A sad anniversary

An anniversary that most likely will not be celebrated around the world is the 300^th anniversary of the proscription of the Catholic religion throughout China. In 1721, the Kangxi Emperor (1654-1722, reigned 1661-1722) issued a law sternly forbidding the propagation of the Christian religion within the Chinese empire. The emperor’s decree stated: “Reading this proclamation (Note: Clemens XI’s bull Ex illa die), I have concluded that the Westerners are petty indeed. It is impossible to reason with them because they do not understand larger issues as we understand them in China. There is not a single Westerner versed in Chinese works, and their remarks are often incredible and ridiculous. To judge from this proclamation, their religion is no different from other small, bigoted sects of Buddhism or Taoism. I have never seen a document which contains so much nonsense. From now on, Westerners should not be allowed to preach in China, to avoid further trouble.”

The immediate cause leading to this decree was his reading in translation the bull of pope Clement XI forbidding the “Chinese Rites.” But it marked the end of an evolution in the mind of the emperor from highly favorable to outright hostile toward Christianity. Not that Kangxi was a capricious sovereign or anti-foreign by nature. Even though quick-tempered, he was a capable and responsible ruler, one of the best China had in its long history. As a boy, he had come to know the Jesuit Adam Shall serving as astronomer at the court of his father Fulin, first emperor of the Qing Dynasty. His father used to call the old Jesuit “grandpa,” - after the Jesuit had cured his mother of an illness - and often asked for his advice in various matters. Although Kangxi’s father eventually became infatuated with Buddhism, and Father Shall lost hope of converting him, the relationship remained quite friendly. 

Kangxi himself respected Adam Shall and the other learned Jesuits living in Beijing. An avid learner, he never tired of asking them about mathematics, astronomy, and Western things, including Western religion. This relationship continued until his old age. He became even close friend with some of them, such as Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688), Antoine Thomas (1644-1709), Tomàs Pereira (1645-1708), Jean-Francois Gerbillon (1654-1707), or Dominique Parrenin (1665-1741). In 1675, Kangxi with his brother and a group of relatives and friends rode their horses to pay a visit to the “Nantang,” where the Jesuits lived. Father Verbiest, Adam Shall’s successor, and all the fathers welcomed him. Kangxi visited all corners and walls of the church, and then sat down in their residence to converse on various subjects. It was on that occasion, that he finally took a brush and paper and wrote for them – something he used to do when visiting the temple of Confucius in Qufu - a two-character inscription with the words “Honor Heaven” (jingtian, Coelum Colito). Actually, the next day Kangxi sent them an apology for his poor writing, due also to the horse ride that caused his hand to tremble. He sent also a copy of the same inscription in a better calligraphy he had done earlier. Evidently, through his friendship with them, he had become knowledgeable about their religion, to the point of enclosing the essence of the Christian religion in those two words. Not far from the point, since in China, from the time of Matteo Ricci, the exotic learning brought by those westerners was known as the “Tianxue” (Learning of Heaven).

Throughout China, the work of evangelization was smoothly developing. Now and then, some magistrate in certain places might treat the missionaries or the Christians faithful badly. His Jesuit friends begged him to intervene, and Kangxi, out of friendship but also full of admiration for his mentors-friends, in 1692 issued a proclamation declaring that the Christian missionaries were good people and their religion was not a trouble-making sect, therefore all people should welcome them and treat them with respect, never hurting their activities or their followers: “The Europeans are very quiet; they do not excite any disturbances in the provinces, they do no harm to anyone, they commit no crimes, and their doctrine has nothing in common with that of the false sects in the empire, nor has it any tendency to excite sedition ...We decide therefore that all temples dedicated to the Lord of heaven, in whatever place they may be found, ought to be preserved, and that it may be permitted to all who wish to worship this God to enter these temples, offer him incense, and perform the ceremonies practiced according to ancient custom by the Christians. Therefore let no one henceforth offer them any opposition.”

The next year, 1693, monsignor Maigrot, the Apostolic Vicar for Fujian Province stationed in Fuzhou, issued an order (in Latin, a Mandatum) forbidding Christians to use “Heaven” or “Shangdi” as the name for God, or to take part in any Chinese rite (ancestor rites, rites for Confucius, etc.). He also ordered all missionaries to take away from their churches the two-word inscription bestowed by Kangxi. The Jesuits in Beijing strongly criticized the move, well aware that if this matter came to the knowledge of the emperor, there would be frightful consequences for all. 

The following years, the Rites Controversy reached its apex. Jesuits were busy pressuring Rome in favor of the rites; Mons. Maigrot and his allies were busy extending and enforcing his prohibition and advertising the perversity of the Jesuits and the evil in Chinese culture, because Confucians were all atheists, the emperor was an atheist. 

