From soldier to Jesuit
Francisco Cabral was born around 1530 into a family of the Portuguese lower nobility.His father was a magistrate of the Azores and a member of the Desembargo do Paço, the kingdom's central tribunal, and the family counted among its kin the man who reached Brazil.The boy grew up in Lisbon and studied humanities at Coimbra.He then sailed to Goa in the following of the new viceroy, Afonso de Noronha, and fought at the battle of Hormuz against the Ottoman fleet of Piri Reis.After four years in the viceroy's service he joined the Society of Jesus at Goa, and early in 1555 the vice-provincial reported receiving him as a novice.
He was ordained priest in 1558 and became master of novices the same year.His superiors judged him promising but often ill, and one wrote that "He is rich in religious virtues, but is somewhat wilful."For about ten years he taught philosophy and theology at Goa, Bassein and Cochin.From February 1562 he was rector at Vasai (Bassein), and from 1566 he taught cases of conscience at Goa.
Sent to reform the mission
In April 1568 the provincial named Cabral Visitor to Japan, because reports had reached Goa that the missionaries there were causing scandal by their dress.He left Goa that month, but was held for a year at Macao.His attempt to reach Japan in 1569 failed because the carrack left Macao too late and had to turn back.At Macao he made his final profession, the fourth vow, in 1569.
He arrived in Japan on June 18, 1570, with the Italian Jesuit Organtino.The new superior called the Jesuits of Kyushu to a consultation on the island of Shiki, where the aged Cosme de Torres handed over the leadership of the mission.The old missionary died on October 2 of that year.The consultation sent the sick Gaspar Vilela back to India.From August to October 1570 Cabral toured Kyushu with Brother Luís de Almeida, from Shiki to Ōmura, Arima, Bungo, Hakata, Hirado and the Gotō islands.
His first great charge was the missionaries' way of life.He ended the wearing of silk in the manner of Buddhist monks and made all the Jesuits in Japan wear black cotton cassocks.He also ended the mission's trading and made the missionaries eat meat.In 1571 he complained that a priest in Japan looked "more like a lord than a priest of the Society" (translated).He pointed out that he had appeared very poorly dressed before many lords of Kyushu and before Nobunaga, and had still been received with reverence.
Lords, baptisms and long journeys
The superior began his office at Ōmura by baptizing the wife and children of the lord Ōmura Sumitada and at least a hundred of the leading courtiers, and that day he blessed the lord's marriage.He baptized the lord of Amakusa, who took the name Michael, and then sent Brother Almeida to preach in the lord's lands, where 2,000 people were baptized in 1571.He held that the superior should not stay in one house but visit every residence each year.
At the end of 1571 Cabral made his first visit to Kyoto, and early in 1572 he went with Luís Fróis and Brother Lorenzo to Gifu.Oda Nobunaga dined with them and said they were men he liked, "upright, sincere, and who tell me solid things".Some simple folk at Gifu were sure that the bespectacled priest had four eyes.In 1573 the Jesuit spent nearly three months at Yamaguchi, teaching again Christians who had not seen a priest for almost twenty years.He composed seven days of public disputations there, which a Japanese brother delivered to crowds standing in the snow, yet only two people came forward for baptism.The superior admitted that a simple Christian woman, Catarina of Miyano, had converted 150 people while his learned arguments won almost none.In 1574 he wrote that God is closer to the humble than to "a superb person like me".
In Bungo he baptized Sebastian, a son of the great lord Ōtomo Sōrin, in 1575.In 1577 the lord's queen and her brother marked him for death.When threatened, the superior answered that he would rather see every church burned, and gathered his brethren in church to offer their lives.On August 28, 1578, he baptized Ōtomo Sōrin himself.
How he saw Japan
Cabral thought the Japanese followed whatever religion their lord ordered.In 1571 he wrote, "So they are Christians at a word of command from the tono".For that reason he called the lords the best apostles, since they could make whole places Christian by a word.He did not regard the Japanese as slaves of the Devil, but he judged their government very barbarous because masters could kill their servants freely.
The question that marked his time as superior was the place of Japanese in the Society.He saw Japanese preachers as essential and asked for more Japanese entrants, yet he opposed their ordination as priests.By 1580 only seven Japanese had been admitted as brothers, against thirty Europeans.He kept Japanese candidates as dōjuku (lay helpers) rather than students, and did little to have Europeans learn Japanese.He feared that Japanese taught the Western sciences would come to despise their European teachers.In 1576 he wrote that European missionaries could only give the sacraments, while the Japanese preachers were the really effective workers.His view was not fixed, and at first he rather favoured admitting local candidates.At the Kuchinotsu conference of 1576 he called for a college and a novitiate.In 1577 he even offered to go to Europe himself to ask the king for an income for a college in Japan, where many local men could become workers.
