"You make yourself more important than them. You are preoccupied with your own salvation. If you say that you will apostatize, those people will be taken out of the pit. They will be saved from suffering. And you refuse to do so. It’s because you dread to betray the Church. You dread to be the dregs of the Church, like me." Until now Ferreira’s words had burst out as a single breath of anger, but now his voice gradually weakened as he said: "Yet I was the same as you. On that cold, black night I, too, was as you are now. And yet is your way of acting love? A priest ought to live in imitation of Christ. If Christ were here...?" For a moment Ferreira remained silent; then he suddenly broke out in a strong voice: "Certainly Christ would have apostatized for them."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch. 8
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sh%C5%ABsaku_End%C5%8D
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Shūsaku Endō
21 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Shūsaku Endō →
Related Quotes
"Already twenty years have passed since the persecution broke out; the black soil of Japan has been filled with the la…"
"What do I want to say? I myself do not quite understand. Only that today, when for the glory of God Mokichi and Ichiz…"
"We priests are in some ways a sad group of men. Born into the world to render service to mankind, there is no one mor…"
"I tell you the truth—for a long, long time these farmers have worked like horses and cattle; and like horses and catt…"
"Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is…"
"Man is a strange being. He always has a feeling somewhere in his heart that whatever the danger he will pull through.…"
"The wisdom of peasants shows itself in their ability to pretend that they are fools."
"Sin, he reflected, is not what it is usually thought to be; it is not to steal and tell lies. Sin is for one man to w…"
"Lord, why are you silent? Why are you always silent...?"
"If we did not believe that truth is universal, why should so many missionaries endure these hardships? It is precisel…"