Rejection And Adoption: Catholicism's Coping With Chinese Popular Religion In The Period From The End Of Ming Dynasty To Opium War

The process of the world-wide transmission of Catholicism is actually one of continual cultural transplantation.The key to the success of this cultural transplantation is subject to the response to the local culture.It is believed that the common Chinese people are the main group Catholicism is faced with for its access to China.Consequently,to find a path and dwell in China,the most significant thing is to target the veination of the development of the local Chinese traditional culture and adjust itself to the cultural tradition of the folk society.The popular religions in China can trace back to ancient times,which has become the culture of the common people and part of the psychological traits and way of thinking of the Chinese people.How to cope with Chinese popular religions then was the first concern and one of the most significant issues for the transmission of Catholicism in China.This dissertation falls into three chapters,analyzing the confrontation between Catholicism and the Chinese popular religions in the course of the period from the end of Ming dynasty to the Eve of the Opium War.The first chapter makes an analysis of the entanglement between Catholicism and Chinese rites about ancestor worshipping.Ancient worshiping,to some extent,is the core of Chinese popular religions.As a result,Chinese rites of ancient worshipping became an unavoidable hurdle for the transmission of Catholicism in China.it is undoubted for the missionaries even Matteo Ricci that Chinese rites about ancient worshipping could be categorized into paganism.The great significance of Chinese rites for ancient ancestors,nevertheless,enabled such missionaries as Matteo Ricci to recognize clearly that to forbid the Chinese catholic to attend the rites means closing the entrance to the heaven.Accordingly,the severe realistic situation obliged them to reconsider the nature of Chinese ancient worshipping.Then with the cultural adoption strategy,Matteo Ricci fell back upon the spirit of humanity to reinforce the moral connotation of the rites of ancestor worshipping.He deliberately neglected the superstition elements involved and made an appeal to missionaries for the respect of the folk tradition of ancestor worshipping by allowing Chinese Catholics to attend the rites of ancestor worshipping.He eventually succeeded in the transmission of the religion. The missionaries of Bettelorden,such as the Dominicans Order and the Franciscan order,who came to China subsequently listed the rites of Chinese ancestor worshipping as forbidden superstition out of religious instinct and questioned what Matteo Ricci had done.They submitted their recognition about the nature of Chinese rites to the Vatican for verdict,leading to the "Rites Controversy".Confronted with the query from missionaries of Bettelorden and pressure from the Vatican,they chose emperor Kangxi as a specific support for their view,which made the "Rrites Controversy" break through the debate of pure theology and evolve into the conflict between the Chinese emperor and the Vatican.Thus,Catholicism was forbidden by the Chinese government and was subjected to severe setback.Though the missionaries had serious distinctions over whether to tolerate Chinese disciples' ancient worshipping,they shared the same attitude towards such folk worship tradition with distinct feature of religion as offering sacrifice to a wooden symbol,burning paper money for the use of the dead,and praying good fortune from their ancestors——they labeled them as superstition and criticize them systematically.Faced with the Chinese disciples' dedication to ancient worshipping, nevertheless,even the missionaries of Bettelorden,who saw the Chinese rites of ancient worshipping as superstition,had to adopt relative tolerant attitude.They not only adjusted themselves to the local conventions but also blended the connotation of Catholic with folk worship rites,expecting disciples to practice Chinese traditional devotion ethic under the name of Catholic.The second chapter illustrates how the missionaries criticized and conquered Chinese popular religions.Being two cultures with different nature,it is unavoidable for Catholic and Chinese popular religions to clash with each other.Additionally,to some degree,the transmission of Catholic is actually a process of contending for disciples with Chinese popular religions.Consequently,to fulfill their long-cherished wish of "the Christian Occupation of China",the missionaries undertook the cultural clean-out against Chinese popular religions,seeking to shake its theoretical base.On one hand,they intensified their criticism upon universally-acknowledged spirits in China like Cheng-huang,Guan-gong,Kwan-yin and Kitchen god,for the purpose of advocating the sole respected status of God.On the other hand,they criticized such popular secular superstitions as fortune-telling and geomantic omen and a variety of wizardry actions,condemning them as actions of arrogation against the authority of Christ.It is worth mentioning that in the course of criticism,the missionaries disguised themselves as protectors of Confucianism.They judged the popular religions in accordance with the humanism of Confucianism and criticized their absurdness and hypocrisy.Reasonable as their criticism,the real effect was not optimistic.The low cultivation of the grass-rooted people confined immensely the critical influence, making it difficult to affect the belief psychology of the