How Japs Tortured Early Missionaries

Slow. fires, cane saws, boiling water and burial alive were among the gruesome tortures to which missionaries in Japan were subjected between the 17th and 19th centuries, according to the Servite priest, Fr: Lind Pedot, who. after studying 2,000 volumes in the archives of Propaganda at Rome, has prepared a thesis of the early missions in Japan. He delivered it at the Missionary Scientific Institute, and as a result received a Doctor's degree, magna cum laude.
His research indicated that the beginning of the strife was prompted by the English and Dutch, who falsely accused the missionaries of aspiring to occupy Japan in the name of the Catholic King of Spain. Difference of opinion among the Portuguese and Spanish missionaries in counteracting this pi opaganda made harmony and unity of work impossible.
An appeal to Rome in 1622. the year of the foundation of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, resulted in the appointment of a Procurator General for the missionaries in Japan. He was the Rev. Diego Collado, Vicar-General of the Dominicans, who was charged with carrying on all negotiations with Rome and Madrid concerning the missions in Japan.
In the early seventeenth century there were more than 600,000 faithful' in Japan, and that number was continually increasing despite the severe laws. that resulted in the destruction of more than 400 churches and produced thousands of martyrs,