Biography
Giordano Ansaloni
About Giordano Ansaloni
Giordano Ansaloni was a Dominican priest from Santo Stefano Quisquina in Sicily. He belonged to the group of missionaries and Japanese Christians remembered as the sixteen martyrs of Nagasaki. Sources also call him Giacinto Ansalone or Giordano di Santo Stefano. The naming variation matters because he can be mistaken for a different member of the group.
Dominican accounts place his work in Japan among the ministry of the sixteen, who came from several countries and included priests, religious and lay collaborators. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints lists him as a Dominican priest who died on 17 November; the group chronology places his martyrdom in 1634. The Dominican account says the martyrs were executed at Nagasaki during persecution of Christians. Their deaths were later recognized in the Church’s collective beatification and canonization.
John Paul II singled out Ansaloni as the Italian member of the group when the sixteen were canonized in 1987. The Dominicans remember them together on 28 September. The common memorial holds his individual witness within the larger community of Japanese and visiting Christians who endured the same persecution.
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