Patronage Japan Role Martyr | Name Paulo Miki Feast 6 February | |
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Beatified 14 September 1627 by Pope Urban VIII Canonized 8 June 1862 by Pope Pius IX Died February 5, 1597, Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan Similar People Gonsalo Garcia, Magdalene of Nagasaki, Lorenzo Ruiz | ||
Venerated in Roman Catholic Church | ||
Paulo Miki (Japanese: パウロ三木; c. 1562 – 5 February 1597) was a Roman Catholic Japanese Jesuit seminarian, martyr and saint, one of the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan.
Biography
Paulo Miki was born into a wealthy Japanese family. He was educated by the Jesuits in Azuchi and Takatsuki. He joined the Society of Jesus and became a well known and successful preacher - gaining numerous converts to Catholicism. The local daimyō, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, began persecuting Catholics for fear of the Jesuits' influence and intentions, and possibly that of European visitors.
Miki was arrested and jailed with his fellow Catholics, who were later forced to march 966 kilometres (600 miles) from Kyoto to Nagasaki; all the while singing the Te Deum. On arriving in Nagasaki—which today has the largest Catholic population in Japan—Miki was crucified on 5 February 1597.
He preached his last sermon from the cross, and it is maintained that he forgave his executioners, stating that he himself was Japanese. Crucified alongside him were Joan Soan (de Gotó) and Santiago Kisai, also of the Society of Jesus; along with twenty-three other clergy and laity, all of whom were canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1862.
