, their gaze focused on a land far away, bolstered by a faith yet untested. Rodrigues especially carries in his heart the image of Jesus so dear to him as a child and in the seminary. Once imprisoned it comes to him in the suffering of the people and in the night. It is this Jesus with whom he converses about his doubts, his questions and the choice he faces.

  The high-pitched whine of the highly intelligent and informed inquisitor Inoue, with his polite manners and saccharine but sinister smile, do not mask his intent to break the resolve of the Christians. He challenges Rodrigues, as does Ferriera when he and Rodrigues finally meet, saying that Christianity is too Western and cannot adapt to Japan. Rodrigues says that the church is the source of truth and is unable to move off the script he learned growing up in Catholic Portugal. His responses to Inoue are noble perhaps, but ineffective. The inculturation of the Gospel and adaptation, even today, remains a challenge to those who evangelize, at home or afar.

  Kichijiro, absolved again and again for his apostasy, is emblematic of sinners who are self-aware of their sin and just as cognizant of God's mercy. Kichijiro disgusts Rodrigues, and it takes the priest a long time to realize that he, too, is a weak human not so different from this dirty beggar of a sinner who cannot help himself.

The Novel

• Reading Silence for the first time, by Amy Welborn. Catholic World Report 12/14/16:

  ... Endo was inspired to write Silence, not only by his own life experience of living as a Japanese Catholic, but specifically by visiting the shrine to the Twenty-Six Martyrs in Nagasaki. This memorial commemorates men, women, and children killed in 1597, and includes an exhibit of fumi—the images of Christ, and sometimes of Mary, upon which Japanese Catholics were ordered to trample and spit, not only once, but annually, an obligation that persisted until the mid-19th century.

  Endo based his novel on historical documents, including a 17th-century diary written by a clerk in a residence in which apostate Catholics, including Giuseppe Chiara, lived. This is especially important for the final chapter of the novel. ...

  Endo is posing that question, in a way, to all Japanese Christians, and even all Japanese people, who live today in a culture shaped by martyrdom and apostasy, of oppressor and victim. What does it mean to contemplate the well-worn fumie in the museum and know that your faith in the present day exists, not only because of the seeds sown by the martyrs’ blood, but also because it was passed down by those who for years trampled and betrayed in public, while preserving what they could in private?

  The dilemma of trampling on the fumie can be brought home in more universal terms, as Endo himself noted, and perhaps this is one reason why this novel about Catholic missionaries who lived and died centuries ago plants a persistent pebble in the shoe of so many readers’ consciences. As Fujimoro beautifully puts it,

  Endo saw fumi-e as emblems of a greater, universal impact. When in lectures he spoke of “having a personal fumi-e,” he was not speaking of a literal religious icon, but was acknowledging that each of us steps on and betrays the “face of ones that [we] love, even the ideals [we] cherish.” To step on one’s own fumi-e, in that sense, is to betray oneself out of desperation due to public or cultural pressure. … Silence is not a triumphant pilgrimage with clear outcomes, but a meandering pilgrimage of one wounded by life and confounded by faith, whose experience of faith has been punctuated by betrayals, his own and those of others. Endo notes repeatedly in his memoirs and through his characters that through his own struggles of faith God never let him go. Endo himself is like the fumi-e, a historical marker birthed of a traumatic time, finally worn smooth through many disappointments, failures, and betrayals, but whose surface reveals the indelible visage of a Savior.

History

• Kirishitan - Excellent site summarizing the history of Catholicism in Japan (HT: Amy Welborn).

• Italian priest imprisoned in 18th century may have been influential in Japan’s development :

  Historians say [Jesuit missionary Giovanni Battista] Sidotti helped shape Japan’s view of the Western world with his knowledge after he won over the nation’s leading scholar of the day. But he fell from grace after refusing to give up his faith and his final days and death have been shrouded in mystery. . .

  As part of his interrogations, Sidotti was questioned by Japan’s top Confucian scholar, who developed a deep respect for the Roman Catholic priest for his knowledge of geography, languages and global affairs, experts said.

  The scholar, the renowned Hakuseki Arai, is said to have tried to help Sidotti but the priest was later sent to the dungeon amid allegations he baptized the Japanese couple tending to his daily needs.

  The Italian died there, but it is not clear how, researchers said.

  Historical accounts, including those written by Japanese scholar Kotonobu Mamiya about a century later, however, mention that Sidotti was accorded a certain respect and treated far better than other prisoners — even in death.

  The buried remains of what archeologists believe to be those of Sidotti were recently discovered. Evidence indicates he was given a burial "in the Christian way" out of respect.

Some notes occasioned by some "contemporary Christian rocker" named George Perdikis announcing he's left the faith and embraced atheism ("I Co-Founded One of the Most Popular Christian Rock Bands Ever… and I’m Now An Atheist" Friendly Atheist Patheos.com 01/21/15):

I always felt uncomfortable with the strict rules imposed by Christianity. All I wanted to do was create and play rock and roll… and yet most of the attention I received was focused on how well I maintained the impossible standards of religion. I wanted my life to be measured by my music, not by my ability to resist temptation. ...

