ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an account of sacred or ecclesiastical monarchy and other general things in Europe by the Japanese travellers. Japan and Europe as opposites was a common trope among the Jesuits in Japan, although it was not deployed, as it was in the 19th century, to present Japan as a quaint, exotic topsy-turvy land. Rather it was deployed to emphasize and promote the need for a different, and in many respects unique, approach to missionary activity in Japan. The secular authorities were as jealous of their prerogatives as the sacred and attempted to influence the conclaves to elect a new pope. At the time of De Missione’s composition, Spain was still attempting to exercise veto power. Moreover, the institutional powers of the College of Cardinals vis-a-vis the pope had already been weakened, the culmination of a long process.
