Catholic Missionaries Research Articles

Two Approaches to Augustine’s Theory of the Trinitarian Image in Ming and Qing China

In some of the earliest Chinese works written by Catholic missionaries in the late Ming Dynasty, St. Augustine became associated with the mystery of the Trinity. When explaining the Trinity to Chinese believers, missionaries would often use an analogy of the mens (mind) and its activities in Augustine’s theory of Imago Dei, drawing parallels between “the One” and “the Three”. In the Ming and Qing periods, Augustine’s mental analogy gave rise to two approaches: the “Augustinian-Ignatian” and the “Augustinian-Thomistic”. The former, which was the mainstream interpretation, linked “Mind: memory-understanding-love” to “God: the Father-the Son-the Holy Spirit”, using “the word generated by memory” to represent “the Son begotten by the Father” and “love proceeded from memory and understanding” as an analogy to “the Holy Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son”. The latter, more of a minority interpretation, correlated “mind-understanding-love” to “the Father-the Son-the Holy Spirit”, using “word generated by mind” to represent “the Son generated by the Father”, and “love proceeded from mind and word” as an analogy to “the Holy Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son”. The former was mainly adhered to by the Jesuits and the Augustinians, while the latter was favored by the Dominicans. This article examines both approaches and critiques of Augustine’s theory of the Trinitarian image in Ming and Qing China.

Catholic Jesuit educational mission: Catholic social teaching and Arrupian justice approach in pursuit of racial justice at traditional Jesuit schools

ABSTRACT Results from a case study school are reported. The mission of a Catholic, Jesuit High School consists of teaching and living the seven principles of Catholic Social Teaching as a way to love one’s neighbor. This involves ensuring the human dignity of all human beings. Traditional American Jesuit High Schools continue to pursue the human dignity and be in right relationship with all underrepresented and underserved communities despite societal and demographic challenges and political headwinds. This manuscript presents a perspective of racial justice that interweaves Catholic Social Teaching with the social justice vision of Pedro Arrupe. Arrupe is the former Jesuit Superior General of the Jesuits and the inspiration behind Traditional Jesuit high schools incorporating the principles of Catholic Social Teaching within their schools. This article explores how the Catholic Jesuit mission specifically as it pertains to issues of racial justice can be animated within the traditional Jesuit educational institutions in substantive and most transformative ways requiring greater prophetic governance and leadership.

Power and devotion in the art of the Catholic missions in Asia during the Early Modern period

ABSTRACT During the Early Modern period, European explorers, merchants, and missionaries crossed the oceans across Asia, from the Malabar Coast in India to the Far East. It was a period of unprecedented artistic and cultural transfers between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, resulting in a dynamic and intense transmission of knowledge, beliefs, and the circulation of material culture. During the age of discoveries, the consciousness of multipolar political powers, and the development of scientific knowledge, art became instrumental to the formation of mutual perceptions and the representation of the ‘other’, both to the East and West. This paper aims to examine the processes of instrumentalization of art and artistic representation in the expression of political and spiritual utopias and the use of art to display the establishment of a new political and religious order and certainly to eloquently convince others to adopt new beliefs, accept new authorities, and conform to new cultural values. It also discusses how art and religious material culture became a mechanism to project political power, the triumph of the Church and personal devotion.

FACTORS INFLUENCING CATHOLIC FAITHFUL’S INTENTION TO REVISIT CHURCH THROUGH SUNDAYS ‘MASS ATTENDANCE AT THE ANNUNCIATION CHAPEL OF THE ASSUMPTION UNIVERSITY OF THAILAND

