Rulers, Clan And The Catholic Church

This dissertation aims to analyses from the perspective of local cultural history the development of Rural Church in Fuan County, East Fujian Province, during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The author considers that the conversion of some local lineages explains the success of Catholicism in taking root and developing in the Fuan villages. Because of the Catholicization of those village lineages, the catholic faith had succeeded to develop greatly, up to the point become one of the main local religion and had brought deep influence upon the popular society.The dissertation is in six parts. In introduction part, the author first explains the reason of this topic, the main idea, he then gives a review of relevant theoretical background and studies, which is followed by a brief explanation of the basic materials and analytical structure of this thesis.The second part examines systematically the historical development of Christianity in Fuan villages during more than two hundreds years, namely from 1632 to 1846. The author points out that, during the course of its transmission, Catholicism encountered many difficulties, especially from the strict imperial prohibition that the Yongzheng Emperor had issued 1724 against Catholicism, local government tended to interfere more and more into the Catholic affairs and anti-Christianity actions were frequently taken in this area. Despite those restrictions, the Catholic activities in the Fuan haven't stopped and have formed a sizable village catholic community.In the third part, the structure of the communities is examined in terms of number, social strata, distribution. According to the numbers, the author differentiates the development into three periods: foundation(1632-1648), expansion(1649-1746),stabilization(1746-1846). In the second period, the catholic communities had already reached a fair size. The social strata include the different social classes of local communities. The Catholics are distributed in different villages forming the basis of a vast catholic network.The fourth part analyses the important role played by the lineage in the development of Catholicism, pointing out that a large number of village lineages received the catholic faith, forming the main support of the catholic network and the main strength for its development. It exists two main patterns of lineage'sconversion. In the first pattern, the catholic faith and the popular religion fused together. In the second pattern, the catholic faith took the place of the previous popular religion. Those two patterns reflect the flexibility of the lineages accepting the catholic faith. The religious cults associated originally to the lineage, the social disruption during the change of dynasties, the identification to the lineage are the main reasons which explain the conversion of local lineages to Catholicism. In brief, the reliance on the lineage for the transmission of Catholicism is an evident characteristic of the development of the Village Church in Fuan during the Ming and Qing dynasties and is one of the decisive factors in helping Catholicism survive the imperial prohibitions.The fifth part examines the influence of the Catholic faith in the life of the village community: reshaping of the religious space, introduction of religious virginity, inter-lineage marriage, etc. The author considers that the successful implantation of Catholicism into the rural society is due to its ability to give a new cultural meaning into the internal structure of the local culture, such as the reinforcement of the local religious space through Catholicism, the extension of the Confucian rules about chastity towards religious virginity, the reshaping of the traditional lineage marriage network. This demonstrates that after long years of transmission, Catholicism has already been inserted into the daily life of those villages of Fuan and has become and integral part of the local culture.The conclusion recapitulates the relationships between the local governments, the lineages and the Church. The autho...