Rome Takes Charge

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

This chapter examines attempts by Rome in the seventeenth century to impose papal control on the mission fields of Asia: part of a Counter Reformation trend towards centralization. The creation of a new Congregation—the “Propaganda Fide”—in 1622, and the appointment of new, French bishops who were directly responsible to Rome and who were granted extensive jurisdiction over lands in Southeast Asia, led to escalating tensions on the mission fields. The arrival in Siam of a group of missionaries from the new French Société des Missions Étrangères provoked consternation and conflict as established missionaries sought to defend their privileges, independence and missionary methods from the perceived unjust onslaught from Rome. As the jurisdictional map of mission in Southeast Asia was altered, so to were the roles of local catechists and lay heads of churches who had previously played a central role in the propagation and sustenance of the faith.