New Book Offers Primary Sources from Jesuit Missionaries of the Mariana Islands

Monday, January 11, 2021

In a new publication from Jesuit Sources, Editors Alexandre Coello de la Rosa and David Atienza share the unpublished letters and documents from Jesuit missionaries of the Mariana Islands in the 17th century.  Coello de la Rosa and Atienza provide exquisite commentary to place these primary sources in context with not only the martyrial context of the time, but also of the cultural complexities of the conceptualization of death among the indigenous communities and how it affected the reception of Christianity.  Their introduction to the book traces the missionary zeal and history following the martyrs of Japan to the new "spiritual frontiers" in the Asian seas.  

At the end of the 17th century, the Society of Jesus projected a martyrial ethos across Europe’s eastern overseas possessions, places that were of extreme importance for the control of transoceanic trade in the western Pacific.  Facing repression and persecution to the point of death meant that Jesuit missionaries were at the heart of the struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, and God and the devil in the Spanish Micronesia. And for the Society of Jesus, frontier missions such as the Mariana Islands meant a discourse of spiritual heroes whose violent deaths helped to spread Catholicism at the margins of the Spanish empire.

The documents and letters that accompany this volume are primary sources, offered in their original languages and in English, from Jesuit missionaries such as Fr. Diego Luis de San Vitores, Fr. Luis de Medina, and Fr. Manuel de Solórzano y Escobar.  These documents tell a gripping account of the Jesuits and their encounters with the people of the Mariana Islands, including the native Chamorro people. Scars of Faith traces Jesuit martyrs on the frontier missions of "the Pacific" and their accounts of sociocultural clashes, violence, and efforts for peace and evangelization.

Both scholars and readers interested in the history of the Society of Jesus, the Asian Pacific, or of matyrdom will find this volume as a must-read. 

Scars of Faith: Jesuit Letters from the Mariana Islands (1668-1684) will be available from Jesuit Sources in January 2021.