The shogunate and imperial government at first supported the Catholic mission and the missionaries, thinking that they would reduce the power of the Buddhist monks, and help trade with Spain and Portugal.

Beginning in 1587 with imperial regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s ban on Jesuit missionaries, Christianity was repressed as a threat to national unity.

Jesuit fathers and others who had successfully fled to the Philippines wrote reports which led to a pamphlet that was printed in Madrid in 1624 "A Short Account of the Great and Rigorous Martyrdom, which last year (1622) was suffered in Japan by One Hundred and Eighteen Martyrs'.

[6] Through the promulgation of decree on martyrdom, Pope Pius IX declared these martyrs venerable on 26 February 1866 and subsequently beatified them on 26 July 1867.

[10] This group is also known as Alfonso Navarrette Benito, Perdo of Ávila, Carlo Spinola, Ioachim Díaz Hirayama, Lucia de Freitas, and 200 companions.