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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.

The levels of civic engagement in terms of social services and civic activism in the Catholic churches of Hong Kong, Macau, Taipei, and Shanghai are very different. While the former three churches have a higher level of social services, Shanghai does not. Hong Kong has a higher level of civic activism than the other three dioceses. This paper explains the similarities and differences among these cities by using an analytical model of political, cultural, and individual opportunity structures. Our findings and analysis are derived from a collaborative research project on the Catholic Church’s civic engagement in the four cities using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. In a time of rapid political, economic, and social transformation in China, religion is beginning to play an increasingly important role. Our study sheds light on what roles Catholicism or other religions might play in this process, and it has important implications for church-state relations in greater China.

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

In the mid 19th century the Spanish diplomat Sinibaldo de Más, after spending a period in the territory of Macao where he formulated his theories about the Iberian Peninsula, wrote a book which is considered to be a decisive contribution for the diffusion of the Iberian issue. This work that supported a peaceful union between Portugal and Spain under a common monarchy, was published five times in Spain and three times in Portugal. Latino Coelho and Carlos José Caldeira played an important role in the co-ordination of the Portuguese editions of the Ibéria, as well as in the organisation of other activities promoting the association of the two Iberian States, events in which Sinibaldo de Más was also involved.

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 Apologia, written by Valignano between 1597 and 1598, documenting the confrontation between Jesuits and Franciscans, develops some arguments associated with the rights of the Iberian crowns in East Asia. According to the Franciscan argument, the right to the Castilian Padroado in Japan stemmed from the legitimacy of the Castilian Crown in legislating on religious matters, which ran counter to the papal breve Ex pastoralis officio (1585) of Gregory XIII. For Valignano, the Holy See could never abdicate the right to legislate on evangelical issues. The legitimacy of the papal letter of Gregory XIII was much broader, insofar as the Church found the most adequate way of establishing itself in Japan through the exclusive Jesuit presence. In this way, the analysis of the debate over Portuguese-Castilian rights in East Asia, in the context of rivalry between religious orders, will always have to take into consideration two different concepts of the Church and evangelisation.

Diego de Pantoja vivió en Pekín de 1601 a 1617, pero falleció en Macao al año siguiente debido a la primera expulsión de los jesuitas de China. Su vida tiene los perfiles de una inesperada síntesis cultural capaz de iluminar hoy día el diálogo intercultural. En 2018 diversas autoridades e instituciones iberoamericanas y chinas, en el 400 aniversario de su fallecimiento, celebraron 2018 Año Diego de Pantoja , para conmemorar a aquél que no solo fue el más estrecho colaborador de Matteo Ricci en Pekín en lo referente a la política de adaptación , sino también el garante de que esa feliz estrategia de inculturación no declinase al morir el maestro en 1610. Pantoja tiene una parte esencial en los méritos de aquellos sabios venidos de Occidente y en la huella tan profunda que dejaron hasta hoy en China.

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.

This study focuses on two persons of the same family, Antônio e Domingos Monteiro, both involved in the Japan trade, whose way of life was marked by mobility within the coasts of South East Asia, trading in a wide variety of goods. Their network of contacts reveals the presence of members of their kin, especially nephews, as well as merchants from Porto, suggesting that the Portuguese model of emigration to Brazil during the nineteenth century was already at work in Asia. The purveyors of the dead and absentees were in charge of transmitting assets to inheritors in Portugal, but the misericórdias also performed this role, even if in practice the interference of the representatives of the king was impossible to avoid. In spite of the intention of directing the money to mainland Portugal as soon as possible, long voyages, conveniences of maritime trade, royal bureaucracy and judicial litigations transformed transfer into a morose process.

The Xujiahui Library was begun in 1847 as a part of the Jesuit mission complex at the village of Xujiahui outside of Shanghai and grew over the next one hundred years to become a scholarly repository of over 200,000 volumes. It was known for its local gazetteers of China; long, complete runs of newspapers; reference books; and mission-related writings in Chinese and European languages. The advent of the People's Republic of China brought an end to the Jesuit Xujiahui mission, but its legacy continues in various forms. One of these is the Xujiahui Library, which since 1957 has been part of the Shanghai Library.

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.

Although sociologists have argued that religious orders fulfill the same creative functions within Catholicism that sectarian groups perform for Protestantism, no research has examined whether the orders can serve this function in non-Western societies where Catholics are a minority. This article examines Catholic religious orders of women in mainland China today. Both internal and external factors prevent Chinese sisters from gaining the power and autonomy they would need to serve as change agents in the Chinese Catholic Church. The effectiveness of external attempts to ameliorate the sisters' difficulties is evaluated.