TORRES, COSME de. - Jesuit, missionary, b. at Valencia ca. 1510, d. at Shiki, on the island of Kami-Shima in 1570.

A priest, he taught grammar at Valencia, Majorca and Ulldecona; in 1538 he went to Mexico, where he joined the expedition of Rodrigo Lopez de Villalobos, following him to the Philippines and the Moluccas. In 1546 he is at Amboina, where he enters into contact with St. Francis Xavier, who in 1548 accepts him into the Society of Jesus and in 1549 takes him along with him to Japan. Once Xavier had departed, T. remained at Yamaguchi to continue his work, as superior of the mission from 1552 to 1570. He was always the animator and the example of the mission. He increased the Christians there to 30,000, among them many members of the ancient nobility, and he built there the first church. Many letters of his survive, in part unpublished.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: Sommervogel, VIII, 112-13; D. Bartoli, Dell'istoria della Compagnia di Gesù, II, Turin 1825, p. 88 ff.; III, ibid. 1825, p. 103 ff.; VIII, ibid. 1825, p. 205 ff.; G. Schurhammer, Die Disputationen des p. C. de T. mit den Buddhisten in Yamaguchi im Jahre 1551, Tokyo 1929; id., Epist. s. Fr. Xaverii, II, Rome 1945, see index.

Celestino Testore

@incollection{ec12_torres_cosme_de, author = {Testore, Celestino}, title = {Torres, cosme de}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {332}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/torres-cosme-de} }

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Torres, Cosme de

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