Paris Foreign Missions Society
The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris is a Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons dedicated to missionary work in foreign lands.
The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris was established 1658–63. In 1659, instructions for establishment of the Paris Foreign Missions Society were given by Rome's Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. This marked the creation of a missionary institution that, for the first time, did not depend on the control of the traditional missionary and colonial powers of Spain or Portugal. In the 350 years since its foundation, the institution has sent more than 4,200 missionary priests to Asia and North America. Their mission is to adapt to local customs and languages, develop a native clergy, and keep close contacts with Rome.
In the 19th century, local persecutions of missionary priests of the Paris Foreign Missions Society were often a pretext for French military intervention in Asia. In Vietnam, such persecutions were used by the French government to justify the armed interventions of Jean-Baptiste Cécille and Charles Rigault de Genouilly. In China, the murder of the priest Auguste Chapdelaine became the casus belli for the French involvement in the Second Opium War in 1856. In Korea, persecutions were used to justify the 1866 French campaign against Korea.
Today, the Paris Foreign Missions Society remains an active institution in the evangelization of Asia.
Background
The traditional colonial powers of Spain and Portugal had initially received from the Pope an exclusive agreement to evangelize conquered lands, a system known as Padroado Real in Portuguese and Patronato real in Spanish. After some time however, Rome grew dissatisfied with the Padroado system, due to its limited means, strong involvement with politics, and dependence on the kings of Spain and Portugal for any decision.From a territorial standpoint also, Portugal had been losing ground against the new colonial powers of England and the Dutch Republic, meaning that it was becoming less capable of evangelizing new territories. In territories that it used to control, Portugal had seen some disasters; for instance, Japanese Christianity was eradicated from around 1620.
Finally, Catholic officials had doubts about the efficacy of religious orders, such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits or Barnabites, since they were highly vulnerable in case of persecutions. They did not seem able to develop local clergy, who would be less vulnerable to state persecution. Sending bishops to develop a strong local clergy seemed to be the solution to achieve future expansion:
"We have all reason to fear that what happened to the Church of Japan could also happen to the Church of Annam, because these kings, in Tonkin as well as in Cochinchina, are very powerful and accustomed to war... It is necessary that the Holy See, by its own movement, give pastors to these Oriental regions where Christians multiply in a marvellous way, lest, without bishops, these men die without sacrament and manifestly risk damnation." Alexandre de Rhodes.
As early as 1622, Pope Gregory XV, wishing to take back control of the missionary efforts, had established the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith with the objective of bringing non-Catholic Christians to the Catholic faith, and also inhabitants of the American continent and Asia. In order to do so, Rome resurrected the system of Apostolic vicars, who would report directly to Rome in their missionary efforts, and would be responsible to create a native clergy.
In the field, violent conflicts would erupt between the Padroado and the Propaganda during the 17th and 18th centuries.. The creation of the Paris Foreign Missions Society was well-aligned with Rome's efforts to develop the role of the Propaganda.
Establishment
The creation of the Paris Foreign Missions Society was initiated when the Jesuit priest Alexandre de Rhodes, back from Vietnam and asking for the dispatch of numerous missionaries to the Far East, obtained in 1650 an agreement by Pope Innocent X to send secular priests and bishops as missionaries. Alexandre de Rhodes received in Paris in 1653 a strong financial and organizational support from the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement for the establishment of the Paris Foreign Missions Society. Alexander de Rhodes found secular clergy volunteers in Paris in the persons of François Pallu and Pierre Lambert de la Motte and later Ignace Cotolendi, the first members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, who were sent to the Far-East as Apostolic vicariate.Due to the strong opposition of Portugal and the death of Pope Innocent X the project was stalled for several years however, until the candidates to the missions decided to go by themselves to Rome in June 1657.
