[Buddha-l] NYTimes.com: Let Us Pray for Wealth

[SJZiobro at cs.com]

Dan,

Your points are well enough taken within their respective context(s).  I'm well aware of the real strife between the Catholic Orders and how that strife was also expressed in more properly civil matters.  It's fair to say that the situation was neither as sinister as you tend to portray nor as seemingly innocent as I have.  It is interesting to note the complicity of Japanese Buddhist officials in the persecution of Christians, particularly the role of the temples as mechanisms to safeguard against Christianity once the persecutions became definitive.  At any rate, religions are nothing apart from the people who adhere to them.  If one is to speak of religions as somehow things out there, one is projecting.  Ultimately, the matter reduces to the people who claim certain beliefs as their own and who use them rightly or wrongly, i.e. act rightly or wrongly.

Stan

"Dan Lusthaus" <vasubandhu at earthlink.net> wrote:

>Stan,
>
>The details as to which Catholic orders did what starts to get complicated.
>For some the Jesuits are angels, for others the demonic within Catholicism.
>We needn't rehearse all that here.
>
>Missionary activity in Japan -- by all orders -- was not as innocent you are
>attempting to portray. For instance (to be brief), from Wikipedia under
>Kirishitan (吉利支丹, 切支丹, キリシタン, Kirishitan?):
>
>Missionaries were not reluctant to take military action if they considered
>it an effective way to Christianize Japan.
>
>They often associated military action against Japan with the conquest of
>China. They thought that well-trained Japanese soldiers who had experienced
>long civil wars would help their countries conquer China. For example,
>Alessandro Valignano said to the Philippine Governor that it was impossible
>to conquer Japan because the Japanese were very brave and always received
>military training but that Japan would benefit them when they would conquer
>China. Francisco Cabral also reported to the King of Spain that priests were
>able to send to China two or three thousand Japanese Christian soldiers who
>were brave and were expected to serve the king with little pay.
>
>The Jesuits provided various kinds of support including military support to
>Kirishitan daimyo when they were threatened by non-Kirishitan daimyo. Most
>notable was their support of Omura Sumitada and Arima Harunobu, who fought
>against the anti-Catholic Ryuzoji clan. In the 1580s, Valignano believed in
>the effectiveness of military action and fortified Nagasaki and Mogi. In
>1585, Gaspar Coelho asked the Spanish Philippines to send a fleet but the
>plan was rejected due to the shortness of its military capability.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirishitan
>
>Since further details are easily gathered from standard history texts -- or
>these days apparently online -- we needn't explore this further here on this
>list, where its relevance to Buddhism per se is marginal.
>
>
>
>Dan
>
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