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In the 16th century, the Pacific was marked by the appearance and action of the Portuguese, who came to intervene in the mercantile, cultural, and religious domains, competing with the Muslims who had previously monopolized that commercial traffic, religious proselytism, and cultural influence. The official voyages of the Portuguese in the Pacific began in 1508, with the sending of the first expedition to Malacca, with the Portuguese having traversed the maritime coasts of practically all the eastern territories bathed by that ocean. Some historical aspects of the Portuguese presence in Malacca and the adjacent island of Sumatra are brought to light. And also their presence in Timor and the Moluccas islands in search of exotic products, such as

Much has been written about the early Jesuits who made Macao a base for spreading Catholicism in China and beyond, but little attention is given to the trajectories of Protestant Christianity in the colony. This article evaluates the empirical findings and analytical insights of R. Lawrence Ballew’s latest book, entitled

In the first ten years or so of the Portuguese presence in Macao, Portuguese men were mostly married to Christian women from Malacca and Nagasaki, and these women brought with them the habits and customs of their respective cities. For instance, eyewitness accounts describe the apparel of Japanese wives who wore

Jaime Correia do Inso (1880–1967), naval officer and writer, proved himself a passionate devotee of Macau and China, to which he dedicated an important part of his literary activity. This is not to overlook the fact that he also produced significant historical studies on the Portuguese navy and, occasionally, on certain subjects concerning Timor, Africa, and Brazil, scattered across various magazines and newspapers.

This article examines two different topics related to the concept of ambivalence and its phenomenological experience applied to the Eurasian Macanese community case study. The first section, from an ethnographic point of view, addresses a set of intersubjective dynamics of identification and differentiation developed by a group of friends during an intimate reunion of commensality. During this particular event, the social actors highlight their ambivalent condition, deploying this as an improvised and positive strategy to adapt to changeable external circumstances. The second section recasts the narrative of Macao's hybrid history, which lies at the origin of the Macanese community and characterises its permanent redefinition, thus drawing political and cultural dimensions into the discussion alongside the identity-building project implemented in the recently-established Macao Special Administrative Region (Macao SAR). In this case, there is an implicit ambivalence to the Sino-Portuguese negotiation process over the application of the People's Republic of China nationality law to Macao-born residents, in particular to ethnically mixed Macanese, within the context of the handover of sovereignty to China.

Portuguese colonial occupation and settlement from the sixteenth century onwards included a significant dimension of religious dissemination: a primary example is the imposition of Iberian Roman Catholic sacred forms at sites throughout peninsular Macao, China. Through early occupation and sustained commercial activity with local peoples, colonised Portuguese regions in Macao experienced aggressive assertion of Catholic religious dominance. In Macao, Portuguese military commanders, colonial governors, and missionary orders established Roman Catholic churches, chapels, and shrines — with their attendant Iberian religious modes — overlooking sites occupied by indigenous Chinese temples and shrines, or Buddhist sites.

This essay examines the travel and writings of Sor Magdalena de Cristo (1575–1653), one of the co-founders of the first Franciscan convent in the Philippines and another convent in Macao, China. Her harrowing journey emerges in a letter written by her confessor, who was also her advocate. While in Manila, Sor Magdalena wrote her magnum opus, Floresta Fran-ciscana, a three-volume mystical treatise glorifying the Franciscan order. Based on unpublished letters and manuscripts gathered from archives in Spain and Italy, this essay explores Sor Magdalena’s role as an intrepid traveler and author, and also analyzes how she collaborated and formed a writing community with her peers, helping her Spanish sisters cultivate their own religious and literary space in the Far East.

Andrew Kim Taegon, a passionate young Christian set out a path that has since been followed by millions of the faithful.

Abstract This chapter analyzes three constraints which affect the social involvement of the Macao Catholic Church, based on an inter-disciplinary method using social scientific and historical studies. First, addressing passiveness and conservativeness of the Portuguese Catholicism from which the Macao Catholic Church originated in relation to the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Second, showing the Macao Catholic Church demonstrates a comparatively traditional/conservative type of faith in contrast to the active and assertive roles of Roman Catholic Church in this-worldly affairs after Vatican II. Lastly, explaining the small size of Macao society poses a structural constraint on the civil involvement of the Church.

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.

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.

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.

When the City of the Name of God of Macao marked 400 years of Portuguese administration in 1956, the Catholic community’s participation was marked by a wide range of activities that included liturgical celebrations, public processions and other devotions that involved large numbers of the lay faithful, members of confraternities, in addition to the clergy and religious of the enclave. Twenty-one years later the Diocese of Macao celebrated its own quatercentenary with celebrations of a decidedly more sober character and at the retrocession of Macao to Chinese control in December 1999, other than a few liturgical events and hierarchical presence at civic ceremonies, the Church was all but invisible. As the Diocese of Macao plans for its 450th anniversary, some of the former richness has begun to return. This paper outlines the long ebb tide and now-nascent flow of the tide of Catholic public piety in Macao over this period by reference to the Catholic religious processions of the City and seeks to offer tentative explanations grounded in the theological, ecclesial, political and cultural winds that have blown across the Pearl River Delta since the end of the Second World War.

Chinese Christian (Catholic) architecture is not only an important type of religious architecture, but also an important witness of cultural exchanges between China and the West. This article comprehensively summarizes the architectural styles of Christian (Catholic) churches in modern mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong, and compares the differences in the main styles of their churches horizontally. Based on the data results, a comprehensive analysis of various factors such as age, region, religion, and society is carried out to further explore the reasons for the differences in the architectural styles of Christian churches in the three regions, and discover the historical and religious significance of the Christian churches in modern China.

This book is the first scholarly study of the famous Jesuit Chinese children’s primer, the Four Character Classic, written by Giulio Aleni (1582–1649) while living in Fujian, China. This book also includes masterful translations of both Wang Yinglin’s (1551–1602) hallowed Confucian Three Character Classic and Aleni’s Chinese catechism that was published during the Qing (1644–1911). Clark’s careful reading of the Four Character Classic provides new insights into an area of the Jesuit mission in early modern China that has so far been given little attention, the education of children. This book underscores how Aleni’s published work functions as a good example of the Jesuit use of normative Chinese print culture to serve the catechetical exigencies of the Catholic mission in East Asia, particularly his meticulous imitation of Confucian children’s primers to promote decidedly Christian content.