common people.As for the intellectuals,they were indifferent to religion regardless of the edification of the Confucian humanism.Accordingly,their response focused upon the rites for worshipping their ancestors and Confucius rather than folk spirits and superstitions.It is far from converting them into Catholics.It was because popular religions had become deposition of a national culture.Even the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats could not completely abandon their traditional beliefs.In the meantime,out of their hatred by nature and blinded by the superficies that Chinese common people adopted the attitude of random,disdain and insolence towards spirits,some missionaries waged the ruthless war against the graven image worship wherever they went.Practice,nevertheless, showed that the missionaries and disciple's direct blow on folk spirits incurred accumulated rancor for folk society and feudal officials and brought much trouble for the spread of gospel.As a result,the conquest of graven images converted from direct violence into the peaceful competition against the supernatural power and efficaciousness of the folk spirits,which was intended to bring the commons under control.They took advantage of Chinese commons' hierolatry psychology,brought into full play the domestication effect of the holy water,holy images and crucifixes upon the disciples.They involved themselves into the everyday life of the commons,and won the disciples' trust by contesting with the monks,Taoists,wizards for exorcism and expelling calamity.In addition,they propagandized widely the trace of God,convincing the commons with the efficaciousness of God.Much to their embarrassment,however, the initiatives they undertook in bring the commons under control were extremely similar to those of the popular religions.Accordingly,though they won the massive domestication of the commons,it remained to be seen whether the original belief psychology of the Chinese commons altered utterly.In response to the catholic active involvement,especially the extreme actions like the destruction of spirit images,the Chinese folk society was active in creating and spreading rumors to uglily the missionaries and catholic,or retaliating directly upon them and their disciples. Chapter three analyzes how catholic adjust itself to Chinese popular religions and absorb them.Being a culture with heterogeneity,to achieve the strategic aim of "the Christian Occupation of China",the inevitable choice for catholic was indigenization. The key to this problem relied on its mastery of the development of native Chinese culture.For the grass-rooted commons,popular religions were not just a cultural deposition but a way of survival.During their sermon,the missionaries came to realize that it was unimaginable to weed out popular religions from the common people's daily life.Furthermore,in view of the deteriorated surroundings for religion transmission, they had no option but to choose popular religions as an object to adapt,whose way of survival and transmission could be fall back upon to regenerate its evangelicalism.The grass-rooted common people,who were incapable of controlling their own fate,had to seek help from the spirits in the unseen world.This belief conceived no far-reaching pursuit for spirit except the simple,direct and low-level interest.It was natural for the universally utility-oriented popular religions to influence the common people's attitude towards the foreign religion.For the grass-rooted commons,what could move them was the new religion's efficaciousness instead of its abstruse theories.Given the grass-rooted commons' traditional worship psychology,some missionaries exerted themselves to combine the catholic beliefs with Chinese traditional customs,involving the Catholic beliefs with traditional Chinese way of life and doing charitable deeds in the name of God.Moreover,they attempted to influence the commons with their own noble virtues and attract them effectively by means of the seeming "magic powers" (some are literally the adoption of the knowledge of science)to demonstrate the effectiveness of Catholic rites.All these measures satisfied the commons' realistic needs,cater to their traditional psychology and gradually made them accept the Catholic belief.Most importantly,in the middle of the Qing dynasty,Catholic depended upon varieties of belief groups scattered across China to go through the severe period of government's prohibition against Catholicism and successfully avoid the destructive attack in China.Finally,Catholic survived toughly and moved forward to some extent, giving birth to Catholic groups with Chinese tradition in the urban and rural areas.This group sustained its Catholic belief during the forbidden period in the middle of the Qing Dynasty,which became the base of the flourish of Catholic after the opening of religion in the late Qing Dynasty.Certainly,owing to the default of the unified organization and management,the indigenization of Catholic in this period had no strict standards.This made Catholic and popular religions unable to keep an appropriate distance and even led to hypercorrection.Consequently,Catholic showed itself a severe civilianization without its own dependence.As a result,the disciples' beliefs vibrated to some extent.Moreover,Catholic route prone to the commons confined itself to a state of ego-obturation.People grew increasingly blurred to Catholic,which foreshadowed anti-religion rumours in modern history.This became a significant force of mobilization against foreign religions in modern times.