This study examines the intention of the Catholics to revisit Church through Sunday Mass attendance at Annunciation Chapel of the Assumption University (AU Chapel) in Bangkok, Thailand. Religious values, sense of achievement, personal growth, cultural values, social interaction, preaching style, Church branding, physical evidence, and family support affect this goal. Data was acquired using online and printed surveys utilizing non-probability sampling. Studying the Catholics' intention to revisit Church through Sunday mass attendance at AU Chapel aims to guide Church leaders in meeting worshippers' expectations. By highlighting factors impacting the faithful's intention to revisit the Church, it supports the Catholic Church's mission. Multiple linear regression, and descriptive analysis were used. The study stresses personal and spiritual growth, physical evidence, religious values, and social interaction when revisiting the Church. However, sample, and self-reporting bias are noted. Methodology and Approach: Convenience sampling was used to select 114 respondents for quantitative approaches including multiple linear regression. Online and print questionnaires collected demographic and revisit intention data over three weeks. A Cronbach's alpha pilot test for questionnaire reliability was used with non-probability sampling. Findings: Personal and spiritual growth substantially affects AU Chapel revisiting intention (beta = 0.4249). Physical evidence, religious value, and social interaction also matter (beta = 0.2221, 0.2122, and 0.202). Research Limitations/Implications: Self-reporting causes sampling and social desirability bias. The study may disregard Catholics' intentions' subtlety. Leaving some elements out may impair understanding. Originality/value: This study expands knowledge of Catholics' Sunday Mass intentions at AU Chapel in Bangkok. It identifies essential criteria to improve Church responsiveness and worshippers' satisfaction. Its special focus on Catholic faithful preferences in AU Chapel affects the Church's mission in Thailand.

Trans misogyny in the colonial archive: Re‐membering trans feminine life and death in New Spain, 1604–1821

AbstractTraces of trans feminine pasts are scattered all across the colonial archive. In New Spain, glimpses of Indigenous trans women's lives can be found in the records of conquistadors as early as the sixteenth century. While such early colonial representations of trans femininity span myriad religious, imperial and literary contexts, they are all underpinned by one harrowing reality: the widespread, colonial pursuit of trans feminine death. To ‘re‐member’ – á la Saylesh Wesley – trans feminine pasts in the colonial archive, this article traces structures of, and resistance to, colonial trans misogyny in the sodomy criminal trials of Mexico (1604–1771) and the Catholic missions of California (1769–1821). Pushing against an extant ‘cistoriography’ that has simply archived these stories within the history of sexuality, I ask: What may be gleaned by centring trans femininity and womanhood as core to not only the lives of historical subjects, but the reason many of their lives were so violently taken? By re‐membering trans misogyny in this way, we may finally name and centre the long‐erased trans feminine historical subject, illuminate the complex, changing structures of her past worlds and trace the oft‐forgotten lineages of not just trans feminine death, but trans feminine survivance in its face.

Bridging Faiths and Empires: The Assumptionists and the Mission d’Orient (1863–1923)

This paper examines the Assumptionists’ mission, known as the Mission d’Orient, initiated in 1862 with the aim of uniting the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches against the backdrop of a changing political and religious landscape. Despite their aspirations, the mission encountered numerous challenges and obstacles, leading to its ultimate failure. The paper focuses on the Ottoman response to Roman Catholic missions, using the Assumptionists as a case study. It explores the factors contributing to the Mission d’Orient’s failure and scrutinizes the Assumptionists’ efforts to foster unity between the two churches. The study argues that the failure can be attributed to complex power dynamics between the Ottoman Empire and Western powers, resulting in a hostile environment for Christian communities. The Ottoman response encompassed state-level actions driven by political conflicts and the direct targeting of Catholic missions as symbols of Western imperialism. The paper examines historical sources and primary documents to shed light on the challenges faced by the Assumptionists and their impact on interfaith relations and diplomacy during this significant chapter in Christian missions’ history.

Catholic Health Care and the Mission Leader: A Religious Exercise.

