September 12
Apolinar Franco (1570–1622)
Martyr
Franciscan missionary, born in Aguilar de Campoo, Spain, died in Omoura, Japan, at the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Biography
In this period, the shoguns, or paramount chiefs, closed Japan to foreigners and ensured two and a half centuries of “welfare and peace.” Half a million Catholics lived there when, in 1614, Useyasu, founder of the Tokugawa dynasty, issued a decree prohibiting them from practicing their religion and ordering missionaries to leave the country under penalty of death. He had all the churches destroyed. The apostasies were numerous, but there were also many thousands of martyrs. Pius IX beatified two hundred and five, among them Father Apolinar. After this persecution, no priest, for two hundred and fifty years, that is, until 1867, exercised his ministry in Japan.
Practical advice
In the midst of your ordinary work, give up a comfort to remain faithful to your conscience with external order and internal recollection.