Talk:History of the Catholic Church in Japan

• Several other edits made the same day, 12/25/2009, also imported text from this page.

From memory the largest grouping of Christians in SEA was incinerated with the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki, if I also remember correctly the mission founded by St. Kolbe was spared as he counter-intuitively located the building on the hillside facing away from what would be the blast direction . Taam (talk) 14:54, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I came here by way of notices on Kirishitan and Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan, and I am writing to ask some clarifying question about these notices. From what I understand, it seems text has been used in more than one article, and these were put up to resolve potential copyright issues. That's great (and much needed), but I'm a little confused about the implications...

1. Does this mean that we can no longer delete text from the source article? Even if it's badly sourced/whatever? I would like for editors to be able to continue to maintain/improve the source article... a prohibition against doing so seems a little severe if I'm reading it correctly.
   1. Corollary: If text is deleted from the source, does that have to be reflected in the copied-to article as well?
2. How do we tell which text is protected by this notification? Is there a way to tag such text so that modifications are not made? (I wish there was a comparison tool... is there?)
3. Is this a precursor to a merger?

I tried to read the template docs but that just left me more confused. Would appreciate clarification; thanks!

Joren (talk) 23:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Re #1, the articles Kirishitan and Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan should not be deleted because doing so would delete their edit histories and thus make it impossible to establish the attribution of specific text to specific Wikipedia editors (or anon IP contributors). This does not restrict modifying or deleting the text from the article. The only restriction is deletion of the entire article.

Re the corollary... "No, the three articles can proceed independently and the text in question can be deleted from any or all of the articles in question.

Re #2, you have to look at the edit linked to by the hyperlink "by this edit".

Re #3, the notice is not at all related to a merger. It neither proposes nor precludes a merger. It is solely about retaining the ability to preserve attribution of the text (i.e. identifying who wrote it originally).

--Richard S (talk) 04:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

1. Ah, ok! Thanks very much for clearing that up; now that you explained it, that definitely seems to be the common sense way to read it. I suppose my mental grammar parser got hung up on the link... somehow I thought it was referring to contents within the link, and not to the link itself (the article)... I wonder if it would be a good idea to modify the notice to read "The article Foo now serves to provide attribution..."?
2. Since there were "several other edits" mentioned in the notice here, it seemed a bit hard to track down all of them. Maybe I could have just use a text comparison tool on it...anyway not needed now. Thanks! Joren (talk) 17:15, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The Nestorian denomination was founded in about 428 A.D., and cannot have appeared in Japan or anywhere else in 199 A.D. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.157.24 (talk) 15:51, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Statement is somewhat dubious, and the supplied reference was the organizational homepage of the "Keikyo Institute". However, the ref had a caption that, when plugged into Google, led to the following article: Nestorian Christianity in the Tang Dynasty that is in fact by the Keikyo Institute. However, upon reading the source I cannot find a single one of the supposed claims that are allegedly backed up by this reference. This article appears to actually be about Nestorians in China. There is no mention made of 4th century churches in Nara, or of 199 AD, or of a 4th century church in Japan, or of who the "some historians" are, or even any mention of Nestorianism spreading to Japan, so this cannot be used as a source for this claim. However, for those interested in the idea of Nestorians reaching Japan, the Keikyo Institute appears to be dedicated to spreading this theory, so if you want to pursue this, have fun :). However, this particular statement is dubious and doesn't match the source at all, so I will be deleting it forthwith.

