The Artistic Creations of the Persecuted Japanese Catholics

While suffering persecution, the Japanese Catholics had to conceal their faith and religious items.

They made two-sided images representing the Buddhist goddess Kwannon (however with strange features) and the Virgin Mary, so that the customs officers and the police wouldn't recognize the Christian symbols.

Reproducing the Amida ? but in an unorthodox way ? they made images of the Buddha with a cross on his chest and a baby in his arms, a symbol of the soul he has saved, or very possibly a symbolic and hidden allusion to the Virgin Mary.

Confucius is represented with a cross on his crown and a child in his arms: this wasn't a syncretism confusion, since Confucius was never the object of a cult in Confucianism, but a hidden way to represent Saint Joseph.

We must also mention the "lantern of Mary" that is blue in color with the barely visible inscription Ave Maria at its base.

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P. Pietro Humbertclaude, Maria-Kwannon, in L'apôtre de Marie (The Apostle of Mary), vol. 35, # 373-374, August-November 1953, Paris.

Attilio GALLI, Madre della Chiesa dei Cinque continenti, Ed. Segno, Udine, 1997.