His Role in Catholic Reform: Saint Francis Xavier

A/N: The author researched reliable works and pieced together historical events presented below in a way easy for the first time reader to follow. Borrowed ideas and informations are cited. Direct quotations are in quotation marks (“”). Insights and opinions are otherwise the author’s own, and does not necessarily represent the views of any denomination.

He is often compared to the Apostle Paul, so my expectations were high. But the first time I read his biography, my impression of Saint Francis Xavier was this: “He had the heart of the missionary but not the brilliance of the theologian.” With this conclusion made too early, I desired to change the subject of my research. Here lay the problem: I preferred thinkers, whereas Saint Francis was more of a man of action. His greatness did not lie in his teachings, but in the zeal and the strategy with which he taught them. He was not an Ignatius of Loyola or a Martin Luther...he was a male version of Mother Teresa. Yet as I read more about his life and ministry, and the events that surrounded the 16th century church, I realized that at that time period, the church did not need more thinkers. It needed men like Saint Francis who understood, and lived, what Jesus meant when he said: “The greatest among you will be your servant (Mat 23:11 NIV).” In order to understand Saint Francis’ significance in church history, we must briefly go back to the medieval church, and the subsequent age of reformation.

Church History So Far:

No educated, present-day Christian, Protestant or Catholic, would deny that the church went through a period of severe moral and spiritual decline. We may want to pretend it never happened, but we will always have the history books to remind us that it did. I am talking about the medieval church, the rise and abuse of papal power. Innocent III. Boniface VIII. The ‘vicar of Christ’ walking in a bejeweled crown, “bending the neck of victors”¹ and kings using the threat of excommunication. Picture it! In order to fund papal campaigns, the church sold indulgences². Salvation was a commodity that could be bought for a price. This was the great evil of the middle age church---they degraded the things of God by using it to manipulate men³. Between the late 14th and the early 15th century, John Wyclif and Jan Hus both tried to reform the church from within, and failed dismally⁴ (Hus was inquisitioned and martyred)⁵. The church’s shameful practices flourished. They used heaven, hell, judgment, and purgatory to strike fear in the hearts of the people, so much so that the former-monk Martin Luther would say of the Holy God, “I hate him!”⁶ When Luther’s eyes were opened to the words of the Scriptures that salvation was by faith alone, he posted his 95 theses against indulgences on the door of Wittenberg on October 31, 1517⁷, and set ablaze the fire of the Protestant Reformation. Even as the church tried to quell the “heresies” of Protestantism, Catholic reformation was brewing from within. Among its champions were Pope Paul III (1534-49), who tried to weed out moral laxity from the church leaders⁸, and Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Society of Jesus and the Jesuits⁹. It was this same Ignatius who was the friend of Saint Francis Xavier, and it was this same Society of Jesus, to which he belonged. The Society vowed to be “at the disposal of the pope to use in whatever way he thought appropriate for spreading the ‘true faith’ and defending the ‘true church’.”¹⁰ The Jesuits worked on three areas: “education, counteracting the Protestants, and missionary expansion in new areas.”¹¹If Ignatius was the founder of the Society of Jesus, Saint Francis was the champion of the missionary expansion.

The Man, the Mission:

Saint Francis of the Castle Xavier was born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta on April 7, 1506 to a noble Spanish family at the region of Navarre¹². In the year 1525, he entered the University of Paris and in 1529, met Ignatius of Loyola. Through Ignatius’ patient influence, Saint Francis converted to Catholicism in 1533. In 1534, along with 5 other friends, Ignatius and Saint Francis took a special vow at Montmarte, Paris and the Society of Jesus was born¹³. After his doctorate studies, Saint Francis worked as a college professor before going to Italy to serve as Ignatius’ secretary¹⁴. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1537¹⁵. By the request of King John III of Portugal, Ignatius dispatched Saint Francis to spread the gospel to India. Appointed apostolic nuncio to Asia, he sailed from Lisbon on April 7, 1541¹⁶. For the next 10 years, Saint Francis preached, baptized, took care of the sick, learned local languages and translated the catechism everywhere in the Portuguese empire in the east. He was so successful and so zealous that it was not uncommon for his voice to be hoarse and his hand to be in pain from all the baptisms he performed¹⁷. He went even to Japan and converted a large number there, before attempting to go to China, where he died at the coast of Shangchuan on December 3, 1552¹⁸. The Jesuits attribute more than 700,000 conversions to this spectacular man¹⁹ and the Roman Catholic church consider him the greatest apostle since the apostle Paul. His work has earned him the title, “Apostle to the Indies and to Japan.”²⁰

For a more detailed table of Saint Francis’ 10-year missionary journey, please click here.

