The Catholic Church in China

Abstract

In this chapter, the author focuses on the meanings carried by the Chinese Catholic church as an institution. There were as many Chinese Catholics in 1979, after the ravages of the Cultural Revolution, as there were in 1949, when the atheist Communist party came to power. As the state began to penetrate and control family life after 1949, Catholics viewed the Church as a defender of traditional community values. In 1956, the government formed the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and allowed open practice of the faith only to Catholics who renounced their ties to the Vatican and joined this association. In sociological terms, the Catholic church is indeed a church as opposed to a sect. The common institutional legacy confronted by Chinese Catholics is ambiguous and fraught with tensions. The main axis of the tension between universality and particularity varies for different Catholic communities in different historical contexts.