The Catholic Invasion Of China

The culmination of D. E. Mungello’s forty years of study on Sino-Western history, this book provides a compelling and nuanced history of Roman Catholicism in modern China. As the author vividly shows, when China declined into a two-century cycle of poverty, powerlessness, and humiliation, the attitudes of Catholic missionaries became less accommodating than their famous Jesuit predecessors. He argues that “invasion” accurately characterizes the dominant attitude of Catholic missionaries (especially the French Jesuits) in their attempt to introduce Western religion and culture into China during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Elements of this attitude lingered until the end of the last century, when many Chinese felt that Pope John Paul II’s canonization of 120 martyrs reflected the imposition of an imperialist mentality. In this important work, Mungello corrects a major misreading of modern Chinese history by arguing that the growth of an indigenous Catholic church in the twentieth century transformed the negative aspects of the “invasion” into a positive Chinese religious force.

Tracing the little-known history of the first underground Catholic church in China, noted scholar D. E. Mungello illuminates the period between the imperial expulsion of foreign Christian missionaries in 1724 and their return with European colonialism in the 1800s. Few realize that this was the first time in which Chinese, rather than Europeans, came to control their own church as Chinese clergy and lay leaders maintained communities of clandestine Catholics. Mungello follows the church in a time of persecution, focusing in particular on the role of Chinese clergy and lay leaders in maintaining communities of clandestine Catholics during the eighteenth century. He highlights the parallels between the 1724 and 1951 expulsions of missionaries from China, the first driven by a Chinese imperial system and the second by a revolutionary Communist government. The two periods also reflected foreign bias against the Chinese priests and laity and questions about their spiritual depth and constancy. However, Mungello shows that the historical record of incarcerated and interrogated Christians reveals a spiritually inspired resistance to government oppression and a willingness to suffer, often to the point of martyrdom.

The French Religious Protectorate was an institutionalized and enduring policy of the French government, based on a claim by the French state to be guardian of all Catholics in China. The expansive nature of the Protectorate's claim across nationalities elicited opposition from official and ordinary Chinese, other foreign countries, and even the pope. Yet French authorities believed their Protectorate was essential to their political prominence in the country. This book examines the dynamics of the French policy, the supporting role played in it by ecclesiastical authority, and its function in embittering Sino-foreign relations. In the 1910s, the dissidence of some missionaries and Chinese Catholics introduced turmoil inside the church itself. The rebels viewed the link between French power and the foreign-run church as prejudicial to the evangelistic project. The issue came into the open in 1916, when French authorities seized territory in the city of Tianjin on the grounds of protecting Catholics. In response, many Catholics joined in a campaign of patriotic protest, which became linked to a movement to end the subordination of the Chinese Catholic clergy to foreign missionaries and to appoint Chinese bishops. With new leadership in the Vatican sympathetic to reforms, serious steps were taken from the late 1910s to establish a Chinese-led church, but foreign bishops, their missionary societies, and the French government fought back. During the 1930s, the effort to create an indigenous church stalled. It was less than halfway to realization when the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949. Ecclesiastical Colony reveals the powerful personalities, major debates, and complex series of events behind the turmoil that characterized the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century experience of the Catholic church in China.

This is a sociological and historical analysis of the conflict between the state and the Catholic Church in China between 1949 and 2001 during half of a century of the socialist regime. The relationship began with conflict, followed by accomodation and finally a cooperative spirit had developed for a complex web of political and diplomatic reasons. Never in the past the Catholic Church has shown a rigorous growth under the encouragement of the Communist Party to shape the Church in the image of a indigenous and local church and to minimize the influence of the Vatican. There remains a persistent struggle between the underground church, those who remain loyal to early missionaries and to the Holy See, and the official national church controlled by the Party/State. The authors argue that there is hope that the conflict will eventually disappear as the new leadership in Beijing may one day restore a diplomatic relationship with the Vatican.

China has bulked large in the imagination of the Catholic Church for 500 years. It had been central to the missionary dream of the Jesuits for almost as long. However, only with this book's appearance has the detailed focus of attention shifted to the substantial and neglected period of catholic and Jesuit engagement with china - the almost 120 years from the second arrival of the Jesuits. Matteo Ricci the polymath, Ferdinand Verbeist and Adam Schall von Bell the astronomers and the exquisite painter who influenced Chinese painting beyond measure, Giuseppe Castiglione, have been written about, made ls of and been the heart and soul of the first stage of Jesuit impact on China - in the 17th and 18th Centuries. They brought Western learning and art to China and took Chinese language and literature to Europe. The Jesuits were the first multinational to be welcomed in China and they came with a specific method of engagement - to make friends build relationships and share their gifts before anything else was transacted, including conversations about Christianity. It remains an unsurpassed method of engagement with a rich and ancient people. But the second arrival - from the 1840's - was very different. It was made possible by the arrival of European governments and traders, many of whom came not just for financial gain but to spread their "superior" religion. This work by David Strong in two volumes is the first major treatment of the period from the arrival of the European and eventually American Jesuit missionaries under the protection of the so called Unequal Treaties through to their expulsion after the Communist victory in the long running civil war in 1949. Volume 1: The French Romance - traces the people, projects, expansion and impact of those who provided the predominant Jesuit presence. At the height of it's engagement with China, the French Government has 19 Consulates and attendant military and navy throughout China. The French Jesuits were afforded access and protection by their government and activated missions in northern and central China - schools, seminaries, universities, parishes, retreat houses, publications - and attracted Chinese nationals to join their number.