Lost Faith in the Face of Adversity
Addison Horsey
September 26, 2017
In the face of adversity, when one’s beliefs are tested, there is an encounter with the unknown. Many reactions are possible when in the face of adversity, and the most prominent can be negative. Historically, Europeans have felt a superiority when face to face with indigenous people of new places – the unknown. Within the texts of Shūsaku Endō’s Silence, Thomas More’s Utopia, Roland Joffé’s The Mission, and Antonia Ruiz Montoya’s Spiritual Conquest Made by the Jesuits in the Provinces of Paraguay, there is a change of faith in the face of adversity. While faith appears to be sustained in many situations, doubts are apparent and beliefs are shattered.
In the face of adversity, many people cannot handle pressure and cannot stand up for what they believe. In Silence, news reaches the Vatican that Father Ferreira, a Jesuit missionary apostatizes, or renounces his faith, during his mission in Japan (Endō, p. 1). Renouncing one’s faith is heavily frowned upon in many religions, and in Christianity, Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew: “But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in Heaven.” (King James Bible, Matt. 10:33) After Fathers Sebastien Rodrigues and Francisco Garrpe arrive in Japan on a secret mission to find out if what is being said about Father Ferreira is true, they encounter an abundance of Christians in each town they visit in Japan. Each Christian community is led by Jiisama who oversees baptisms, and a Tossama group, who lead prayer. Since the ban on Christianity, the people of the Japanese villages were forced to adapt to a secret religious lifestyle. The priests spend their days receiving believes in their hut and speaking in the villages at night for Mass. Even knowing the risks of being in the village, Rodrigues says he is “determined (…) to seek out and find the abandoned and lonely flock.” (Endō, p. 29). Rodrigues is trying to find those that need guidance, as they have to spend their spiritual life in hiding. Rodrigues shows determination in lieu of the anti-Christian authorities and the state of the people in Tomogi, the Japanese town he resides in. Even in a small lapse in judgment, when he tells Japanese Christians to trample on the fumie – an image of Christ – he immediately recognizes the error of his words, and is shocked he would say such a thing. When Kichijirō says “Why has Deus Sama imposed this suffering upon us?” (Endō, p. 57) and Rodrigues realizes he is not only asking why they are being put through trials where they must renounce their faith to live, he is questioning why God has been silent throughout these trials. Rodrigues is sickened that Kichijirō thinks God has been silent, but does not seem to disagree, he comes to find there is no hope of a positive outcome.
Father Sebastien Rodrigues, while once an enthusiastic Jesuit priest, witnesses his faith heavily tested, his identity challenged, and his preconceptions destroyed. Rodrigues feels superior to the Japanese Christians, as he refuses to see them as individuals, saying “their names are difficult to remember” and “their faces all look the same” (Endō, p. 31) Rodrigues has selfish intentions from the beginning, as his mission to Japan was not to evangelize, but purely to find out if his mentor actually renounced his faith. Rodrigues becomes deeply disturbed by the mere thought that Father Ferreira may have apostatized. Since Father Ferreira’s faith had a large impact on Rodrigues’ faith, Rodrigues may feel his faith is invalid if Ferreira renounced his own. From the beginning, doubt has grown in Rodrigues. Although Rodrigues hates Kichijirō after finding out he renounced faith and was the one exposing the Christians in the Japanese villages, they are very similar. They both have weak faith, though Rodrigues would not admit it. Rodrigues’ faith hits an all-time low when he finds out about Kichijirō’s betrayal. He has doubts that his work with the Japanese has done anything. His selfish intentions are displayed in these doubts, as he is only worried about his teachings being worthless and not about the Japanese that have been betrayed. Rodrigues’ selfish intentions create a negative impact on the Japanese Christians that he has been evangelizing and weaken his own faith in the face of adversity in an unknown land with a separate culture than his own.
In Roland Joffé’s The Mission, Rodrigo Mendoza loses his faith in the face of political threats. Father Gabriel evangelizes the Guarani people – an indigenous tribe in the rain forest of central South America – after they are originally hostile towards a Jesuit priest and he makes peace with them. Father Gabriel encounters Rodrigo Mendoza, who had been capturing the Guarani and forcing them to be slaves to the Spanish people. As most Europeans feel superior to indigenous tribes, Mendoza feels a superiority to the Guarani, and this is displayed as he captures them like animals and forces labor upon them. When Father Gabriel encounters Mendoza a second time, Mendoza is in a deep depression after killing his own brother in a fit of jealous rage. Gabriel gives Mendoza the chance to choose a penance for this crime. Mendoza goes on a journey with Father Gabriel and other Jesuits priests while carrying a sack filled with armor and his sword. As they reach the Guarani people, they forgive him and accept him into the community, which becomes a turning point for Mendoza’s faith, as he vows to become a member of the Jesuit order. The Jesuit missionaries, along with Mendoza, work to evangelize the Guarani. They soon find out that the mission may not be supported under the protection of the Church anymore due to a treaty between the Spanish and Portuguese crowns – the Treaty of Madrid – and they may have to relocate if their mission falls under Portuguese jurisdiction. Altamirano, an ambassador of the Pope, holds a public hearing with Father Gabriel and the Guarani. After Altamirano announces that the indigenous people must leave along with the priests, the Guarani choose to fight against the Church. Father Gabriel holds his faith, but Mendoza does not. Mendoza tells Gabriel “I want to renounce my vows of obedience” as a Jesuit and chooses to fight alongside the Guarani (Joffé, The Mission).
Rodrigo Mendoza’s faith changes twice in the film The Mission. His beliefs are created when he makes a vow to Father Gabriel to become a part of the Jesuit order, and he works hard to become a missionary. He wrestles with his decisions to commit acts of violence towards the end of the film, in which he renounces his faith. In his mind, the violence he commits while defending the Guarani is just violence. He had to face an ethical decision: fighting against the Church, so the Guarani are not slaughtered, or siding with the Church, maintaining his beliefs and not shaking his faith. Mendoza shows he possesses weak faith because it is easily shaken. He is convinced by a young Guarani boy to fight alongside the tribe, while Father Gabriel refuses to fight against his own brethren, and decides to lead the Indians in prayer instead. Mendoza’s idea of being forgiven by the Guarani showed him God’s love, and he showed God’s love to them when he laid down his life for them. Although, he renounces his faith, so it is not a sacrifice out of love, but of opposition. Mendoza’s change of beliefs in the face of political adversity contradicts the ideals by which priests are supposed to live. Priests typically have strong faith, as they evangelize and lead others to faith in God. Mendoza lacked this stronghold on his beliefs.
In Thomas More’s Utopia, the concept of a perfect society is originally ideal, but turns out to be absurd. More’s main internal struggle is whether to join the king’s service. As a humanist, More wants to remain free to pursue philosophy, but may be willing to compromise what he wants for the sake of his talents being utilized. More’s perception of early sixteenth-century England is displayed in Book I of Utopia, in which it is clear that he finds many errors in political judgement. In Book II, More indulges Raphael Hythloday’s description of Utopia, and encourages comparisons between Utopia and the current political climate. Utopia closely resembles the England that More describes. More truly believes that Utopia has many viable aspects, and is a possible model for real-world situations. More is dissatisfied with the current state of England, and when Hythloday shares that some of the main principles of Utopia are agricultural (More, p. 57), More realizes that the shared resources of Utopia provide a better solution to the exploitation of farmers that sixteenth-century England was handling.