<p>Japan has had three Catholic prime ministers, and its current<br>empress was raised and educated in the faith. How did a non-Christian<br>nation come to foster more Catholic leaders than the United States,<br>particularly when Protestantism is said to define Christianity in Japan<br>and Catholicism is believed to be but a fleeting element of the<br>country's so-called Christian century?</p><br><br><p>Far from being a relic of the past – something brought to<br>Japan by sixteenth-century missionaries such as Francis Xavier and then<br>forgotten – Catholicism offered, and continues to provide,<br>an authentic way for Japanese to shape their own cultural identities.<br>This volume documents the appeal of Catholicism not only among farmers<br>and fishers but also among scientists, diplomats, novelists, and<br>members of the imperial household who have answered the challenge of<br>Christianity and found inspiration in Catholicism since the late<br>nineteenth century. Associated with the past, Catholicism has offered<br>many Japanese an alternative way to maintain “tradition”<br>and negotiate modernity.</p><br><br><p>This path-breaking <strong></strong>exploration of<br>Catholicism's long-term influence on Japan challenges the<br>deep-seated tendency to juxtapose the traditional, non-Christian East<br>with the modern and Christian West.</p><br><br><p> </p><br></body><br></html>