Full bibliography

This essay is to illustrate the inter-cultural features involved in the Chinese Rites Controversy, which had a devastating impact on the Chinese missionary endeavor. The 1659 instruction by Propaganda Fide, also known as the Magna Charta of the Congregation, obliged apostolic vicars and all missionaries in eastern Asia, including China, to carry out the missionary practice of adaptation. Missionaries were prohibited from combating local customs and traditions, except when they were in obvious contradiction to faith or morals. The directives also included the invitation for the promotion of indigenous clergy. The instructions were quite innovative, just as innovative was the missionary method envisaged by Francesco Ingoli, Propaganda Fide’s first director. Sadly enough, the ground-breaking directives were not put into practice, quite paradoxically, exactly by Apostolic Vicars and missionaries sent by Propaganda Fide. Subsequent pronouncements by Propaganda Fide and by the same Pontifices contradicted early openness. Proposals coming from China for the promotion of Chinese clergy and liturgical adaptation were disapproved. At the end of the Rites Controversy, Chinese Christians were forced to discontinue the practice of the traditional rites in honour of the ancestors. The Rites Controversy was initiated in Fujian province in mid-1635. Dominican and Franciscan missionaries objected to the evangelization method introduced to China by Matteo Ricci and Giulio Aleni. Propaganda Fide and the Holy See were called in to declare whether the Christians were allowed to participate in the ancestral rituals. In contradiction with 1659’s Instruction, Rome was unable to make a coherent decision, and the controversy dragged on. Pope Clement XI was determined to disapprove the Rites hoping, at the same time, to save China Mission from destruction. Sadly, the two objectives could not be achieved together. In 1742, Benedict XIV condemned the Rites in the most solemn fashion, putting to a definitive end China Mission as envisaged by Matteo Ricci.