Francisco Calderón (1546-1618)

Clergy of the Society of Jesus who worked mostly in Japan. He was born in Soria, in 1546, and died in Manila on 6 December, 1618. He studied at the University of Alcalá. There, in 1570, he entered the Jesuits. In Alcalá, he engaged in the ministry for which he was most gifted, that of apostolic director. He left Lisbon in 1582 and arrived in Nagasaki on 18 March, 1585. In 1586, he accompanied Gaspar Coelho on his trip to Osaka. After that, he served as master of the college at Funai (Oita), which had been transferred to Arie in 1590. On 30 June, 1591, in Katsuka, he professed the four vows. He was the master of the Amakusa college in 1593 and, after that, moved to Arima where, for many years, he held the position of rector of the Arima residence. There, at a date unknown, he furthered the cause of the Congregations for Martyrdom. In 1613, he was at the college in Nagasaki, where he served as consultor of the province and confidential advisor to the master of the college, positions he already held in October of the previous year. In 1614 he left for Manila, where he served as visitator of the province for six months.

Bibliography:
Monumenta Historica Japoniae, dir. de Josef Franz Schütte S. J., Roma, Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1975; João Paulo Oliveira e Costa, O Cristianismo no Japão e o Episcopado de D. Luís de Cerqueira, dissertação de doutoramento em História apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, 1998 (texto fotocopiado).

Translated by: Maria João Pimentel