CERQUEIRA, Luiz. - Portuguese Jesuit, bishop in Japan, b. in 1551 at Alvito, d. 15 Feb. 1614. He first taught philosophy (1581-86) and theology (1586-88) at Coimbra, and later theology at Évora after 1588. Manuscript copies of his lectures are preserved in the public libraries of Lisbon, Évora, and Braga. Appointed by Philip II as coadjutor and future successor to the bishop of Japan, Pedro Martins (d. 18 Feb. 1598), and consecrated in 1594, he arrived in Nagasaki on 5 Aug. 1598. He had to repair the devastation wrought by the bloody persecution of 1596-97 and strove earnestly to form, despite the difficulties and his extreme poverty, a beginning of an indigenous clergy; yet in fourteen years he was able to ordain only thirteen Japanese. He died at Nagasaki shortly after the outbreak of the great persecution ordered by Yeyasu.
Many of his letters remain, several of which (1601-1613) have been published (cf. Streit). His *Relazione della gloriosa morte patita da sei cristiani giapponesi per la fede di Cristo* (Rome, 1607) went through many editions (1604 in Portuguese, 1606 in Spanish, 1607 in German and French, and three times in Italian; 1609 in Flemish...). Of much greater bibliographical and missiological interest is the *Manuale ad Sacramenta Ecclesiae ministranda*, printed at Nagasaki in 1605; no copy has yet been found of a manual of cases of conscience that he had printed in Japanese for his indigenous priests.
Edmondo Lamalle
Easter Candle – Deacon on the ambo about to sing the Exultet and lighting of the c. Beneventan Exultet Roll (12th cent.) – Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, 724 B 13.