Catholic Church in China
The Catholic Church first appeared in China upon the arrival of John of Montecorvino in China proper during the Yuan dynasty; he was the first Catholic missionary in the country, and would become the first bishop of Khanbaliq.
The Jesuit Matteo Ricci was successful in Catholic missionary work in China. His approach viewed certain Confucian and Chinese folk practices as non-religious in nature and therefore compatible with Catholic practice. Other missionaries objected to this approach and after the hundred year long Chinese Rites controversy, the Vatican ordered the Jesuits to abandon the culturally accommodating approach Ricci had developed.
After the Chinese Communist Party won the Chinese Civil War, Catholic and Protestant missionaries were expelled from the country. In 1957, the CCP established the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association in Beijing, which rejects the authority of the Holy See and appoints its own preferential bishops. In September 2018, China and the Holy See reached a provisional agreement giving the Pope the power to veto any bishop which the Chinese government recommends. The parties have extended the provisional agreement twice, most recently in October 2024.
Chinese terms
Terms used to refer to God in Chinese differ even among Christians.Arriving in China during the Tang dynasty, the earliest Christian missionaries from the Church of the East referred to their religion as Jǐngjiào. Originally, some Catholic missionaries and scholars advanced the use of Shàngdì, as being more native to the Chinese language. Other Catholic missionaries coined the neologism Tiānzhǔ which became the dominant usage. Within the Catholic Church, the term 's=' is not uncommon, this being also the original meaning of the word "catholic". When Protestants arrived in China in the 19th century, they favored Shangdi over Tianzhu. Many Protestants use Shén, which generically means "god" or "spirit", or Yēhéhuá. Meanwhile, the Mandarin Chinese translation of Jesus, used by all Christians, is Jīdū.
Catholics and Protestants
The modern Chinese language generally divides Christians into two groups: adherents of Catholicism, Tiānzhǔjiào, and adherents of Protestantism, Jīdūjiào or Jīdū Xīnjiào. Chinese speakers see Catholicism and Protestantism as distinct religions. Thus, in Western languages, the term "Christianity" can subsume both Catholics and Protestants. In Chinese, however, there is not a commonly used term that can subsume the two. Eastern Orthodoxy is called Dōngzhèngjiào, which is simply a literal translation of "Eastern Orthodox Religion" into Chinese.Tang dynasty (618–690, 705–907)
The Catholic Church first entered China during the cosmopolitan Tang dynasty era, although it had few native Chinese followers until the 16th century in the Ming dynasty.Yuan dynasty (1271–1368)
A series of reports about the Far East reached the Catholic West in the mid thirteenth century.- The Nestorian Christian and Turkic Chinese monk Rabban Bar Sauma travelled from China to Europe to meet Pope Nicholas IV.
- * The long-present Church of the East had been the most geographically dispersed Christian church, but was by then in decline, and it may have suffered competition from the new Catholic missions and Islam: "controversies with the emissaries of.... Rome, and the progress of Mohammedanism, sapped the foundations of their ancient churches." The Catholics and Orthodox considered Nestorianism as heretical, though the so-called Nestorians mainly did not hold the particular beliefs attributed to Nestorius that had been anathematized. The expulsion of Christians by the Ming Dynasty seems to have ended the Church of the East in China.
- Also in the thirteenth century, Armenian King Hethum I, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, and William Rubruck visited Mongolia.
- In 1245, Pope Innocent IV sent a series of four missions to the Mongols. The first was led by the Dominican André de Longjumeau. Three other missions were sent between March and April 1245, led respectively by the Dominican Ascelin of Cremone in 1294. In 1299 he built a church and in 1305 a second opposite the imperial palace. Having made a study of the local language, he began to translate the New Testament and the Psalms. Estimates of converts range from 6,000 to 30,000 by the year 1300.
The mission had some success during the rule of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, but various factors led to an ultimate shrinking of the mission. Six centuries later, however, John of Montecorvino's attempt at the translation of the Bible became the inspiration for another Franciscan, the Blessed Gabriele Allegra, to go to China and in 1968 complete the first translation of the Catholic Bible into the Chinese language, after a 40-year personal effort.
In 1338, representatives of the Great Khan arrived in Europe inviting the Pope to send priests for the local Christians. Friar John of Marignolli and between fifty and one hundred fellow Franciscans were dispatched, arriving in Khanbaliq in 1342. This mission stayed with government encouragment until the Mongols were overthrown in around 1368 and the antagonistic Ming dynasty was installed. The last reported Franciscan being stoned by Buddhist monks in 1400.
Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
During the Catholic Reformation's explosion of missionary efforts around the world, particularly in Asia, Jesuit and other Catholic missionaries attempted to enter China. They had mixed success at first, but eventually came to have a strong impact, particularly in inter-cultural scientific and artistic exchanges among the upper classes of China and the imperial court.The permanent mission was established in 1601 by the efforts of the Jesuit Matteo Ricci. His whole approach was quite subtle, interesting the Wanli Emperor and the Ming Chinese authorities in aspects of western technology and learning as a point of opening. He also made attempts to reconcile Christianity with the Classic Confucian texts, though he was hostile, along with the other members of the Society of Jesus, to Taoism and Buddhism. Ricci's approach to missionary work respected Chinese culture, deeming certain Confucian and folk practices to be civil rather than religious in nature and therefore not inconsistent with Catholic practice.
