A vow made in boyhood
Francisco Pacheco was born in 1565 at Ponte de Lima, in the archdiocese of Braga in Portugal, into a noble family.At the age of ten, after reading the lives of the martyrs, the boy vowed to become a martyr himself.His parents were Garcia Lopez Pacheco and Maria Borges de Mesquita, a sister of Fr Diogo de Mesquita, and he was their eldest son.
As a student in Lisbon, aged about twenty, he saw the four young Japanese of the Tenshō embassy (天正遣欧使節) waiting for the winds to sail home, and he resolved to follow them.He entered the Society of Jesus at Coimbra under the novice master Vasco Pires.As a novice on a pilgrimage on foot to Santiago de Compostela, he begged alms from his own mother at Ponte de Lima, and she did not recognise him.
In the early 1590s he sailed for India.He finished theology and was ordained at Goa, where he also taught Latin and theology, and he then taught theology at Macao for four years.He made his solemn profession in 1603.
Japan, Macao and the bishop
The priest came to Japan in 1604 and spent a year learning the language.On the way to the capital he was shipwrecked and saw Fr Portico drown before his eyes, and he reached Osaka (大坂) with Fr Giovanni Matteo Adami.After working there he founded the Jesuit residence at Sakai (堺) and spent two years in that new mission.
In 1608 he was sent back to Macao as rector of the Jesuit college for three years.Returning in 1612, he became companion and vicar general to the ailing Bishop Luís de Cerqueira, and for two years, until the bishop's death in 1614, he carried much of the work of the diocese.
Superior in hiding
Pacheco was exiled to Macao in 1614, but in 1615 he returned to Japan disguised as a merchant.In 1618 he became superior of the Jesuits in the central provinces, living mostly in Osaka.At Sakai he spent more than a year hidden in a windowless hole like a tomb, coming out only at night to meet the faithful, who called him a holy man.
He also worked in Kyoto (京都) and in Takaku (高来), where he was superior.In a letter of March 5, 1618, written from there, he lamented the harm done by Dutch and English ships: "And there in the Indies they let it happen!" (translated).
Provincial and administrator
In 1621 or 1622 the superior succeeded Mateo de Couros as Provincial of the Jesuits and governor of the diocese of Japan.By apostolic commission he administered the diocese in the bishop's place, and so stood at the head of all the Christians of Japan.He headed the sworn Jesuit reply to Collado, signing first.
In 1622 he sent letters to the Christian prisoners on Iki (壱岐), giving authority to admit Agustín Ota into the Society.When the condemned Jesuit Costanzo sent him his reliquary holding his vows, the Provincial made it a treasure of the province.He used to hold up Spinola, the Procurator, as an example to all.
By then he was old, paralysed and almost blind, and for some years he went by the name Ignacio de la Cruz, to protect his office rather than himself.He lived at Kuchinotsu (口之津) in Arima (有馬), a seaside place convenient for messengers, in the house of the brothers Mancio and Matias Araki.His companion, Brother Gaspar Sadamatsu, lodged nearby with a relative of theirs.
Taken at Kuchinotsu
An apostate of Kuchinotsu went secretly to Shimabara (島原) and offered to hand over the head of the Christians.The governor Tanga Mondo fitted out three light vessels with a hundred soldiers each, closed the port and guarded the passes by land.In December 1625 they seized the Provincial at dawn, on the pretext of searching for fugitives from Edo (江戸).
When the governor drew his sword to split the priest's head, a fellow governor, Tanaka Tobioie, caught his arm and said this was not a man to be treated so.The catechists Pedro Rinsei, Paulo Kinsuke and Juan Kisaku were taken with him, and the young Juan insisted on being counted one of the Jesuit's company when Brother Gaspar tried to disown him to save him.The Araki brothers each claimed to be the guilty host, so the judges took both.
The prisoners were led to the sea with ropes at their necks while the whole town followed in silent weeping.Only Pacheco was left unbound, and he asked in vain to be tied like the others.At Shimabara a friendly officer changed the report on him from head of the religious of Japan and Macao to "a Father, a Brother and a catechist" (translated), to avoid a wider persecution.
Prison and the fire
Giovanni Battista Zola, another Jesuit, was seized a few days later and joined them in prison.Until December 30 the two priests slept on the ground with a block of wood for a pillow, on scant and filthy food.In prison the Provincial's paralysis was followed by constant trembling of his whole body, and for his last two months he went barefoot.Before leaving prison he received his catechists into the Society of Jesus.
On June 18, 1626, the new governor of Nagasaki (長崎), Mizuno Morinobu (水野守信), ordered Shimabara and Ōmura (大村) to send their prisoners to the city.The two Fathers travelled in closed litters and the brothers on poor horses, stopping at Himi (日見), two leagues from the city.His host kept three crumbs from his last meal as relics.
On June 20, 1626, thirteen stakes stood ready, but there were only nine victims, since four Portuguese had given up the faith moments before.Christians were forbidden to leave the city, but people from the countryside covered the hills.Pacheco stood between Baltasar de Torres and Pedro Rinsei, with Zola, Miguel Tozo, Vicente Kaun, Paulo Kinsuke and Gaspar Sadamatsu along the line.All of them died in less than a quarter of an hour.The Japanese called the death of the three priests "a solemn Mass of three" (translated).Their ashes were put in straw sacks and sown in the sea, and the faithful gathered the earth to heal the sick.
He was 61, with forty years in religion.Witnesses in the later processes on his life and death said they had never seen him do anything unworthy of a saint.In 1640 his cousin, a Jesuit professor at Coimbra, published a Latin epic in twelve books on his mission and martyrdom, the Paciecidos.
What is uncertain
Where the sources disagree
- When he entered the Society. Roggendorf says the last day of 1585, aged twenty; Profillet says January 1585, aged nineteen; Bartoli gives January 1, 1586, and Boero 1586, aged twenty.
- When he sailed for India. Bartoli and Boero say 1592, Profillet 1593.
- The envoys he saw in Lisbon. Bartoli says four young Japanese waiting to sail home; Boero says three, on their way to the Pope.
- When he became Provincial. Bartoli says October 1621 and Roggendorf autumn 1621; Charlevoix, Murdoch and Pagès say 1622.
- The date of his arrest. Anesaki (from Pagès), Murdoch and Pagès give December 17, 1625; Bartoli December 18; Delplace December 19; Charlevoix December 28.
- His betrayer. Bartoli names Gumata Ciunzaiemon, an apostate of Kuchinotsu who had given up the faith to keep a petty office; Pagès speaks of a Bengali renegade.
- How long he was Provincial. Profillet says three years; Boero and Bartoli say four.
- Baltasar de Torres's age. Profillet gives 63, Boero 62.
- Profillet's separate entries for Pedro Rinsei (June 6, 1626) and Zola (the day after June 18) contradict his own account of June 20, 1626, and are flagged as errors.
- Profillet reports that fever sufferers who ate the crumbs from his last meal were cured; no other source in the facts confirms it.