The real-life, 300-year-old story behind “Silence,” Martin Scorsese’s upcoming passion project

The remains of Giovanni Battista Sidotti, discovered at a Tokyo construction site. (Bunkyo Ward government)

WRITTEN BY Ilaria Maria Sala
6 hours ago

Diplomacy in the Vatican has been changing fast under Pope Francis, who has pushed the Roman Catholic Church to shift its gaze toward what he calls “the peripheries.”

These are those lands where the Catholic faith is practiced by a minority, or which have not been seen as strategically important until now. The pope has been making overtures toward China, and the recent, fast-tracked canonization of Mother Teresa shows how keen the pontiff is on expanding eastward, beyond the Catholic Church’s more traditional grounds.

One of the peripheries is Japan, where a chance archaeological discovery in Tokyo, and renewed interest in the first Christian samurai, raise the possibility of new beatifications in Japan—a country where less than 1% of the population professes to be Christian. It’s a push with links to the Church’s activities there three centuries ago.

Things heard from the West

A few months ago, the bones of Italian priest Giovanni Battista Sidotti—sometimes called “the last missionary”—were transferred to St. Mary’s Cathedral in Tokyo. His remains, and the special prison for Christians that held him until his death in 1715, were discovered by chance at a construction site in the Japanese capital in 2014. In April, DNA tests confirmed the bones were his.

http://qz.com/787052/the-catholic-church-hopes-the-300-year-old-bones-of-giovanni-battista-sidott-the-last-missionary-and-a-samurai-tv-drama-will-help-it-win-more-souls-in-japan/