Inspired by the Divine Healer Jesus of Nazareth, Catholic healthcare has been a religious exercise since its inception. First practiced in the setting of the monastery in the earliest centuries AD and incarnated over two millennia by a variety of religious orders of consecrated men and women, Catholic healthcare today faces a crisis of identity. The role of the mission leader, envisioned by the religious brothers and sisters who founded various Catholic healthcare organizations, was a primary conduit to preserve the charisms of the founders and ensure the identity of Catholic healthcare as a religious exercise and ministry of the Church. With data from a recent survey of Catholic healthcare mission leaders, a number of critical challenges currently confront the role of mission leader and will potentially inhibit that role from fulfilling its original mandate. This article will present the findings of this survey, analyze the resulting challenges and present specific recommendations to strengthen the role of the mission leader and ensure Catholic healthcare will remain true to its ethos as a ministry of the Church and religious exercise.

Church Narratives and Secular Ideology Should the Orthodox Christians “catch up” with the Second Vatican

The article includes critical comments on some of the provisions of theological liberal Orthodoxy. The author’s viewpoint is based on the criticism of the ideas of Church secularization (New Reformation) in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. The author considers the attempts to put church sermon under the secular agenda to be destructive, while such agenda has privileged, hegemonic status in modern culture; the author considers it erroneous to call to the Orthodox believers to follow the Catholic way of modernization. In the article the author rejects both the open modernistic concept of catching up development in its religious implementation, and the tendencies of retro-modernism related to the “new theology”, – in particular, to the “theology of origins” and the “theology of coming back”. The author characterized Rome Catholic Church modernization as deviation from the Catholic mission and de-catechization, and considers it necessary to restore the proper semantics of the “modernistic crisis” concept. He also states that in general the format of church “modernistic crisis” discussion is now obsolete, and now the issue of secularism and secular modernism crisis is more relevant, - exactly this crisis will constitute the priority subject of analysis I the nearest future.

Gaoli Zhiming Shilüe: An Intercultural, Interlaced Text between the Jesuits in Shanghai and the Missions Etrangères de Paris in Seoul

Abstract In 1900, as the Boxer Uprising raged in China, two Chinese translations of the work Histoire de l’Eglise de Corée (Gaoli zhiming shilüe and Gaoli zhuzheng) were published to encourage Chinese Catholics, given the difficult history of persecutions faced by Korean Catholics. A close examination of these translations, along with the translator of Gaoli zhiming shilüe’s earlier work on the history of Korean martyrs, reveals that they relied on different Korean source texts and even embellished the original narrative in places. These modifications, in turn, demonstrate the complex chain of translation and information within East Asian missions, working between several languages and incorporating a variety of sources for information. In particular, a study of these texts highlights connections between the Catholic mission in Shanghai and Korea throughout a period when both faced intense opposition and the latter outright suppression. This article is part of the special issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies, “Jesuits in Modern Far East,” guest edited by Steven Pieragastini.

Cutting Bodies, Reaping Souls: Catholic Medical Missionaries between Rome and East Africa around 1700

Summary Research on medical missions has largely focused on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries paying comparatively little attention to earlier periods. The Roman Catholic Church in particular was seen as a latecomer in medical missionary work because canon law supposedly forbade clergymen to engage too closely with the human body. This article offers a different view of medicine and law in early modern conversion efforts and argues that some Catholic missionaries can be called ‘medical missionaries’. Looking at Franciscan friars sent to Ethiopia around 1700, the article analyses the legal negotiations surrounding the use of surgery by Catholic clergymen, healing practices they used during the missions and the relationship between medicine and conversion. It shows that missionaries received systematic medical and surgical training in Rome, that they used the acquired skills during their travels and that medicine was crucial to Catholic strategies of spiritual conquest.

Missionaries as Humanitarian Mediators after the 1860 troubles in Lebanon

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to examine how the 1860 Crisis in Mount Lebanon and Damascus crisis shaped discourses and practices of humanitarianism among the missions and affected their relations with both local and foreign state actors. Catholic missionaries were witnesses and victims but also in the long run beneficiaries of the events of 1860. They were themselves involved in the distribution of the aid through their participation to the relief committees. As victims they also received relief from the French government, the Œuvre des Ecoles d’Orient and the Ottoman Empire. Their action during this period strengthened their links with diplomatic agents and with the French government, as well as it reinforced the position of the clergy of the Oriental Catholic churches.

