Osaka:The Catholic Church on February 7 beatified a Japanese samurai warlord who died in exile after refusing to renounce his Christian faith.

As an official envoy of Pope Francis, Cardinal Angelo Amato presided over the ceremony for Justo Takayama Ukon in Osaka, the large port city and commercial center on the Japanese island of Honshu. More than 12,000 people attended the ceremonies.

Pope Francis had signed a decree on January 21, 2016, clearing the way for Ukon to be beatified as a martyr.

Reading from an apostolic letter from Pope Francis, Cardinal Amato, proclaimed Ukon as “blessed” (beatus), praising him as a man who chose faith over worldly success and material comfort.

Born in 1552, Ukon converted to Christianity at the age of 12 after ‎coming ‎into contact with Jesuit missionaries.‎ He became a renowned feudal warlord who protected Christians at a time when authorities attempted to stamp out all vestiges of the religion, exiling missionaries and all Christian samurai who would not abandon their faith.

When Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi came to power and outlawed ‎the practice of Christianity by an edict in 1614, Ukon ‎refused to follow the great feudal lords and renounce his faith. As a result, he ‎lost his properties, position, ‎social status and respectability and was eventually forced into ‎exile.

With 300 other Japanese ‎Christians, Ukon fled to Manila where, just 40 days after his arrival, he fell ‎ill and died on February 4, 1615.

Christianity came to Japan in 1549, thanks to the missionary efforts of Saint Francis Xavier. Because of Ukon’s work, the number of Christians grew dramatically in the region where he was active, and in 1583, as many as 25,000 of 30,000 people in the region were Catholic.

Ukon also found the Church in Osaka. Between 1585 and 1587, some thousand faithful were baptized in Akashi.

Martin Scorsese’s film version of Shusaku Endo’s novel Silence has revived interest in the historical events of Christianity in Japan.

The Japanese government has decided to open Christian sites and churches in the provinces of Nagasaki and Kumamoto for UNESCO recognition as a World Heritage Sites.

Speaking about the missionary zeal of Ukon, Card. Amato told Vatican Radio that he started seminaries in Azuchi, ‎Takatsuki and Osaka to train Japanese missionaries and catechists.

Among these seminarians, he said, were many martyrs, among them Jesuit St. Paul Miki.

Argentine Jesuit ‎Father Renzo De Luca, the director of the 26 Martyrs Museum ‎in Nagasaki‎, said, “As a Christian, as a leader, as a cultural person, as a pioneer of adaptation, Ukon is a ‎role model and ‎there ‎are many things we can learn from him.”

“In this era of political distrust, I think he ‎will be helpful ‎for ‎people other than Christians,” he added.

Samurai were the military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan. In Japanese, they are usually referred to as bushi or buke .

By the end of the 12th century, samurai was closely associated with the middle and upper echelons of the warrior class. The samurai were usually associated with a clan and their lord, and were trained as officers in military tactics and grand strategy. While the samurai numbered less than 10 percent of then Japan’s population, their teachings can still be found today in both everyday life and in modern Japanese martial arts.

(Source: breitbart.com)