Abstract
Silence by Shusaku Endo, set in 17th Century Japan, narrates the story of a Jesuit Priest during the period of the Kakure Kirishitans (‘Hidden Christians’) after the Fall of the Shimabara Rebellion. The novel was adapted into a film in 2016 by Martin Scorsese. The plot follows two young Jesuit Priests, Rodrigues and Francisco Garupe who go out in search for their once- Superior, Father Ferreira, after hearsay that Ferreira had apostatised his faith. While they remain hopeful in search of Ferreira, Rodrigues is devastated to discover that Rodrigues had indeed renounced his faith, and is even married. He apostatised after having seen the brutality of his own Christians suffering. In an effort to save his fellow Christians, Ferreira rejects his faith, and even shares with Rodrigues that there is no hope for the Catholic faith to take root in Japan. As Rodrigues tries to reconcile the virtuosity of Ferreira’s actions, the film invites us to consider matters relevant to faith such as the idea of martyrdom, human suffering, salvation and the pervasive silence of God in the midst of injustice. My paper will address the question: How is it possible to love God while also loving your neighbour? The complexities of salvation is prevalent in the film that suggests that faith must be proven by good works, and that renouncing Christianity to alleviate the pain of others is a salvific action. This conflates the instruction stated in the first commandment: ‘You must love God with all your heart and all your soul’ and the second which says: ‘You must love your neighbour as yourself’. The silence of God is an overarching point of contention in the film. The perceived inaction and incommunicado on the part of God threatens the conviction of the Jesuit Priests of the reality of God, which then escalates into a justification for them to henceforth disprove Christianity altogether. This is exacerbated by the tension between suffering for what is transcendent, i.e suffering out of a love for God and suffering of the particular, elucidated by the suffering endured by the Christians, of which, any loving Shepherd, as represented through the Priests, would naturally be pained by and would seek solutions to avoid harm done to his community.