The Jesuits were so successful that the number of Christians in Japan grew to 400,000 in 50 years.
However, this growth soon drew the opposition of Tokugawa Ieyasu who was named the new shogun of Japan in 1600, according to the Hawaii Catholic Herald. By 1614 his desire to protect Buddhism and his people from outside influences led him to wage an intense campaign of persecution against the Japanese Christians.
All missionaries were banned from the island nation and all churches were ordered destroyed. Although Tokugawa died in 1616, his sons Hidetada and Iemitsu continued the persecutions, which claimed the lives of some 4,000 believers, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Fr. Kibe was tortured to death by being hung upside down with his head immersed in a pit filled with excrement and animal carcasses.
The beatification ceremony for Fr. Peter Kibe and his187 companions who were killed in Japan between 1603 and 1639, will take place at midday on Monday November 24 in the Nagasaki’s Big N Stadium.