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In the 16th century, the first Spanish and Portuguese Dominican missionaries arrived in Southeast Asia, included Vietnam, but only after the first decades of the seventeenth century, Christianity began to take hold and lived through different episodes of the Proclamation of the Christian faith: first it was tolerated and then abandoned by the dynasties, supported by the colonialists, declined in the north by the communists, it expanded in the south under the Republic of Vietnam and stabilized until now after the reunification of the country followed by a long breakage due to political change. Along with this story, sacred architecture was interpreted in various ways to define identities in religious life and faith. However, the most difficult period of religious architecture is not only in the political conflict of the past, but also until now, the time of the economic boom. The change of values as well as the aesthetic system make sacred art and architecture remain a giant wheel stuck in mud.

From the end of the 16 th century to the beginning of the 17 th century, under the direction of the archdiocese in Macao (China), Jesuit missionaries set foot in China and Vietnam in turn to preach the Gospel and convert believers in these two countries. The main reason for the success of the Jesuits was the use of appropriate missionary methods and advocating proper cultural integration in each country. However, due to the different paradigm of historical development in China and Vietnam, and especially due to disagreement about the perception and behavior of indigenous culture among the Jesuits themselves, the process of evangelization in the two countries occurred differently. Based on historical and logical methods, especially the comparative method, this study analyzes and compares the similarities and differences in missionary methods and the advocacy of cultural integration in the two countries mentioned above. Primary sources were the foundation of the work, such as archival records and recently published research results of Chinese and Vietnamese scholars as well as other researchers. The results of this work contribute to assessing the similarities and differences in the process of applying missionary methods and cultural integration. The work further contributes to the study of Christian history in China and Vietnam in the16 th and 17 th centuries.

Over the last two decades, the historiography that focused on the solutions for representation of the inquisitorial tribunals in their diverse peripheries paid special attention to the role played by the commissioners of the Holy Office. The commissioners nominated to operate in non-peninsular settings (particularly Brazil and the Estado da Índia) were the object of particular analysis. In these cases, historiography highlighted a wide array of faculties and capacities when compared to their homologues in the kingdom of Portugal, specially the ones operating in the district of the Inquisition of Goa. Here, commissioners even benefited from faculties to absolve some offences in foro conscientiæ and sometimes even judicially. This proposal undertakes to reflect what might have motivated such departure from the profile of the Portuguese commissioner; whether it was, according to some texts, the dimension of the Goa Inquisition’s district; whether, according to other sources, the qualities of the newly-converted population that was subjected to the jurisdiction of this tribunal. Finally, we will seek to determine the consequences of the attribution of a specific judicial space to the episcopate in dioceses with more dynamic missions for the diversity of the models of inquisitorial vigilance in the Estado da Índia.

As an essential member of the tangible cultural heritage, historic architectural heritage contains unique historical and social values. This paper describes the current state of conservation of historic buildings and the ways of conservation, revitalization and renewal by the Macao authorities, and draws on the Cathedral of the Merciful Jesus in Goa, India, and Coventry Cathedral in England, to provide suggestions for the conservation and restoration of the site of St. Paul’s College in Macao. St. Paul’s College is divided into three main parts: St. Paul’s Church, the Seminary, and the Fortress, for conservation, revitalization, and renewal. The current conservation and renewal measures of the site are still inadequate. By analyzing the conservation strategies and the current situation, St. Paul’s College needs the cooperation of the government and the public to value and improve the reuse value of the site and increase its visibility. At the same time, the use of rich restoration and renewal methods, combined with the current situation of society in the restoration and renewal of the site, can present valuable ideas.

Based on the original materials recorded by the missionaries of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris operating in Vietnam from the second half of the 17th century to the late 18th century and the achievements of French and Vietnamese scholars, this article addresses the building of indigenous force of missionaries of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris in Tonkin and Cochinchina (Vietnam) during this period. In particular, the author of this article focuses on comparing the results of training Vietnamese priest resources and building seminaries in the two above areas, and at the same time points out the reason for such difference. To complete the content of this article, the author combines two main research methods of historical science (historical method and logical method) with other research methods (systematic, statistical, differential analysis, synthetic, etc.), especially the comparative method. The research result presented in the article makes specific contributions to studying the history of Christianity in Vietnam and the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris in this country in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The study of Catholic churches in Macau is of significant importance for both architectural heritage conservation and the transmission of cultural values. As religious structures, these churches serve as tangible representations of religious ideology and spiritual essence, thereby embodying the core principles of cultural expression. This paper aims to critically examine the Catholic churches of Macau, exploring their intrinsic values through an architectural research framework that emphasizes three key morphological elements: spatial characteristics, stylistic features, and structural composition. By contextualizing the historical background and architectural attributes, this study sheds light on the multifaceted significance of Catholic church construction in modern Macau, while offering a comprehensive analysis of the intersection, fusion, and coexistence of Eastern and Western cultural influences in this unique locale. Through this investigation, the paper uncovers a range of compelling cultural phenomena, providing insights that may serve as valuable reference points for future practices in architectural heritage conservation in Macau.