Appointment of missionary bishops
On 29 July 1658, the two chief founders of the Paris Foreign Missions Society were appointed as bishops in the Vatican, becoming Pallu, Bishop of Heliopolis in Augustamnica, Vicar Apostolic of Tonkin, and Lambert de la Motte, Bishop of Berytus, Vicar Apostolic of Cochinchina. On 9 September 1659, the papal bull by Pope Alexander VII defined the territories they would have to administer: for Pallu, Tonkin, Laos, and five adjacent provinces of southern China, for Lambert de la Motte, Cochinchina and five provinces of southeastern China. In 1660 the third founder was appointed as Cotolendi, Bishop of Metellopolis, Vicar Apostolic of Nanjing, with also five provinces of China, namely Beijing, Shanxi, Shandong, Korea and Tartary.All of them were nominated bishops in partibus infidelium, receiving long-disappeared bishopric titles from areas that had been lost, in order not to compromise contemporary bishopric titles and avoid conflicts with the bishoprics established through the padroado system. In 1658 also, François de Laval was nominated Vicar Apostolic of Canada, and Bishop of Petra in partibus infidelium, becoming the first Bishop of New France, and in 1663 he would found the Séminaire de Québec with the support of the Paris Foreign Missions Society.
The society itself was formally established by the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement in 1658. The object of the new society was and is still the evangelization of non-Christian countries, by founding churches and raising up a native clergy under the jurisdiction of the bishops. The Society was officially recognized in 1664. The creation of the Paris Foreign Missions Society coincided with the establishment of the French East India Company.
In order to dispatch the three missionaries to Asia, the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement established a trading company, the Compagnie de Chine, founded in 1660. A ship, the Saint-Louis, was built in the Netherlands by the shipowner Fermanel, but the ship foundered soon after being launched. At the same time, the establishment of a trading company and the perceived threat of French missionary efforts to Asia was met with huge opposition by the Jesuits, the Portuguese, the Dutch and even the Propaganda, leading to the issuing of an interdiction of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement by Cardinal Mazarin in 1660. In spite of these events, the King, the Assembly of the French Clergy, the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement and private donors accepted to finance the effort, and the three bishop managed to depart, although they now had to travel on land.
The three bishops chosen for Asia left France to go to their respective missions, and crossed Persia and India on foot, since Portugal would have refused to take non-Padroado missionaries by ship, and the Dutch and the English refused to take Catholic missionaries. Lambert left Marseille on 26 November 1660, and reached Mergui in Siam 18 months later, Pallu joined Lambert in the capital of Siam Ayutthaya after 24 months overland, and Cotolendi died upon arrival in India on 6 August 1662. Siam thus became the first country to receive the evangelization efforts of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, to be followed by new missions years later in Cochinchina, Tonkin and parts of China.
Founding principles
The mission had the objective of adapting to local customs, establishing a native clergy, and keeping close contacts with Rome. In 1659, instructions were given by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith :Instructions were also given to the effect that respecting the habits of the countries to be evangelized was paramount, a guiding principle of the missions ever since:
Establishment on Rue du Bac, Paris
The seminary was created in March 1663. Jean Duval, ordained under the name Bernard de Sainte Thérèse and nominated Bishop of Babylon in 1638, offered the deserted buildings of his own Seminary for Missions to Persia, which he had created in 1644 at 128 Rue du Bac. On 10 March 1664, Vincent de Meur was nominated as the first director of the seminary, and officially became superior of the seminary on 11 June 1664.The seminary was established so that the society might recruit members and administer its property, through the actions of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement and by the priests whom the vicars Apostolic had appointed their agents. This house, whose directors were to form young priests to the apostolic life and transmit to the bishops the offerings made by charity, was, and still is situated in Paris in the Rue du Bac.
Known from the beginning as the Seminary of Foreign Missions, it secured the approval of Pope Alexander VII, and the legal recognition of the French government and Louis XIV in 1663. In 1691 the chapel was established, and in 1732 the new, larger, building was completed.
Another wing, perpendicular to the 1732 one, was added in the 19th century to accommodate the great increase in members of the seminary.