A powerful book about faith. The central issue of the book---whether Rodrigues’s apostatizing is an act of weakness or an act of love for those being tortured in the pit---is not answered, and is kept ambiguous. It’s not clear to me at all! The cock crowing as Rodrigues tramples on the fumie clearly evokes the betrayal of Peter. At the same time, the voice of Jesus (or so he thinks) tells Rodrigues to apostatize as an act of mercy.
Rodrigues continually compares himself to Jesus throughout the book. At first I thought this was a bit self-aggrandizing, but his apostasy really rises up to make the analogy compelling. But the comparison makes Rodrigues a parody Christ, one that takes up the cross of denying Christ in order to save others from more suffering.
Of course the real cross he bears is the psychological torment to which he is subjected for the rest of his life. Did he really save the others at the cost of losing his priesthood, or is he just justifying his own weakness of will and/or faith?
The idea that Christianity cannot take root in the “swamp” of Japan is also not clear, mainly because the people who say it have a lot of incentive to think it to be true. Ferreira persuades Rodrigues of this, and it pushes him to apostatize, for he could not bear to think of the suffering of the Christians for nothing.