In 1700, harassed by their enemies in the Church, both in China and in Europe, the Beijing Jesuits devised a means to help the situation. They requested from Kangxi a declaration to state that the rites were a civil heritage of the nation and did not involve any religious belief. Kangxi complied right away. Unfortunately, when the declaration reached Rome, it obtained the opposite effect. It caused extreme indignation: there was a pagan king daring to intervene in purely religious matters of the Catholic religion. It should be noted that Europe by then was at the height of its colonial domination all over the world; people were more and more disparaging all foreign cultures.

A commission was established in the Holy Office to debate and decide about the Chinese Rites. In 1704 the Holy Office issued a decree: the rites should be forbidden. Pope Clement XI sent a special envoy, archbishop Tournon – a high ranking young nobleman from Savoy – to visit Kangxi and report and explain the matter. In 1705 Tournon reached China. In December he had his first audience with the emperor. His visit angered Kangxi, because of his attitude of sentencing about Chinese matters without a fair knowledge of them. In a second audience on June 29, Kangxi instructed Tournon that Christianity had to be compatible with Confucianism, otherwise the Europeans would not be allowed to remain in China. Tournon replied by starting to explain the differences between Christianity and Confucianism, and invoking the presence of a great expert on Chinese texts, Mons. Maigrot, to explain matters better. 

While Tournon remained in Beijing, on August 2, 1706, the emperor in his summer residence interviewed Mons. Maigrot. Numerous sources report the whole course of the memorable conversation; therefore there is no doubt about what went on. Kangxi tested Maigrot’s knowledge of “things Chinese” and found that he knew deplorably little. At the end of the interview, Kangxi, like a schoolmaster, spent some time to explain to Maigrot that Tian (Heaven) was a much better expression for the Lord of Heaven than “Tianzhu.” 

Following the interview, the Emperor started to consider issuing a decree banishing Maigrot from the country and ordering that all missionaries should present themselves to Beijing, where they would be examined, and given a special permit (piao); if they were not willing to follow Matteo Ricci’s method of evangelization, they would be expelled. The Jesuits repeatedly besought the emperor on their knees; but he was very angry about the whole matter, and even scolded them for bringing Tournon to Beijing. On December 23, 1706, he issued the decree. Meanwhile, Tournon was informed that he should leave Beijing. He traveled down to Nanjing, where he received from the Jesuits through mail the news of the emperor’s decree. He replied to them a letter filled with invective, given that he believed that the whole thing was a Jesuit machination. He then issued a special proclamation to all missionaries, to say that he had brought to China the pope’s instruction and any participation to the Chinese rites was out of the question. From Nanjing, Tournon went south to Guangzhou, where by order from the emperor he was escorted to Macau, to remain there under house arrest until the return of the ambassadors sent to Europe by Kangxi.

What irritated Kangxi most was that, despite his numerous attempts, he never succeeded in establishing direct contact with the pope. Sometimes there were accidents such as shipwrecks; other times it seemed that human factors were working against it. 

In 1715 pope Clement XI issued the apostolic constitution Ex Illa Die which reaffirmed the prohibition of 1704, reaffirming also that all missionaries were to strictly obey De Tournon’s mandate, forbidding, under threat of excommunication, any kind of writing about the subject of the Chinese rites, and ordering that any missionary destined to China must first sign a solemn oath on the Bible to totally comply with the rules on rites.

In 1720, the pope sent another legate, bishop Carlo Ambrogio Mezzabarba, an elderly bishop navigated in the technique of diplomacy, in order to officially promulgate the Ex Illa Die; to mediate between the parties; and to bring back to Rome the remains of Cardinal De Tournon, who had died in Macau under house arrest in 1710. The legate reached China in October. Mezzabarba’s visit started relatively well. He had several audiences with the emperor, who seemed willing to adjust the situation. Actually, by then Kangxi was getting old and was in ill health. Most of all, he was fed up with the foreign missionaries messing up the empire (he had received reports of disturbances in Fujian and elsewhere). Anyway, he was still willing to meet the legate and clarify matters, even though by now he knew that the pope was not that powerful – despite what the Jesuits were telling him – and that England, Holland, and France sometimes disregarded the pope’s decrees.

On December 31, 1720, Kangxi granted the first audience to Mons. Mezzabarba. The Emperor said:”How can the Pope judge the Chinese rites, of which he has no knowledge? I would not dare to decide about European things, since I am ignorant about them.” Mezzabarba said that he had the authority to grant certain permissions regarding the rites, and also that he was willing to return to Rome and convey the Emperor’s thoughts to the Pope. On January 2, 1721, in a second audience, the papal legate and the emperor exchanged gifts. Then Mezzabarba presented the bull Ex Illa Die. The Jesuit Fr. Suarez was entrusted to make a translation of it for the Emperor. Later, in a third and very private audience, the Emperor told the Legate that the Pope had drafted the bull listening to the insinuations of ignorant people, such as Maigrot and others, and in a bout of hatred against the Jesuits.

