Catholic Novelist Facing the Silence of God

Shusaki Endo, a Catholic novelist, is the topic of the  Catholic Times' column 'half transparent notes on life', by another writer with a great interest in literature  There are few Catholics interested in literature today, he tells us, who would not be familiar with Endo.

He was baptized at the  age of 11 and went on to major in French studies. Both his Japanese culture and his Catholicism fascinated him by the contradictions he found in that encounter.  We can't say he was not a Catholic writer, the columnist asserts, but Endo continually pondered in his writing the doubts that arose from the conflicts that were generated by his faith and the culture of his country. His struggle to reconcile the two had a special attraction to many, not only in his own country but to those who were trying to reconcile a secular culture with the truths and values of their own faith.

He was greatly attracted to Jesus' message of love, but in his novels he revealed that he did not fully believe in his miracles. In "The Banks of the Dead Sea," a pitifully sick person asks Jesus for help, but Jesus tells him he doesn't have the power to heal; he wants only to share in the suffering of the sick. Endo presents us only with a human Jesus. This is the  problem the columnist has with Endo.

In the same book, Endo mentions a meeting with Annas, the high priest, who wants to reconcile with Jesus. Annas confesses that although he doesn't believe in God, he knows how to pretend to believe; God for him is an eternal mirage--a thought the columnist feels that Endo entertained.

This similar theme appears in his masterpiece, "Silence." The storyline is about the persecution of the Christians in Japan in the 17th century. Word was received in Portugal that a missioner was needed, so an outstanding Jesuit was sent to Japan to find out what happened. He was captured, tortured and was told that he would be able to save the lives of his follow Christians if he only appeared to apostatize. This would be what Jesus would want, he was told; it would be an act done for the Christians. A  way of beautifying apostasy was the columnist's understanding of what Endo was attempting to show by this aspect of the plot. In the end, after much torture and suffering the missioner did what he was asked to do.

One of the Japanese who had apostatized said that all those who come to Japan with a religion will find that its roots will not be able to withstand the culture and will rot away. This thinking, says the columnist, may be the result of the nationalism of the Japanese.  In any event, he reminds us that the conflicts of the plot may be--in addition to those issuing from Endo's own struggle with his faith life--also the result of Endo's skill in story telling. He was a cynical writer, he says, and a master of designing complicated plots. 

Blessed Cardinal Newman said that a thousand difficulties did not make a single doubt. To doubt means to be unsure whether a belief is true; to have a difficulty with a belief, according to Newman, means to know the belief is true but to be unsure just what it means or why it is true. This unsureness can be overcome. Faith is an act of the will helped by the intellect to assent to what we believe. Difficulties in faith are many, and they are good for us in that we are able to go deeper into what we believe, searching for answers, clarifying, and becoming stronger in our belief. In the Scriptures, there is the prayer of the father who cried out, "I do believe; help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24). This may have been the prayer of Endo, and of many others like him, when confronting what is believed to be the "silence" of God in the presence of so much suffering in the world.