As I carved out a life for myself away from the church, I began my own voyage of inquiry into what I believed. My perceptions started to transform when I became interested in cosmology in 1992. I soon found myself fascinated by the works of Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Cox, and Richard Dawkins. I learned so much and was blown away by all the amazing scientific discoveries and facts. When my marriage dissolved in 2003, I turned my attention to human psychology.

By 2007, I renounced Christianity once and for all and declared myself an atheist.

I find it interesting how Perdikis, like most "contemporary Christian" rock stars, have backgrounds in American evangelical Christianity or something they would describe as stereotypically "fundamentalist", which is to say heavy on rules, heavy on the dogma, notoriously lacking in intellectual foundation ("The scandal of the evangelical mind ... is that there is not much of an evangelical mind" - Mark Knoll, 1995).

Also a kind of religious environment where one's faith is expected to be perpetually worn on one's sleeve - where doubt in and questioning of religious convictions is never admitted, and when experienced is understood as a sign of intolerable weakness, "backsliding". Also, where curiosity and intellectual investigation into the broader tradition of Christianity (never mind other religious traditions outside of Christianity) is generally frowned upon, especially where they might challenge or conflict.

* * *

Because of said standard of moral perfection, of unbreakable faith, etc. the perception of deviation from such in a parent or authority figure can be an impetus for questioning and a loss of faith.

This can range from the familial -- parents who 'say one thing, but do another'; a discovery of infidelity, divorce … to the more egregious and perverse (ex. a pastor who admits to marital infidelities before his congregation; sexual abuse amongst teachers and/or priests). If you grow up regarding somebody as an exemplar of moral perfection and purveyor of spiritual truth, such displays of human frailty and outright sin can be disillusioning, even life-shattering.

* * *

Or, if you happen to be in a particular type of industry in which you are materially invested in being "a good Christian" and your livelihood essentially depends on such -- say, "contemporary Christian music" -- maintaining that outward standard of perfection becomes all the more imperative, especially with thousands of adoring fans looking up to YOU as an exemplar of Christian discipleship.

In such a context, to experience questioning or signs of doubt (either in yourself, or witnessing fellow bandmates straying from the path) -- and with the outward admission to such doubts potentially fatal to your brand -- the disjuncture between ideal and reality can be too much to bear. It only becomes a matter of time before something gives: the ability to maintain the illusion of faith on stage OR "coming clean" to one's doubts, at which point the erstwhile fans might well accuse you of never being a Christian in the first place.

In this manner, George Perdikis of the Newsboys is simply one of a long line of "contemporary Christian" performers who have left the faith, joining the ranks of Tim Lambesis ("As I Lay Dying"); David Bazan (Pedro the Lion); Dan Haseltine (Jars of Clay); Clay Scott (Circle of Dust; Celldweller); Roger Martinez (Vengeance Rising, the first ever "Christian thrash" band). I'm not necessarily familiar with all of these musicians (really the latter two) but I'm interested by the similarities in their confessions of how they've left the faith.

Tangential note -- the repudiation of CCM by former participants in CCM is rather common, with new bands, whose members perhaps "personally subscribing to" Christian beliefs, vehemently disavowing any relationship to CCM. The exact phrase "we are not a christian band" has 15,100 results in Google at this time.

* * *

It's one thing to simply proclaim one's agnosticism or ambivalence toward the greater metaphysical questions, quite another to pronounce judgement on them.

Certain types of lapsed believers, at one time "evangelistic" about Christianity, readily embrace and can even get quite "evangelical" about atheism -- which if you think about it, carries its own set of concrete metaphysical-philosophical convictions (scientific materialism), and whose advocates get downright "fundamentalist" themselves -- Ed Feser chronicles this in The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism with respect to the religion of Hawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens.

Such converts from Christian fundamentalism rarely just lapse into quiet agnosticism, but often move to the other extreme in rebellion: they become "outspoken atheists", trading in one belief-system for another.

* * *

To be sure, Latin or Orthodox Christianity has its own scandals, and isn't necessarily a reliable antidote to the curious phenomenon of "militant evangelicals leaving the faith to embrace a (sometimes even more militant and evangelical) atheism".

But still, you have to wonder if things might have been different.

For example, those growing up with a fideistic mindset (believing that faith and reason are independent of and hostile to each other), assuming that religious belief can only be maintained by the suppression of rational inquiry might have concluded differently were they exposed to the riches of Christian scholastic philosophy?

Or those assuming that science is inimical to Christianity -- would they be surprised at the number of Catholic scientists in history who would find such a view ludicrous?

Or those who by their background were led to assume the admission and experience of religious doubt as inherently detrimental to faith and indicative of a renunciation of faith ... would they have considered otherwise, if they were exposed to a tradition where even those who are proclaimed saints by the Church and held up for emulation experienced what is called the "the dark knight of the soul" (St. Therese of Lisieux or even, more recently and in our own time: Mother Theresa):

Where existential doubt and belief in a Christian's life go hand in hand (see: "Joseph Ratzinger on Uncertainty and Doubt", an excerpt and one of my favorite passages from his Introduction to Christianity).

Where even the current Pope himself can confess to having "doubts along the way" without his flock being overtly scandalized?

* * * Musings from one who experienced his own loss of faith while young (and finding his way back).