CERQUEIRA, LUIZ. — Portuguese Jesuit, bishop in Japan, b. in 1551 at Alvito, d. 15 February 1614. He first taught philosophy at Coimbra (1581–86) and theology (1586–88), and after 1588 theology
at Evora. Manuscript copies of his lectures are preserved in the public libraries of Lisbon, Evora, and Braga. Designated by Filippo II as coadjutor and future successor to the bishop of Japan, Pietro Martines (d. 18 February 1598), and consecrated in 1594, he arrived in Nagasaki on 5 August 1598. He had to repair the devastation wrought by the bloody persecution of 1596–97 and devoted much effort to establishing, despite the difficulties and his extreme poverty, a native clergy; nevertheless, 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 letters of his survive, several of which (1601–1613) have been published (cf. Streit). His Relazione della gloriae morte patita da sei christiani giapponesi per la fede di Christo, Rome 1607, went through many editions (1604 in Portuguese, 1606 in Spanish, 1607 in German, French, and three times in Italian, 1609 in Flemish...). Of far greater bibliographical and missiological interest is the Manuale ad Sacramenta Ecclesiae ministranda, printed at Nagasaki in 1605; no copy has so far been found of a manual of cases of conscience that he had printed in Japanese for his native priests.