Papal decree

The Papal decree is a church order whose arrival forces a dispute over who may minister in Japan and which institution can make that decision stick. Dated September 16, 1598, it requires priests to enter Japan only by way of Lisbon, Goa, and Macao, bars direct passage from Manila on pain of excommunication, and orders every priest outside the Jesuit order to leave Japan at once. Its authority is asserted through its seal, signature, and connection to the Pope; its effect, however, is challenged by the recipient who is meant to obey it.

The Document and Its Provisions

A messenger brings the letter from Macao, and Soldi hands it to Father-Visitor dell'Aqua before leaving the room. Dell'Aqua passes it to Friar Perez, presenting the paper with evident satisfaction as a command from His Holiness. The scene gives the decree a physical presence: it is handed across the room, scrutinized, and set down, while the authority it claims becomes the subject of direct confrontation.

The order establishes a controlled route for clerical travel. Priests of every religious order are to reach Japan only through Lisbon, Goa, and Macao. The prohibition on travelling directly from Manila is backed by the threat of immediate excommunication, making the route rule more than practical guidance: it is an enforceable religious restriction. The decree separately commands all priests who are not Jesuits to leave Japan at once for Manila. Their superiors may later send them back, but only through the prescribed route.

These provisions combine a restriction on entry with an immediate demand for departure. The Jesuits are expressly exempt from the expulsion clause, while the travel restriction applies to priests of all orders. In effect, the decree distinguishes between who may remain in Japan and how clergy may travel there. It also specifies a sequence for any possible return: departure to Manila first, followed—if superiors permit it—by a journey through Lisbon, Goa, and Macao.

Delivery, Authentication, and Dispute

Friar Perez does not simply dismiss the paper without examining it. He inspects its seal and signature, reads the order, and then rejects its authority. His refusal turns on two separate objections. He accuses the Jesuits of using the Pope’s authority against the Brethren of God and other mendicants, and argues that Portuguese influence will prevent those groups from obtaining passage or visas. In his account, the decree’s routing requirements could keep his order out of Japan indefinitely, even though the document does not state a permanent ban.

Dell'Aqua responds with the order’s explicit sanction: Friar Perez is commanded to leave Japan or face excommunication. When Friar Perez refuses, Dell'Aqua repeats the command in formal terms, grounding it in the decree rather than in personal preference. The argument therefore concerns both the document’s institutional standing and the practical consequences of obeying it. For dell'Aqua, its command is binding; for Friar Perez, Jesuit enforcement cannot make it legitimate.

Friar Perez also attacks the Jesuits’ claim to speak for the church, describing them as political actors concerned with power and wealth rather than as servants of Christ. His appeal to the poor, the sick, and the unwanted offers a rival account of religious authority based on service. That appeal does not alter the decree’s wording, but it sharpens the conflict: the order’s formal command is set against a competing claim about who genuinely carries the Word and ministers to those in need.

Date and Question of Force

The order’s date becomes Friar Perez’s practical means of resisting it. He says that it is almost two years old and argues that its currency must be checked before it can be accepted. He does not claim that he has been excommunicated; instead, he accepts the document conditionally, provided it is not out of date, and insists that verification is necessary because the matter is too important to decide immediately. His estimate that checking could take four years at least turns delay into an answer to an order demanding immediate departure.

Dell'Aqua rejects the claim that the decree may be out of date. Friar Perez counters that an archbishop of Japan is expected within weeks or months and that the letters he has received from Manila report a Spanish bishop’s royal warrant as imminent. He presents this anticipated appointment as a reason to question the order’s present force, not as proof that it has already been formally superseded. The exchange leaves the decree’s status unresolved: it has been delivered as a papal command, but the competing claims about its date and the expected change in church leadership prevent the encounter from ending in compliance.

Significance in the Scene

The decree is at once a specific instrument of church discipline and the focus of a wider institutional contest. Its precise clauses regulate travel, define an exception for Jesuits, require other priests to depart, and attach excommunication to prohibited travel and disobedience. Yet the scene shows that formal language does not settle who will obey. The order’s authority is tested by its recipient’s scrutiny of its date and provenance, by his accusation that its enforcement serves Jesuit and Portuguese interests, and by dell'Aqua’s insistence that the command admits no refusal.

That tension gives the document its decisive role: it is not merely read but contested, and its demand for immediate action produces an argument over legitimacy and timing instead. The decree’s practical outcome is left open in this exchange. Friar Perez says he will not leave and will not return to dell'Aqua’s residence, while dell'Aqua insists that he must go; the anticipated Spanish bishop and the disputed age of the paper remain unresolved conditions rather than completed changes.