SOURCE: Gallagher, Michael. “For These the Least of My Brethren: The Concern of Endô Shûsaku.” Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 27, no. 1 (April 1993): 75-84.

In the following essay, Gallagher discusses Endō's honorary degree from John Caroll University.

About thirty years ago, it was very popular in American Catholic literary circles, such as they were, to argue about what constituted a Catholic writer. In more enlightened times, this sort of thing has become passé. But now, the emergence of Endô Shûsaku on the stage of world literature gives me cause enough to bring it up once more.

To borrow a phrase from the old Latin Mass, “Dignun et justum est”—it is right and just—right and just that John Carroll as a Catholic school should honor Endô Shûsaku with an honorary degree. In John Carroll's more than a century of existence, we...