When the emperor finally read the translated bull, his mood changed abruptly. He was enraged and scolded the legate. Then he stopped his audiences and mulled a general prohibition against the Catholic religion. He did not issue it right away, also because he still nourished a faint hope that his special Jesuit envoy to Rome could return back to China and his messages sent in red ink through multiple ways would produce some effect. Finally, in 1721 there came the decree that I quoted at the beginning. The Jesuits at court begged instantly against it, but by now they could do nothing, except increasing his anger.

The point in his condemnation of the Catholic religion was that “they do not understand larger issues as we understand them in China.” What was he referring to? Observing how things have been done for many centuries in China, we could guess he meant that China had its own way with religions. Religions existed and prospered, Buddhism and Daoism filled the country. But they were always acting within the Confucian religious frame, which traditionally was encapsulated in the five words “Heaven, Earth, ruler, parent, teacher (tian di jun qin shi).” Respect for Heaven was foremost, but Confucius did not talk about the nature of Heaven; similarly, he did not describe the afterlife. Each religion could follow its own tradition, but the Confucian religious-ethical boundary contained within those five words must be respected. Now and then in China there were sects – Buddhist or Daoist, or others – which overstepped these religious-ethical boundaries, and the emperor would pursue and annihilate them. Now, Kangxi had come to declare that the Catholic religion was “no different from other small, bigoted sects of Buddhism or Taoism.” He made Christianity equal with those devious sects. This is why he issued the decree of prohibition, and why afterwards Christianity in China was proscribed and could not develop.

A judgment about the Rites Controversy, which lasted over a century and engaged countless people from numerous countries, is difficult to reach; no wonder that there have been disparate conclusions on the subject. As for me, I like the words of Cardinal Yu Pin (1901-1978), who was at the same time a man of the Church and a member of the Chinese intelligentsia: “As everybody knows, the damage caused by the Rites Controversy to the Church in our country has been much worse than a full-scale persecution. It instilled in our fellow citizens a very deep psychology of hatred. In addition, this dark spot has been quite difficult to wash away. This is also the reason why in the last two hundred years our Church could not develop successfully among our people. Truly, the rite of respect to ancestors and to Confucius, in the eyes of our compatriots, is the very basics of their lives. It is extremely important, since our ancestors are the roots of our lives; as for Confucius, he has been the beginner of Confucianism (literally: of the ru doctrine). If there are no ancestors, how there can be their descendants? If we do not respect Confucius, the handing down of our traditional culture will be interrupted. Therefore, if we forbid worshipping their ancestors, it equals to break the line. If we forbid worshipping Confucius, it equals to exterminate Chinese culture. At the time, the missionaries who opposed the Chinese rites, how could they think of such a tragic outcome? They were just superficial and short-sighted; yet, they seemed to wear colored glasses while pronouncing judgments on our culture, and often it was just a matter of conflicts of emotions.” Regarding the vexed question of the name for God in Chinese, and the prohibition to use Tian (Heaven) or Shangdi (Lord on High), Yu Bin commented: “"By adopting Tianzhu, they were thinking that Heaven was the greatest, and the Lord of Heaven was the one most worthy of reverence. How could they know that in China such names as Tianzhu (Lord of Heaven) or Tizhu (Lord of Earth) were already common, and quite numerous for popular deities? Foreigners were not knowledgeable in Chinese characters; by this choice they thought to ensure that there were no misunderstandings. Therefore, they issued a law forbidding from then on to use the name Shangdi, only Tianzhu should be used.”

History is the teacher of life. Therefore, it is worth taking lessons from the past, especially given that now, after a century of crisis of consciousness, China has started recovering its own distinct culture. The Confucian frame of mind is gradually coming back to dominate the country. Hoping to develop Christianity in China, one needs to labor to establish a match between the Christian message and the dominant ideology of the country. This process will take a lot of stamina, because one has first to discern exactly what is essential in the Christian religion, and what is instead simply part of the western cultural heritage. It is a difficult path, but the only one possible. Besides, and history again is teaching us, there is no reason to be horrified by the fact that China’s central government persistently meddles in Church affairs. History tells us that the great Christological dogmas came out of the first ecumenical council (the First Council of Nicaea), convened and presided by the emperor. And so were most ecumenical councils, including the Council of Trent. Pope Paul III opened it, however not because he wanted to – he did not like at all to start a council – but because he was compelled to it by Emperor Charles V.