The Significance of Saint Francis (or The author’s reflection on the man they called “Piyera Padre”):

Saint Francis Xavier was everything the corrupt medieval pope was not. Unlike the medieval pope who gloried in riches, wealth, and power, Saint Francis “became all things to all men so that by all possible means he might save some (1 Cor 9:22 NIV, change to tense and person added).” That was his missiological strategy, that was his life. To the lower caste of India, this apostolic nuncio chose to dress simply and to reject the comforts of life to reach the poorest of the poor. To the proud people of Japan who looked down on poverty, he appeared in splendor so that he might share the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. When he saw that the Japanese refused to believe because this ‘new idea’ did not come from neighboring China, he resolved to go to China and died giving his all out of love for the people. He used his gift of language for the glory of God. When he could have been a man of worldly success, he chose the harsh life of a missionary. This was the kind of man the 16th century church needed. Not another thinker (not because thinkers were unnecessary, but because there were many already), but one who practiced what the Lord Jesus preached: love, servanthood, boldness in sharing the word.

To prove my point, here is an excerpt from a letter St. Francis sent to Ignatius of Loyola, borrowed from Catholic.Org. (Just to grasp the passion of this man, I recommend you to read some of his letters, which are easily searchable online):

Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: “What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!”

I wish they would work as hard at this as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them.

This thought would certainly stir most of them to meditate on spiritual realities, to listen actively to what God is saying to them. They would forget their own desires, their human affairs, and give themselves over entirely to God’s will and his choice. They would cry out with all their heart: Lord, I am here! What do you want me to do? Send me anywhere you like – even to India.

As seminary students, I hope and pray we will not be stuck in our books and learnings, but would act so that what we learn might be spread to the whole world. We learn from Saint Francis’ story that today’s church still needs reformers of this kind. I urge that we will emulate Saint Francis’ passion and character, as we win the world for Christ through love.

As you comment/sign off below, please limit your insights to your opinion on Saint Francis’ impact in church history and how we can use what we learn from his life to our present-day church. No discussions on doctrines yet, please, that’s another topic for another day. Lastly, take the poll on the right side of this blog.

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¹ Phrase borrowed from the tile of chapter 6: Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, 3rd ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008), 152.
² Ibid., 240.
³ I have taken the liberty of emphasizing the medieval church’s faults. However, to their credit, men like Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi lived in this era and made a difference. True to God’s character, He preserved a remnant for Himself.
⁴ Shelley, 232-3.
⁵ Ibid., 231-2.
⁶ Ibid., 238.
⁷ Tim Dowley, ed., Eerdman’s Handbook to the History of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 360.
⁸ Ibid., 406.
⁹ Robert D. Linder, “Francis Xavier and Catholic Missions,” in Great Leaders of the Christian Church, ed. John D. Woodbridge (Chicago: Moody Press, 1988), 234-5.
¹⁰ Dowley, 412.
¹¹ Ibid., 415.
¹² “Francis Xavier: First Missionary to Japan,” Christianity Today, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/missionaries/xavier.html (accessed October 16, 2010).
¹³ Linder, 235.
¹⁴ Scott W. Sunquist, ed., A Dictionary of Asian Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), s.v. “Xavier, Francis.”
¹⁵ John D. Woodbridge, ed., Great Leaders of the Christian Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1988), 232.
¹⁶ Sunquist, s.v. “Xavier, Francis.”
¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ Ibid.
¹⁹ Woodbridge, 232.
²⁰ Dowley, 415.