I do hope that someone with time and/or knowledge would be able/willing to pursue the Nestorians-in-Japan claim; it's something I've heard from time to time that has a bit of the "interesting fringe theory" aesthetic to it (with perhaps a dash of "marketable secrets revealed"), but I've never had the time or resources to research it myself. I would be delighted if someone could locate a credible assessment of this. -- Joren (talk) 18:01, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

This is a good article and not far from GA status. There are a couple of concerns recommendations for improvement:

1. In-line citations are lacking in many places.
2. The "history" ends rather abruptly with the Meiji Restoration. Except for the mention regarding the traditions of the "Hidden Christians" and the "Separate Christians", the reader is left with the impression that once religious freedom was made official, all the Christians stepped out in the light of tolerance. There should be some description of the suspicion that accompanied the rise in nationalism in the 1930s, and the outright persecution of Christians once WWII broke out. Even today, I've been told that Japanese Christians prefer to keep a low profile as they are concerned about some marginalization by peers and neighbors. If any information can be found regarding 20th century history of Catholics in Japan, I think it would round out the coverage quite nicely. Boneyard90 (talk) 00:46, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

That article contains a fair amount of POV, but some non duplicate content. Is it worth merging to here? And leaving there a dab - a redirect to Wiktionary for the katakana and a dab to Kakure kirishitan which has some case to be maybe used in English source. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:50, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Makes sense. But both articles need clean up anyway. Would be good to do during the merge. And there is so much text that it is hard to get a good summary, so adding that would be nice. Then Christianity in Japan also needs help/coordination. The work never ends....History2007 (talk) 12:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think these should be merged. As Kirishitan has various differences when it comes to spreading the faith in Japan. It's not only "Roman Catholicism" that made a difference in Japan, there were hundreds of other factors that contributed to the growth of Christianity (and Catholicism) in Japan. Hence I believe they should be kept separate, since there is much more information that can be added to each of these pages, and it would become too confusing if someone came looking for information about one of these topics, and didn't have as large an understanding about christianity in Japan as I currently do. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.171.224.127 (talk) 02:48, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

[This is the single edit from this IP address]. Thanks, but in what way are they different? In ictu oculi (talk)

Disagree. The two concepts of the articles are different, despite the quality of either article. Prburley (talk) 15:47, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove Aging Merge Tags. The unsightly merger tag on both articles is now six months old, and no discussion since then other than what I've added above. I propose we remove the merger tag and continue the discussion here. Anyone? Thanks! Prburley (talk) 15:47, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

The tags have been removed 07:39, 3 December 2012‎ Nihonjoe (Rm really old merge tag) (undo) but, same question, in what way are they different? In ictu oculi (talk) 20:05, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

In the absence of any discussion I'm going to go ahead be bold and merge these .... In ictu oculi (talk) 11:37, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Be careful, I see the other article as a sub-article of this one, given its depth of content. It's subject does fall under the subject of this article, but is about a specific time period, of this article.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Noted, fair point. Based on this consideration, but still bearing in mind the other overlap problems I have WP:BOLDly WP:MOVEd to the English of Kakure Kirishtan, Hidden Christians of Japan In ictu oculi (talk) 08:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

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In the "Persecution and martyrdom" section, there are a series of reported claims of what the Jesuits had done in Japan leading to the Bateren Edict.

These claims aren't found in the cited source "Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan" at the pages listed (54 & 64). While it's not unreasonable some of these claims might have been made to Hideyoshi, they need a source, and some items (especially "forced conversions") read like a Jack Chick tract. An additional source would give this section more credibility.

It would be helpful as well if this section stated whether these claims were actually true or not, if a reliable source can provide that information. 64.135.139.161 (talk) 20:28, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

I am a contributor to the History of the Catholic Church in Japan article, having written a substantial portion of its content based on my research and reliable sources. On October 10, 2025, the AI-generated tag was added by User:Gnomingstuff with no explanatory edit summary diff. I believe this tag may have been applied inappropriately, as no specific evidence was provided in the edit summary, and no explanation was posted on this Talk page, contrary to the template's guidelines.

The documentation for the AI-generated template Template:AI-generated requires clear evidence of AI-generated contents. It also instructs editors to "explain your reasons on the page's talk page" after adding the tag. The absence of such an explanation from User:Gnomingstuff does not comply with this requirement.

