Empathy, Charity, and Shusaku Endo's "Silence"

Martin Scorsese's recent film Silence, like the historical novel by Sh?saku End? on which it is based, turns on an act of emotional blackmail. Inoue, a seventeenth-century Japanese magistrate intent on eradicating Christianity from his country, pressures a Jesuit priest named Rodrigues to apostatize not by torturing him personally, but by torturing his flock. If Rodrigues tramples on Christ's image, the savage torture of a group of Japanese Christians will end. In his successful efforts to overcome Rodrigues's resistance, Inoue has the support of another Jesuit priest named Ferreira, who previously apostatized under the same conditions.