He also wrote a catechism refuting the Buddhist sects and another for Christians.Parts of his catechism survive in the Catechismus Christianae Fidei of 1586.A report of his on the growth of Christianity in Japan was printed in French at Paris in 1579.
Worn out and relieved
By the mid-1570s the superior felt overwhelmed.In 1575 he wrote that many kingdoms asked for preachers, but he could answer them only with tears, because the few Jesuits were scattered alone across Japan.From 1574 he asked to return to India for lack of strength, and the Visitor's orders kept him at his post.In October 1578 he asked outright to be replaced as superior.Even so, he had supporters, including Almeida, because he defended poverty and scourged himself in processions.
He welcomed the Visitor Alessandro Valignano in 1579, hoping he would bring much fruit and console the Jesuits in Japan.The two men soon disagreed sharply over the training and treatment of the Japanese members.On August 30, 1580, Cabral wrote from Kuchinotsu giving seven reasons to be freed from all command, among them nearly 29 years in the Society with only three as a subordinate.He admitted that he was no longer fit to govern.By August 1580 he had become superior of the Bungo house.Gaspar Coelho succeeded him at the head of the mission, and he left Japan for Macao.
Macao, Goa and the last years
In 1582 Cabral moved to Macao, where he headed the new China mission until 1586.In 1584 he visited the residence at Zhaoqing and baptized two Chinese, Paolo and Giovanni, the first Christians made inside China by that mission.He became superior of the professed house of Goa in 1587 and Provincial of India in 1592.
From India he wrote long letters against Valignano's reforms in Japan, calling them too costly and blaming the growth in missionaries for Hideyoshi's distrust.In 1596 he warned that admitting Japanese would ruin the Society in Japan.In his old age at Goa he walked the Rosary stations every day and went barefoot in the Holy Week processions.He died at Goa on April 16, 1609, after two months of illness.
What is uncertain
Where the sources disagree
- Birth. Profillet gives 1528 at Covilhã;Hesselink and the obituary place his birth on São Miguel in the Azores.D'Ortia prefers 1533, though the introduction to the book gives 1532;Higashibaba gives 1528 and Morris 1529.
- Entry into the Society. Hesselink says 1554, aged 21;D'Ortia's book prints December 1544, an error for 1554, and the vice-provincial reported receiving him early in 1555.
- End of his superiorate. dates given range from 1579 to 1581.D'Ortia says the exact date he stopped being superior is unknown, but the change had been made by August 1580.Anesaki dates his recall to 1580, while Fujita says he left for Macao in 1581.
- Why he left. Cooper says Valignano accepted his resignation when his health broke down in 1580;Murdoch says the clash was so sharp that Valignano sent him to Macao.D'Ortia argues he was eager to leave, seeing the mission as a danger to his soul, and corrects writers who say he opposed his removal.D'Ortia also argues that he saw the mission failing years before Valignano arrived, and describes his state in the late 1570s as something close to burnout.
- Valignano's charges. Valignano wrote that Cabral held that the Japanese must adapt to Portuguese customs "because in the end they were negroes" (translated), that he kept Japanese members from learning Portuguese or Latin, and that he learned no more Japanese than "a few barbarous beginnings" in his years as superior.Bartoli says he wished Japanese Jesuits kept ignorant and humble.These come largely from his opponent.
- Judgements on his character. Bartoli praises his prayer, poverty and zeal but calls his principles of government contrary to prudence.In 1589 Christóvão de Castro called him pious and prudent but harsh and irate.D'Ortia says his dislike of the Japanese is the one trait clear in the literature, though he had praised virtuous Japanese Christians while superior.Kasahara's history says the dōjuku nearly rebelled at his contempt.
- His reputation. D'Ortia notes that he is usually treated as an "embarrassing accident" between Xavier, Valignano and Cerqueira, and that the label fidalgo y muy fidalgo comes from Organtino and was made famous by Elison.The main source for his life is a hagiographic obituary.
- His catechism. Álvarez-Taladriz judged his and Valignano's contributions to the 1586 Catechismus roughly equal, a view D'Ortia says Western historians have mostly ignored.
- The baptism of Ōtomo Sōrin. Profillet's date is a year too early; the usual date is August 28, 1578.
- His 1596 letter. Roggendorf reports that he blamed the Japanese lack of natural disposition, the climate and "the influence of the stars".