Alessandro Valignano, SJ

This essay attempts to show that Alessandro Valignano was the architect of the Jesuit missions in Japan that produced the most successful growth of the church among an already literate people at any time since the first six centuries. The principles upon which he founded his work in Japan were firmly based on freeing the Christian faith from its imprisonment in European culture. These principles were further developed in the mission of the Society of Jesus in China. There Valignano was the patron and guide of Matteo Ricci. He authorized the latter's extraordinary attempt to use Confucius in the way that theologians in the West had already used Aristotle. Despite Ricci's fame, which has overshadowed that of his mentor and leader, there would have been neither Ricci nor any Rites Controversy without Valignano.