This is a biography of Cardinal John Tong of Hong Kong, which charts his experiences through the Second World War, his time as a seminarian in Macau, and his studies in Rome during the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which represented a pivotal moment in modern Catholic Church history

For three centuries, the former Portuguese colony of Macau served as the gateway into mainland China and the locale for the development of an Asian Catholic culture that encompassed distinctive musical practices and styles. Macau and Catholic Music Across the Sino-Western Divide draws extensively upon historical documents in Chinese and Portuguese for a polylingual approach to Catholic sacred music. Jen-yen Chen follows this music from the sixteenth century through the twentieth by reading literary accounts of sound, primary source documents, and musical notation to examine the impacts of linguistic, political, and cultural divides and the ways sounds have traveled across these divides. Chen covers Chinese responses to Western sounds in Macau and southern China, illuminating the strategies for the use of sounds and musicking adopted by Jesuit missionaries; and the complexities of identity formation negotiated by Macau Catholics who confront exceptionalist historical discourses of Chinese or Portuguese “greatness.” Drawing from sound studies and musicological methods, Chen argues that Chinese descriptions of Catholic sounds in Macau, including the ringing of church bells, the playing of the organ, and choral singing, illuminate spatial, sonic, and ideological mobilities that reconfigure Chinese and European identities. Macau and Catholic Music Across the Sino-Western Divide also extends to contemporary times to explore how present day members of Macau’s Catholic community position themselves in relation to the historical narratives often told about their city, cultivating a rich individuality of identity that refuses conformity to fixed notions of Asianness or Westernness.

This article treats the familiar triad “Gold, God, and Glory” as a heuristic to track how commercial, missionary, and reputational aims were configure...

D. Sinibaldo de Mas o ministro espanhol que inventou o iberismo e que queria comprar Macau para vender à China

Dans le fief de Shimabara, l’évangélisation connaît le succès à la suite de la conversion de son seigneur (daimyo), Arima Harunobu (1561?-1612), en 1580. Cependant, entre 1612 et 1615, les premières arrestations et exécutions de catholiques ordonnées par le successeur de Harunobu, Arima Naozumi (1586-1641), et les autorités de Nagasaki ébranlent les chrétiens. Après dix années de (relatif ) répit, Matsukura Shigemasa (1574-1630), le seigneur du fief depuis 1616, orchestre une nouvelle vague de répression visant à saper l’organisation religieuse des villages en coupant leurs liens avec le clergé et en soumettant les figures laïques locales. Entre 1625 et 1630, plus de soixante-dix fidèles perdent la vie, et pratiquement la totalité de la population est contrainte de renier formellement le christianisme. Cette période de cinq années est très bien documentée grâce aux sources missionnaires et à des chroniques japonaises régionales. Or, les recherches précédentes ont généralement négligé ces documents ou les ont étudiés séparément. Cet article montre que leur examen comparatif rend possible l’étude, à micro-échelle, de la logique répressive, de l’équilibre des forces dans les villages, de l’ambivalence des chrétiens face à la clandestinité et de l’apostolat des derniers missionnaires. En d’autres termes, ces témoignages nous permettent de réévaluer selon différents points de vue l’expérience de ces communautés durant la période d’interdiction, quelques années avant la révolte de Shimabara-Amakusa (1637-1638).

The Jesuit Diego de Pantoja can be considered a two-way bridge between China and the West. The Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish languages in which he wrote the texts preserved today bear witness to this. A Jesuit in the first stage of evangelization in China, together with Mateo Ricci, SJ, his letters—the subject of our study—bear witness to his interest in realistically presenting the daily and cultural life of China in the West as opposed to the stereotypes that circulated at the time. In turn, he became an ambassador of European culture and science to the Wanli Emperor and his mandarins in the Forbidden City in Beijing.  His missionary and scientific work in the Central Empire has made him in the 21st century a point of reference for the relations of the Papacy and the West with China.