Ricci died in 1610 but the Jesuit mission went on to become an important part of the Imperial civil service right into the 18th century. In 1644 a German Jesuit, Adam Schall von Bell, was appointed Director of the Board of Astronomy by the new Qing dynasty. Jesuits were also given posts as mechanics, musicians, painters, instrument makers, and in other areas that required technical expertise. Likewise, the development of Catholic Christianity in China originated an interesting process of cultural and artistic hybridization during early globalization and up to the present. An example of this is the Christian works of art made in the cloisonné technique.
Within 60 years after Ricci's death, the number of Catholics in China had grown to 300,000.
Qing dynasty (1644–1912)
In the Qing dynasty, the Jesuits' pragmatic accommodation with Confucianism was later to lead to conflict with the Dominican friars, who came to Beijing from the Philippines in the middle of the century. Dominican leader Domingo Fernández Navarrete in responding to the question "Was Confucius saved?" said that since Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, and others were all damned "how much the more Confucius, who was not worthy to kiss their feet"? In responding, António de Gouveia, a Portuguese Jesuit, said that Confucius was certainly saved, "which is more than can be said for King Philip IV of Spain."While up to this point there had been debate among Western clergy as to whether to ordain Chinese men as priests, the debate was settled in 1654 when Luo Wenzao was ordained a priest for the Dominican Order.
After the Rites controversy of the late 17th century and early 18th century ended in the expulsion of missionaries from most of China, access to the people of China was difficult for the Catholic Church. The controversy revolved around the reluctance of the Church to recognize local Confucian customs of honouring deceased family members. To the Chinese, this was an ancient ritual; to the Vatican it was a religious exercise which conflicted with Catholic dogma. Some missionaries objected to the legacy of what they viewed as Matteo Ricci's concessions to superstitious practices. The Vatican ultimately sided with these missionaries and ordered the Jesuits to abandon Ricci's cultural approach. Due to the Rites controversy, the Kangxi Emperor required missionaries to declare their adherence to "the rules of Matteo Ricci" which tolerated the Chinese rites. In 1724, the Yongzheng Emperor expelled all missionaries who failed to support Ricci's position on accommodation.
Under the "fundamental laws" of China, one section is titled "Wizards, Witches, and all Superstitions, prohibited." The Jiaqing Emperor in 1814 added a sixth clause in this section with reference to Christianity. It was modified in 1821 and printed in 1826 by the Daoguang Emperor. It sentenced Europeans to death for spreading Catholic Christianity among Han Chinese and Manchus. Christians who would not repent their conversion were sent to Muslim cities in Xinjiang, to be given as slaves to Muslim leaders and Baigs. Manchu Christians would also be removed from their Banner registers after being given as slaves to the Baigs.
Some hoped that the Chinese government would discriminate between Protestantism and Catholicism, since the law was directed at Catholicism, but after Protestant missionaries in 1835–6 gave Christian books to Chinese, the Daoguang Emperor demanded to know who were the "traitorous natives in Canton who had supplied them with books." The foreign missionaries were strangled or expelled by the Chinese.
Following the British Empire's defeat of China in the First Opium War, China was required to permit foreign missionaries. The unequal treaties gave European powers jurisdiction over missions and some authority over Chinese Christians. France sought to frame itself as the protector of Catholics in China, which in turn led to a sustained diplomatic dispute with the Holy See about who had authority over Chinese Catholics.
It was at this period of the Qing dynasty when one of history's bloodiest civil wars took place; led by the Christianized leader Hong Xiuquan of the Taiping Rebellion, that claimed upwards of 20-milion lives.
During the Boxer Rebellion, Catholic missionaries and their families were murdered by Boxer rebels.
The Qing dynasty imperial government permitted French Catholic Christian missionaries to enter and proselytize in Tibetan lands, which weakened the control of the Tibetan Buddhist Lamas, who refused to give allegiance to the Chinese. The Tibetan Lamas were alarmed and jealous of Catholic missionaries converting natives to Catholicism. During the 1905 Tibetan Rebellion the Tibetan Buddhist Gelug Yellow Hat sect led a Tibetan revolt. The Lamas massacred Christian missionaries and native converts to Christianity and besieged Bat'ang, burning down the mission chapel and killing two foreign missionaries, Père Mussot and Père Soulié. The Chinese Amban's Yamen was surrounded and Chinese General Wu Yi-chung was shot dead in the Yamen by Lama forces. The Chinese Amban Feng and Commandant in Chief Li Chia-jui managed to escape by scattering rupees behind them, which the Tibetans proceeded to pick up. The Ambans reached Commandant Lo's place, but the 100 Tibetan troops serving under the Amban, armed with modern weaponry, mutinied when news of the revolt reached them. The Tibetan Lamas and their Tibetan followers besieged the Chinese Commandant Lo's palace along with local Christian converts. In the palace they killed all Christian converts, both Chinese and Tibetan.