Since the sixteenth century, when the first European missionaries of the modern era arrived in southern China, China has summoned the Western Church to go beyond itself. Transcending sea and land to enter into the global vastness beyond the Western outpost of Eurasia that is Europe, these missionaries had to make sense of a sophisticated culture that challenged their imaginary. How were they to reconstruct their mental topography to make room for China? Were the Chinese “idolaters”? Or did they have an ancient and venerable appreciation of divinity alive in their traditions and ethics? Did existing religious categories comprehend what the missionaries encountered, or did they need the openness to learn and grow?
The early Jesuit missionaries to China were among those who risked bending European categories to make sense of their experience in China. Schooled in Renaissance humanism, they found apt dialogue partners among the Confucian literati they engaged. However, in Europe, trends in the Catholic Church were heading in a different direction. The Protestant Reformation and the doctrinal controversies it spawned led to a hardening of boundaries, as did the controversies occasioned by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
In the contemporary world, we are used to thinking historically and contextually. Evolution is such the assumption that we wonder whether there is such a thing as Truth. We have what has been termed a “historical” mindset. For much of its history—perhaps stemming from its engagement with ancient Greek philosophy—the Western Church has often operated with an ahistorical imaginary. In this imaginary, truth is a timeless ideal whose dimensions fit together with logical consistency, and the goal on earth is to participate in and manifest that ideal in this incarnate world. For this mindset—the “classicist” mindset—Euclidean geometry is the exemplar.1
Catholic missions persisted under the Qing emperors, the Portuguese Padroado, and the French Protectorate. And well into the twentieth century, a classist imaginary dominated; this imaginary stood as a fortress against difference and unwanted change. There is a stability and a clarity in the classicist mindset. In the Chinese mission, it clearly delineated what was and was not to be held and practiced. Catholicism was—or aspired to be—a complete and consistent world.
That is not to say that Chinese wisdom and culture were excluded. But what was admitted into the Catholic scheme of things had to be carefully vetted and deemed coherent with the faith. Indeed, once it deems something safe, the Catholic Church can be quite bold. It established one of the earliest radio stations in Europe (1931), approved of modern biblical critical methods (within boundaries) (1943), and affirmed evolution (1950). In the Chinese context, it approved the use of traditional Chinese rites (if understood correctly) in 1939. Nonetheless, in these and numerous other cases, Church authorities acted with care, caution, and sometimes trepidation so as to safeguard the timeless ideals it professed.
The Second Vatican Council ushered in a very different moment for the Catholic Church. Whereas the classicist mindset prizes integralism in the social order, Vatican II called upon Catholics to be open and “listen to the signs of the times.” Vatican II made changes to existing Church “orientations” regarding everything from the nature of the church to the status of other faiths to the freedom of individual conscience. In practice it affirmed “the development of doctrine.” In highlighting the need to respond to the moment and effecting development, the Catholic Church affirmed its historicity. The historical imaginary had claimed its due.
Many treatments of the history of the Catholic Church in China focus on enculturation or China’s own dizzying transformation—which they should. They necessarily mention changes in the Catholic Church. But they do not always give these changes their full weight. The worldwide Catholic Church of 1949, when China began to close its doors to the outside world, was very different from the worldwide Catholic Church of 1978, when Deng Xiaoping led China to reopen. This change came as a shock most especially to the Catholics of China, who had no experience of Vatican II. The church they remembered and defended was a church that spoke Latin and championed a fortress mentality.
Just as Deng Xiaoping urged China to open its doors—with all the risks that entailed—Vatican II summoned Catholics to leave the ghetto behind. “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.”2 With these opening words, Gaudium et Spes, one of the foundational documents of Vatican II, called Catholics to stand in solidarity with all human beings.
By affirming change, historicity, and solidarity with all people, Vatican II reoriented the worldwide Catholic Church in a fundamental way. In certain respects, this has led to a lowering of one’s guard and an affirmation of mainstream culture. And where that culture is secular and individualistic, we have seen a decline in church participation.
In the Chinese context, the changes of Vatican II have led to particular challenges. Chinese Catholics formed in an earlier day understood how to stand their ground—and why. However, in the post-Vatican-II era, Catholic orientations are different. Does that mean one can cooperate with authorities who promote atheism? Where does one draw the line? Did the bishops at the Second Vatican Council have the Chinese Communist Party in mind when they wrote their seminal documents?
Throughout history, Chinese Christians have borne inspiring witness to their faith, often at great price. And now they are being summoned once again to meet their moment in history. In Hong Kong, the Catholic Church played an important role in shoring up basic educational and service organizations at a crucial and formative time in its history. Cindy Chu shows how one missionary group, the Maryknoll Sisters, taught their students how to serve and play a vital role in this new and modern society. Fr. Anthony Chang reflects on faith and ecology, responding to the call of Pope Francis in Laudato si’ to care for our common home and God’s invaluable creation. In doing so, he draws on his own experience and Chinese tradition.
Meanwhile, on the mainland, one priest reports on the circumstances of unregistered Catholics under Xi Jinping’s new regime. Sr. Beatrice Leung outlines the challenges that Catholics face in China despite the accord struck by the Holy See with Beijing. Nonetheless, Chiaretto Yan affirms the positive dimensions of that accord. And Anthony Clark offers some historical perspective.
Dr. Clark quotes Pope Francis: “China is not easy, but I am convinced that we should not give up the dialogue.” And again, “[A]n uneasy dialogue is better than no dialogue at all.” In a classicist world, we can throw up our walls and construct our world with the like-minded. But historical consciousness leaves us in the thick of it, and there may be no alternative but to enter into dialogue. The question then is whether the other party also maintains the openness that historical consciousness teaches and dialogue demands.
At this crossroads, perhaps Wu Jingxiong points the way forward. A man steeped in Chinese tradition, he brought that tradition into dialogue with Christian faith. A man of the Church, he was every bit a Chinese. In the era before Vatican II, he brilliantly captured the synthesis that is classical Catholicism—its sacramental imagination, its sense of tradition at the service of faith, and its mystical depths—yet his articulation of the classical synthesis was not rigid or exclusive. Rather, he was both rooted in tradition and a man of his time. Rather than looking to an abstract ideal, Wu Jingxiong’s faith was incarnational. In an era when conflict threatens to dehumanize us all, Wu Jingxiong’s Christian humanism remains to this day a beacon of hope.
Endnotes
- For the “classic” discussion of these mindsets, see Bernard J. F. Lonergan, “The Transition from A Classicist World-View to Historical-Mindedness” in A Second Collection: Papers by Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), 1–10.
- Second Vatican Council, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965,” Preface, section 1, Vatican website, accessed October 5, 2024, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html.
Image credit: Summit Art Creations via Adobe Stock.
Michael Agliardo
Fr. Michael Agliardo, SJ, is a member of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order more commonly known as “the Jesuits.” Early in his career as a Jesuit, he worked in campus ministry and taught theology at Fordham University in New York. After receiving a doctorate in sociology at …View Full Bio