In this documentary, Pope Francis describes the Jesuit, Diego de Pantoja as "the ambassador of Chinese culture to the West." This work examines the influences in social and religious contexts that led Pantoja to embark on his path to the East. Pantoja’s missionary, scientific, and literary work was carried out mainly in Beijing with Matteo Ricci, and mandarins in the Chinese Emperor’s Court in the late Ming Dynasty

Chinese Books held by ARSI, guides for consultation and a list of the volume available for free download

The cartographic contents of two world map sheets of father Giulio Aleni S.J., archived in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome, are digitally analysed. The maps, printed in at least two editions starting in the year 1623, were inspired and influenced by the more famous Matteo Ricci’s world map, printed in different versions, after the end of the XVI century. Although it is a later cartography, the Aleni’s world map is a unique masterpiece worldwide, as it is very likely the first map of the world known at that time, written in Chinese and having a size enabling an easy use of the map itself. It is a map that merges the Western and Chinese geographical knowledge and is a relatively accurate representation, with some exceptions, of the actual outlines of continents which are depicted, as in the large Matteo Ricci’s world map, from a non-Eurocentric point of view. Arriving at Macao in the Jesuits’ mission in 1610 Aleni taught mathematics at the college there, while learning the Chinese language. At the Ming’s court he was asked to write a geographical book describing countries depicted in the Matteo Ricci’s world map (RWM). Annexed to the book, named 職 方外 紀 (Zhifang waiji, Geography of countries non-tributary to China) printed in 1623, he edited the two world maps with Chinese characters, definitely inspired by that of his famous predecessor, but with some significant differences. The two maps sheets (one 630 x 552 mm and the second 1230 x 642 mm in size) are analysed and the cartographic content of the Aleni’s planisphere (AWM) is compared with that of RWM. Differences in continents’ borders, as those for North America, Korea, Java, are assessed, together with some discrepancies between geographical terms which pose the question of the sources Giulio Aleni investigated. Some conjectures about the correct dating of the edition of the map, to be set between 1623 and 1649, are also discussed. A facsimile high-quality copy of the maps was printed by the University of Brescia to better disseminate this important cartographic heritage.

During the dispute between Portugal and the Holy See over the rights of Patronage (Padroado real) in Asia, the Inquisition played a secondary role in the legal allegations of the Crown. In the local context of the controversies with the apostolic vicars sent by the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, priests and missionaries of the Portuguese Padroado saw the Holy Office as an instrument to defend the rights of the Crown, arresting and excommunicating on behalf of the tribunal. Imperial agents in the Estado da Índia envisioned the Inquisition as an instrument for claiming jurisdictional rights over territory, while they also faced conflicts with the inquisitors.

Home altars have long been a part of many religious traditions. In each culture, the home altar offers an important sanctuary, providing a sacred space for prayers and meditation, often accompanied by distinct rituals. This private, personal, yet communal space is non-hierarchical, relational, and very often taken care of by women. This study explores how Catholic women perceive and practice their faith within their households in Macau. I argue that domestic religious practices allow women to reconstruct ethnic and religious identities, creating sacred spaces that help them navigate social change while at the same time serving as a powerful means of evangelizing. This dissertation explores the relationship among women, mission, and spirituality examined through domestic devotional practices. By interviewing twenty-one women from three major Catholic ethnic groups in Macau -- Chinese, Filipino and Macanese -- we learn how their altar-making and veneration creates hope and trust and see how the altar acts as a spiritual oasis personally and communally. Women’s roles are not only confined to their homes; they can contribute meaningfully both to society and the church through their participation in the most diverse professional disciplines and ecclesial leadership roles. Yet the home remains a source of creative power, providing the inspiration and strength for women to bring forth their mission to the wider community. Through the narratives of our interviewees from this study, we see how home altar veneration and their related devotional practices act as vehicles for women’s missioning. Women’s special sensitivity and empathy for others promote and nourish the growth and development of the whole human person -- for themselves, for their families, and for those who work with them. Their participatory and personally-oriented approach is the unique gift that women bring to the Church in Asia.