WP:G15 specifies three clear-cut criteria for identifying LLM-generated pages: (1) communication intended for the user (e.g., "as a large language model"), (2) implausible non-existent references (e.g., invalid ISBNs or DOIs), and (3) nonsensical citations (e.g., citations with incorrect temporality or unrelated content). WP:G15 explicitly states that more subjective signs should not serve as the sole basis for tagging or deletion unless accompanied by these clear-cut indicators. The addition of the tag without an edit summary or Talk page explanation fails to align with the AI-generated template's purpose or the three criteria of WP:G15.

As a significant contributor, I am unaware of any issues that suggest the article is either partly or entirely LLM-generated in violation of the three criteria of WP:G15. Per Wikipedia's policies on verifiability WP:V and assuming good faith WP:AGF, I kindly request that User:Gnomingstuff provide a Talk page explanation, or meet the WP:G15 criteria, as required by the template's guidelines and WP:G15.

In the absence of concrete evidence and a proper Talk page explanation, I propose removing the AI-generated tag immediately to maintain the article's integrity. I welcome community feedback to reach a consensus.Thank you. 杜の街 (talk) 11:39, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Apologies for not being more specific; the tag was not only based on your edits here but your pattern of contributions across various pages. G15 is irrelevant because it's a speedy deletion criterion, and I didn't tag the article for speedy deletion.

There is one glaring omission from your wall of text here, which is weird because it could clear up the whole thing right away. By which I mean: did you use AI, or did you not use AI? Yes or no. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:23, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I appreciate your clarification that the tag was based on a perceived pattern in my contributions across multiple pages. However, I believe the tag's application is inappropriate due to the lack of specific evidence, procedural violations, and a pattern of similar actions, such as your deletion of 176,264 bytes from Kirishitan diff without evidence or discussion, as detailed in Talk:Kirishitan#Request_to_restore_content_removed_from_Kirishitan_and_provide_evidence_for_AI_claims. I’d like to address these concerns in the spirit of WP:AGF and WP:CON.

The AI-generated template Template:AI-generated serves as a preliminary step to flag potential LLM-generated content for review, leading to processes like WP:G15 or WP:AFD. Its documentation requires editors to "explain your reasons on the page's talk page" with specific evidence, such as fabricated citations, even when used urgently. Your edit on October 10, 2025, provided no edit summary or Talk page explanation, violating this requirement. WP:G15 states,

This applies to any page that exhibits one or more of the following signs which indicate that the page could only plausibly have been generated by large language models (LLM) and would have been removed by any reasonable human review:

— LLM-generated pages without human review WP:G15

including (1) communication intended for the user, (2) implausible non-existent references, or (3) nonsensical citations.

In addition to the clear-cut signs listed above, there are other, more subjective signs of LLM writing that may also plausibly stem from human error or unfamiliarity with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. While these indicators can be used in conjunction with more clear-cut indicators listed above, they should not, on their own, serve as the sole basis for applying this criterion.

— LLM-generated pages without human review WP:G15

Your reference to a "pattern of contributions" without citing specific examples from this article fails to meet these standards, making the tag's placement speculative. Similarly, your deletion of Kirishitan content on October 9, 2025, citing WP:TNT with the vague summary "a long string of AI edits", lacked evidence or discussion, bypassing WP:AFD or WP:G15 requirements.

Your request for a "yes or no" answer on AI use shifts the burden of proof inappropriately. Per WP:V, content is evaluated based on reliable sources, not assumptions about the editing process. Demanding such an answer risks bad-faith assumptions (WP:AGF) and bypasses the template's requirement for specific evidence, potentially constituting WP:GAME by avoiding substantive discussion. As a contributor, I have stated that the article is based on reliable sources, and I am unaware of any issues warranting the AI-generated tag.

Please provide specific examples that justify the tag, as required by Template:AI-generated. In the absence of such evidence, I propose removing the tag immediately to maintain the article's integrity. I am open to addressing specific issues or collaborating on fixes. Community feedback is welcome, potentially via Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan or Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity, to reach a consensus. 杜の街 (talk) 00:48, 12 October 2025 (UTC)