“Any Violation of This Arrangement”: Catholic Negotiations at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1883–1918

ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between the administration at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and Catholic missionaries, particularly those associated with the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, as well as the local clergy. It traces the development of the school from the Protestant regime under Richard Pratt to the secular one under Moses Friedman. Throughout this shift, Catholics tried to negotiate a place for themselves at the school. The success of their efforts reflected federal policies on religious education, the personalities of those involved, or the perception of common goals. The author argues that Catholic attempts to develop a place for themselves were initially limited by Protestant sentiment and later the rise of the supposed secular school. In doing so, Davis adds to the historiography on interreligious tensions and dialogue at the turn of the twentieth century, placing the Carlisle Indian Industrial School at the center of these negotiations.

Христианская миссия, католические школы и подготовка учителей в Индонезии: исторический обзор

This article provides a brief historical overview of the Christian mission in Indonesia, which was started by the Roman Catholic Church in the 14th century, interrupted by the Protestants in the 17th century, and was resumed by the Catholics at the beginning of the 19th century. The author of the article confers a brief description of the historical events in Indonesia during these periods and dwells on the problems of mission and education in the country. The period when access to education, including pedagogical education, was available only to the Indonesian privileged, ended at the beginning of the 20th century with the start of the missionary activity of the Dutch Jesuit missionary, Franciscus Georgius Josephus van Lith. He established Catholic educational institutions, among them, in 1906, the Hollandsch Inlandsche Kweekschool, a system of teacher training schools to prepare indigenous Indonesian boys to become the new class of society — indigenous teachers. The school later developed into the first Jesuit college in Indonesia, Xaverius Muntilan College, which also became the first Catholic boarding school to offer secondary education to the indigenous people of Java and beyond. Xavier College subsequently influenced various areas of social life in Indonesia, preparing a cultural as well as political elite from the indigenous Indonesians who became partakers in the Catholic mission. The article discusses the history of the creation of this school, characterises the pedagogical views of Romo van Lit, his approaches to the organisation of pedagogical activity and teacher training. In conclusion, it is noted that Romo van Lit was able to create an unprecedented system of educational institutions in a foreign land, which, for more than a century of existence, has gained academic recognition, by reason of its unique professional training programs for Catholic school teachers, which include the traditional values of the Indonesian people. This historical feature of teacher training in Indonesia continues to the present time.

The Apostolical Tree: A Visual Aid used by Catholic Missionaries in Western Oceania

When Catholic Missionaries first went to Western Oceania in the 1840s, they encountered established Protestant mission stations and worshipping Christian communities. The first Vicar Apostolic of Western Oceania, instructed his missionaries to present their church as “the ancient Church, the mother Church, the foundation Church, the true and only Church, which exists everywhere on earth.” The diocesan archives in Auckland New Zealand preserve a single copy of a poster which communicated those ideas. This article identifies the source of that visual aid which was widely used in the first thirty years of the Catholic Mission to Western Oceania.

The Role of Mission Schools in the Development of Football in Nigeria, 1904–1994

Abstract The development of football in Nigeria owes a lot to the pioneering Christian missions in the country, especially, the schools they founded. This article examines the particular role that selected Catholic Mission Boys’ Secondary Schools played in this regard from 1904 when the first recorded football match was played in Nigeria, to 1994, when Nigeria’s national football team, the Super Eagles, qualified for the World Cup for the first time. This way, the article contributes to existing literature on: a) the history and development of football in Nigeria b) the role of Christian missions in the development of modern Nigeria c) the relationship between Christianity and sports, in this case, football.

