Des nations a evangeliser: Genese de la mission catholique pour l'Extreme-Orient (review)

Abstract

Des nations a evangeliser: Genese de la mission catholique pour l'Exteme-Orient. By Roland Jacques. (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf. 2003. Pp. 715. euro 44 paperback.) Christ's Great Commission to His followers, Go and teach all nations, is one of the Christian's fundamental responsibilities. This seemingly simple charge turns out to generate more problems for missionaries than might appear at first glance. Roland Jacques approaches the implementation of this commission from the perspective of medieval canon law, focusing on Christian relations with the non-Christian societies of the Far East, especially Vietnam, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. The canon law spells out the institutional structure of the Church. Like any legal system, it reflects the immediate concerns of those who created it and may not respond effectively to new situations without major revisions. In the case of the canon law, relations with non-Christians received scant attention in the Corpus Iuris Canonici. Both the Decretum and the Decretales mention non-Christians but usually in the context of Jews and Muslims living within Christian society. The underlying assumption of the medieval law was that it existed within a Christian society where the secular and the spiritual authorities cooperated in the work of the Church. Non-Christians living within that society had to be accorded limited toleration and could not be compelled to become Christians. The canonists had little to say about non-Christians living outside of Christendom, except for some observations about the crusades and about peaceful trade with Muslims. They had nothing to say about the conversion of Muslims or other non-believers. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there was a flurry of interest in negotiating with various non-Christian rulers in Asia and in spreading the Gospel there. Several dioceses were eventually erected in China, but by the early fifteenth century, these Christian communities had disappeared. Only in the fifteenth century did the notion of preaching the Gospel in lands beyond Europe take hold again. It was not clerics, however, who led the way but Portuguese merchants and adventurers who sought a water route that would provide direct access to the markets of Asia. The Church participated in this by granting the Portuguese a monopoly of trade with the lands they found in return for supporting the work of missionaries. This was the padroado, a concept that became the basis for the support of missionaries elsewhere. This approach linked Christianization with imperial conquest to the ultimate detriment of the missionary effort. When the Portuguese reached Asia in 1497 and encountered the rich and sophisticated cities of the East, it became clear that conversion of these peoples to Christianity would be difficult. …