Rodriguez is convinced that "one priest remaining in this country has the same significance as a single candle burning in the catacombs." By the end of the story, Rodriguez is left asking himself whether that is so.
In the beginning, dear Father Rodriguez is firm in his faith. In fact, Endo portrays Rodriguez as quite proud. He once admonished a Christian by the name of Kichijiro, who himself had apostacized, that the remedy to avoid cowardice in the face of persecution lay not in strong drink but in strong faith. And this story is indeed about faith in the face of persecution.
It tells one answer to the question that has probably plagued most Christians at one time or another: Are you willing to die for your faith? Are you willing to let others die for their faith when you can put a stop to it by denying your own faith?
While the obvious plot devolves on the issue of whether Rodriguez will himself apostacize in the face of persecution, this book is about much more. It is about the meaning of suffering. It is about God's silence in the face of suffering.
In this book, Endo asks many of the questions that we all have asked at one time or another. What is the meaning of suffering? What good is faith if it can so easily be renounced? And if we deny our faith, will God deny us? Can we continue to have faith, once we have faltered and denied the very God we claim to love?
What meaning does the death of a martyr have to the overall conversion of a country so foreign to the Christian faith? Why is God silent when I suffer?
The reason this book is so compelling is because it asks these questions, and the reader is given no answers. He must find them for himself and ask "What would I do, and what can I believe?"
Shusaku Endo writes beautifully, and I am so very happy that I lucked upon this book. I was left disturbed by the end result of the story, but perhaps this is Endo's point after all.
Sebastian Rodrigues, a Catholic priest of the Jesuit Order, the protagonist of the novel arrives in Japan with his confrere Francisco Garrpe during the persecution of Inoue the magistrate of Nagasaki, in order to help the Japanese Christians in their struggle and also to find out the truth about the apostate priest Ferreira whom they knew to be zealous for the Christian faith. Landing in the suburbs of Nagasaki they find their hiding place on a mountain with the help of the villagers. Soon the persecutors enter the village and they have to flee. Before long, falling into the hands of the persecutors, Garrpe joins the many martyrs in death and Rodrigues goes through the intense struggle of watching the sufferings of the Christians in his confinement. While undergoing the physical hardships of the prison, he has to deal with the mental agony caused by the absolute silence of God in the midst of the sufferings of His people. The insufferable mental torments like the voices from those in 'the pit' and the contacts with Ferreira bring Rodrigues to step on the 'fumie' and become another apostate. Sebastian Rodrigues of Endo was in real life Guiseppe Chiara who died some forty years after his apostasy, stating that he was still a Christian.
Endo's perspectives on the western garb of Christianity preached in Japan and the land of Japan as a swamp sucking up all sorts of ideologies only to transform and distort them in the process, are fascinating. The popularity of Endo's novel proves that Japan is not indifferent to Christianity but awaits a form of Christianity that will suit its national character. This book is a masterpiece dealing with faith and suffering; it should be recommended to any serious-minded Christian for spiritual nourishment.
Is it possible that an act of apostasy can actually be an act of faith?
One of the great books of the twentieth century, no doubt.reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, page 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12