Martyrs of Japan

The martyrdom of the sixteen was not simultaneous but was spread over four years, according to the arrests and the edicts of proscription of Christianity promulgated by Tokugawa Iemitsu. The first, including the Spanish Dominican priest Domingo Ibáñez de Erquicia and his Japanese companions, suffered in 1633; others, such as Magdalene of Nagasaki and Marina of Omura, Japanese tertiaries, as well as the Italian Giordano Ansalone, were put to death in 1634. The last group, including the Frenchman Guillaume Courtet, the Spaniard Antonio González, and the Filipino Lorenzo Ruiz, was tortured in 1637. Many underwent the tsurushi, the torture of the pit: suspended head down over a hole, the body half-enclosed, they bled slowly until death. Lorenzo Ruiz endured this torture and died on September 29, 1637, the first Filipino layman to thus give his life. Questioned and urged to abjure, he reportedly refused firmly, remaining faithful to Christ until the end. Their common constancy made them witnesses of the Dominican evangelization of the Far East.

The reputation for holiness of this group rests on the witness of martyrdom, given in response to the pressures exerted to obtain apostasy. Priests and religious joined to this the fidelity to their Dominican missionary vocation; the laity, in the image of Lorenzo Ruiz, showed that an ordinary father of a family could reach the heroism of faith. Tradition reports the words attributed to Lorenzo Ruiz before his judges, affirming that he was a Catholic and accepted dying for God, and that, had he a thousand lives, he would offer them all to Him. This firmness, shared by the women of the Third Order like Magdalene of Nagasaki, places these martyrs in the long lineage of Christians in Japan persecuted in the 17th century. Their cause was conducted together, the Church recognizing the unity of their witness rendered in the same context of proscription and around the same religious family, that of the Preachers. This communion in death for the faith was the foundation of their subsequent recognition as blessed and then as saints.

The sixteen martyrs were beatified by Pope John Paul II on February 18, 1981, in Manila, Philippines, during the first beatification ceremony ever held outside the Vatican. They were subsequently canonized by the same pope on October 18, 1987, at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, on the occasion of World Mission Day. Lorenzo Ruiz thus became the first Filipino saint. The miracle accepted for the canonization was the healing, in October 1983, of a two-year-old girl, Cecilia Alegria Policarpio, who suffered from hydrocephalus (cerebral atrophy), following prayers addressed to the intercession of Lorenzo Ruiz. The liturgical memorial of Saint Lorenzo Ruiz and his companions is inscribed in the Roman calendar on September 28. This double recognition, in Manila and then in Rome, highlighted the missionary scope of the group, linking Southeast Asia, Japan, and the universal Church in a single tribute paid to the martyrs of Nagasaki.

The legacy of this group focuses largely on the figure of Lorenzo Ruiz, the first saint of the Philippines, venerated as the protomartyr of his country. He is honored as the patron of Filipinos, overseas Filipino workers, and migrants, as well as separated families, due to his own forced exile to Japan. Shrines and parishes are dedicated to him in Manila, notably in Binondo, his home district, and his cult has spread within Filipino communities throughout the world. The companions, Dominican priests and religious, recall the mission of the Order of Preachers in the Far East and the tribute paid by the Christians of Japan during the great persecution. Nishizaka Hill in Nagasaki, where many Japanese martyrs were executed, remains a major site of Christian memory. Beyond the national borders that distinguished these sixteen witnesses, their joint canonization has made them a sign of the universality of faith and of lay and religious holiness.