GNECCHI SOLDI, ORGANTINO. - Jesuit, missionary, b. at Casto Val Sabbia (Brescia) in 1553, d. at Nagasaki on 22 Apr. 1609. A Jesuit in 1555, he was for some time rector of the College of Loreto and then of St Paul’s in Goa, India, whither he had gone in 1567. But already the following year he sailed for Japan and, having settled in the capital Miyako, he remained there from 1570 for more than 35 years, even during periods of persecution. Broken by toil and sickness, he was obliged to retire to Nagasaki in 1606, where he died three years later.
Beloved and esteemed by all for his gentle prudence, his indefatigable zeal (he baptized 11,000 idolaters in a single year), and his skill in governance, he enjoyed the special confidence of the two kings Taikosama and Nobunaga, from whom he obtained several favours. In Miyako he built a fine church, to which the faithful contributed generously, and in memory of the arrival of St Francis Xavier in Japan, which had taken place on 15 Aug., he dedicated it to the Assumption of Mary and on 15 Aug. 1576 blessed it, though not yet finished, and there celebrated the first Mass. Another church, dedicated to St Michael, he erected a league from Miyako, and in 1582 he also opened a seminary at Azoutchi to train an indigenous clergy. Heir to the spirit of St Francis Xavier, he would deny the Lord to have chosen him as a slave of his beloved spouse, the dear Japanese Christendom.