Francisco Pacheco (1568-1626)

Clergy of the Society of Jesus who worked mostly in Japan. He was born in Ponte de Lima in 1568 and died in Nagasaki on 20th June, 1626. He was admitted to the Society in Coimbra in the beginning of 1586. He left for India on 7th April, 1592, were he was ordained priest. Then he went on to Macau, where he concluded his Theology course in 1598, and was examined by D. Luís Cerqueira, Valentim de Carvalho, Duarte de Sande and Baltasar de Torres. He became a Theology teacher and professed the four vows on 6th or 7th July, 1603. He left for Japan in 1604 and immediately on 23rd September he was the Theology examiner of priest João Mateus Adami, together with priest Vicente Ribeiro. In 1606-07 he was at the Osaka residence but returned to Macau to become the rector of the college, a position he held from 3rd November, 1608, to 1st December, 1611. In 1612 he returned to Japan, having lived in Nagasaki as the companion of D. Luís Cerqueira. He left again for Macau in November 1614, as a consequence of the expulsion edict, but returned to Japan the following year. In October 1617 he was appointed superior of the new provincial Mateus de Couros and was also superior of the Takaku until May 1619. In that year he was appointed superior of Miyako. He became the provincial on 21st October, 1621, and carried on being so until the end of 1625, keeping residence in Kuchinotsu. There, together with Gaspar Sadamatsu, he was captured on the night of 17th December, 1625. He was tortured in Arima and burned alive in Nagasaki, during the martyrdom of 20th July, 1626.

Bibliography:
Monumenta Historica Japoniae, dir. de Josef Franz Schütte S. J., Roma, Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1975. COSTA, João Paulo Oliveira e, 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 das Mercês Pacheco