priests in Japan

People are often surprised (and sometimes, a little skeptical) to discover that my mystery novels feature a detective team composed of a master ninja and a Portuguese Jesuit priest. Japan was almost entirely closed to Westerners (really, to all outsiders) for much of its history, but opened to Portuguese Jesuits and traders for a short time during the 16th and 17th centuries. (Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu severely restricted foreigners’ interactions with Japan again, beginning in 1609).