The Chinese Rites Controversy: A Catholic China?

In the early 18th Century, the Jesuits and the Dominicans took differing views on their missionary work in China. The Jesuits took the position that since the traditional chinese folk religion practices were civil in nature and thus were permissible for catholic chinese while the Dominicans took the view that they were religious in nature and thus incompatible with christianity.

Pope Clement decided in favour of the Dominicans upon which the Emperor Kangxi, who had previously been inclined to allow the Jesuits to perform their missionary work, banned Christian missions in China.

If Clement decides in favour of the Jesuits, could we see an integration of Confucianism and Catholicism? What might the effects on China be?
 
In the early 18th Century, the Jesuits and the Dominicans took differing views on their missionary work in China. The Jesuits took the position that since the traditional chinese folk religion practices were civil in nature and thus were permissible for catholic chinese while the Dominicans took the view that they were religious in nature and thus incompatible with christianity.

Pope Clement decided in favour of the Dominicans upon which the Emperor Kangxi, who had previously been inclined to allow the Jesuits to perform their missionary work, banned Christian missions in China.

If Clement decides in favour of the Jesuits, could we see an integration of Confucianism and Catholicism? What might the effects on China be?

The situation in China would probably would not be that much different than any other place colonized by "Catholic" nations. Aspects of indigenous religious beliefs exist among the Native American peoples of South America, for example, and Voodoo is a syncretic mix of West African religion and aspects of Catholicism. If Pope Clement rules in favor of the Jesuits, then I would not immediately see an immediate social conflict between people hearing Mass publicly and then engaging in ancestor worship privately. It is very hard, in my estimation, to prohibit indigenous practices. Perhaps the Jesuits recognized that, and were willing to overlook some indigenous practices in order to further catechise the Chinese and possibly indoctrinate them in steps.

The conscious blending of Catholic and traditional Chinese practices would be a major problem, however. This might have been accelerated by the substitution of classical Chinese for Latin at the sacraments. The Roman Mass has been said in other languages before -- Church Slavonic was used in Croatia and I believe among the Czechs, possibly others. However, these countries were thoroughly catechized through the use of Slavicized rites. I don't think that that would be an analogous situation, given that the texts of the sacraments remained the same in Slavonic and Latin. But to translate the Mass into classical Chinese without a longer period of catechesis might cause a blending of traditional Chinese practices into the framework of the Mass and other sacraments. Perhaps Pope Clement was afraid of this, and sided with the Dominicans in order to protect the integrity of the sacraments.

I think it would be fascinating to see Mass celebrated not in European-style vestments but in the court vestment of medieval China. Or medieval Japanese court vestments, if the Jesuits were able to stay in Japan longer, get established, and translate the Mass into literary Japanese. Of course, modern Chinese Catholic and Japanese Catholic priests wear chausables and dalmatics per the rubrics.
 
One of the reasons the Jesuits were ignored was because they made little progress in conversion despite a long time involvement in China. The Dominicans and others were basically arguing that the Jesuits had failed, there's no reason to listen to their advice.

Catholicisim is not a particularly good fit with China because it is highly centralized and therefore competes with the centralized Chinese Confucian order. The Emperor is essentially both ruler and high priest, and he would never tolerate a large part of the population taking orders from the Vatican.

Also if we look at South Korea, the most Christianized country with a Confucianist background today, Christians are pretty stable as around 20% of the population. That suggests there is a cultural ceiling to the acceptance of Christianity.

Of course, even if only 20% of Chinese were Christians today that would be huge boost to the number of Christians in the world.
 
the reson the jesuits made so little progress with converting the population of china was that they recognized that the emperor was the spiritual leader of china as well as the temporal, and so they made it their mission to convert china by converting the emperor, knowing that if he converted much of the rest of china would soon follow in his footsteps.

also the jesuits came very close to converting the emperor at the time of the establishment of the qing dynasty. you see, among the emperor's duties was predicting the future, this mostly came in the form of a new calendar issued by each dynasy. the calendar was meant to mark the important planting dates and the changing of the seasons as close to perfectly as possible, when the seasons did not begin when the emporor said they would that was one sign that the emperor had lost the mandate of heaven and was no longer fit to rule china. everey dynasty employed its own distinct cabal of astronomer-priest-mathematicians (seers) to write up their calendar for them and it was custon to throw out the old dynasty's seers and search for a new group when ever a new dynasty came to power, these new seers would be responsible for creating this new dynasty's calendar, a group of jesuits were the frontrunners to become the qing dynasty's imperial seers, that is until the scheeming confucian burocracy took them down.

it is widely belived that if the jesutis had become responsible for the qing dynasy's calendar, that the emperor would have converted soon after that.
 
One of the reasons the Jesuits were ignored was because they made little progress in conversion despite a long time involvement in China. The Dominicans and others were basically arguing that the Jesuits had failed, there's no reason to listen to their advice.

Catholicisim is not a particularly good fit with China because it is highly centralized and therefore competes with the centralized Chinese Confucian order. The Emperor is essentially both ruler and high priest, and he would never tolerate a large part of the population taking orders from the Vatican.

Also if we look at South Korea, the most Christianized country with a Confucianist background today, Christians are pretty stable as around 20% of the population. That suggests there is a cultural ceiling to the acceptance of Christianity.

Of course, even if only 20% of Chinese were Christians today that would be huge boost to the number of Christians in the world.

So a kleptocratic quasi-"Communist" regime like modern China is more conducive to Christianity? (Even though Christians are highly persecuted in modern China?) Have the Confucian bonds weakened to the point where Christianity is now possible in China? Or has the number of Christians in modern China not reach the "critical mass" point of 20% that would be the ceiling in Confucian societies?
 
Top