For All the Saints: 26 Martyrs

The Roman Catholic and Episcopal Church calendars honor today the 26 Catholics who were executed in Nagasaki in 1597. A Catholic mission had begun in Japan in 1549 and was accepted at first. But the government and the shogunate began to see the church as a potential colonial threat. The church was persecuted, and these Catholics were crucified and then killed with spears. The martyrs included twenty Japanese, four Spaniards, a Mexican, and an Indian.  http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1283&calendar=1