Chinese Catholic Church In The Perspective Of Community Community

Religion is one important aspect in the theory of civil society and community, Tocqueville once affirmed the positive role of the Catholic Church in civil societies. Recently, many publications have paid attention to "civil society" in China, professor Richard Madsen’s "China’s Catholics" is just one of those representative works,based on fruitful empirical data, Professor Madsen argues that overall the Catholic Church in China does not fit for the characteristics of civic community, therefore will not be a positive resource but an obstacle for civil society. However, his argument has challenged by some lately ethnographic works which also focused on China’s rural Catholics.For this reason, the author puts forward the research question of this paper: Whether and how a Catholic Church in rural China fit for the characteristics of civic community?Though in-depth literature reviews, the author produce an operational framework to indicate the characteristics of civic community, which included four dimensions: group solidarity, organizational autonomy, church independence, pluralism and tolerance.Following the methodology of congregational model, this paper selects the Catholic Church in Lin village, which located in the area of middle Hebei province, collects data mainly by qualitative methods like ethnography and thick description, and supplemented by quantitative methods and historical literatures.In the aspect of "group solidarity", the author finds that the level of group solidarity is high in local Catholic Church, and the level of exclusion and hostility of the church is relatively low. This characteristic mainly due to the interaction of different kinship and quasi-kinship networks, such as marital networks within Catholics, nominal kinship networks beyond believe boundaries. All those partly overlapped networks generate a multiple kinship mode of "group solidarity"In the aspect of "organizational autonomy", the author finds that the level of organizational autonomy is high in local Catholic Church, and the structure of inner relationships is horizontal rather than vertical. This characteristic mainly due to the ritual division of the priests from the sacred dimension, and the committees or enthusiastic believers from the secular dimension. Those two parts of "religious supply" side generate a dualistic religious supply mode of "organizational autonomy" In the aspect of "church independence", the author finds that the level of church independence is relatively high in local Catholic church. This characteristic mainly due to the double legitimacy role of the church, i.e., the political legitimacy and the devotional legitimacy. It depend on clergies and laity elites’great efforts on Church development, and their usage of various types of social capital. Therefore, those two kinds of church elites generate a Protective elites mode of "church independence".In the aspect of "pluralism and tolerance", the author finds that the level of pluralism and tolerance is relatively high in local Catholic Church. This characteristic mainly due to the in-depth interaction between rural Catholic and other beliefs, and the church’s active attitudes to modernization, urbanization, diversity and differentiation of its members. Therefore, the contemporary local Catholic church indicate a diversified tolerance mode of "pluralism and tolerance".Through the in-depth analysis of these four aspects, the author preliminarily draw a conclusion:Catholic Church in Lin village fits for the basic characteristics of the civic Community. Also, the author finds that the reason is not only because of the similar structure between Chinese and Western Church, but also rely on elements which have prominent "Chinese characteristics".By using Mr. Fei Xiaotong’s "differential-organizational" mode of association and "social circles-organizations" framework, the author promote an ideal type of "multi-differential organization" mode, to make arguments and explain those unique characteristics from the empirical findings:China’s rural Catholic Church fits for the characteristics of civic community. It inherited characteristics both from Chinese differential culture and Western organizational mode. To interpret such a mixed community of different cultural backgrounds, researchers need to be more cautious on Western civil society theories.During the process of modernization and urbanization, China’s rural Catholic Church may hold the "multi-differential organization" mode for a certain period. Researchers should based on specific fieldworks and detailed empirical materials, interpret China’s rural Catholic Church intensively, and have their eyes on the paradigm innovation of western theories.