The Shattered Cross: French Catholic Missionaries on the Mississippi River, 1698–1725 by Linda Carol Jones (review)

The Shattered Cross: French Catholic Missionaries on the Mississippi River, 1698–1725 by Linda Carol Jones (review)

Teaching and Preaching

Abstract During European colonial times in Africa and elsewhere, missionary education was an integral part of the colonial instruments for political domination, economic exploitation, and cultural assimilation. This paper aims to investigate the process of making colonial subjects through missionary education that was mainly provided by Catholic and Evangelical mission schools during the Italian colonial period in Eritrea. The paper argues that the Catholic and Evangelical mission schools distinctively worked to achieve their separate objectives that can be explained as employment versus salvation, teaching versus preaching, flag versus Bible, and hands versus soul, respectively. While the Catholic mission school focused on training the hand in order to supply labour, the Evangelical mission school stressed harvesting the soul to cultivate a docile labour force. Despite their differences, the works of the Catholic and Evangelical mission schools placed much emphasis on and exerted much effort to producing a class of colonial subjects that could serve as brokers of power.

Women away from the altar! Resistance to the gender equality pressures in the Polish organisations of the Catholic Church in England, Sweden, and Belgium

ABSTRACT This article examines the practices that maintain the gender asymmetry in transnational migratory religious organisations, as exemplified by the Polish organisations of the Roman Catholic Church (so-called Polish Catholic Missions). Based on interviews with women and men involved in these structures as well as on our observations during fieldwork, we reconstruct the gendered division of work in such organisations, with a special focus on differentiation within the area of religious functions. Drawing on integrative theories of gender (especially of Raewyn Connell) and on the new institutionalist understanding of organisations, we investigate how and why these transnational religious bodies resist the normative pressures regarding gender equality stemming from the egalitarian contexts in which they function (England, Belgium, and Sweden).

RELATIONS BETWEEN GEORGIA AND ROMAN CHURCH AFTER THE GREAT SCHISM

In the article mainly discuss lesser-known sources, therefore, the reader will see a more varied, interesting and unexpected information. First of all, I will discuss the Latin religious beliefs of the great teacher of the Georgian Church – George Mtatsmindeli because some researchers try to hide this. We will not talk much here about the well-known fact that George himself proclaimed the Church of Rome to be the most faithful defender of the apostolic doctrines before the Byzantine emperor. While the Greeks and Latins were arguing about the descent of the Holy Spirit, George translated into Georgian – “The Symbol of Athanasius”, where the Holy Spirit was considered to come from the Son, i.e. the Latin pneumatological formula was described – “The Holy Spirit from the Father and from the Son”. If this doctrine of the Catholic Church was a heresy for George, obviously he would have. After all we can conclude the following: During the unity and strength of the Georgian state, when the Georgian Fathers translated many theological literatures, had numerous theological centers (the Maghalashvili Gospel inscription speaks of seven such schools in one diocese), the Georgian Church had its own position on the Church of Rome, but after the political and cultural fall, Influenced first by Greek and especially Russian anti-Catholic propaganda, Georgia rejected the historic choice of its best clergy of the Church – unity with the Catholic Church. At the beginning of its relations with Georgia, Russia started struggle with the Catholic missionaries in Georgia, the Russian ambassador – Zakharev, started anti-Catholic propaganda, and after the conquest of Georgia, Russia expelled the Catholic missionaries from Georgia, because Russia’s goal was and is the ecclesiastical isolation of Georgia.

Gift of faith: Tracing the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines through the transformative experiences of the BEC lay leaders.

The Philippine Church commemorates in a year-long (April 2021 – April 2022) celebration the 500 years of Christianity in the country. The Filipino Catholics and communities gathered to joyfully celebrate the event which marks the first hearing of the good news about Christ some hundred years ago by the foreign Catholic missionaries. Alongside the colonization of the Spaniards, which comes with complex issues and controversies, one remains significant and meaningful on the other side of their arrival- the Christian Faith! Today, this same mission of evangelization of the first Catholic missionaries in the country had been continued specifically in the local activities of the Church through the Basic Ecclesial Communities or the BEC movements all over the country. This is a case of qualitative study exploring the concept of faith of the lay leaders of Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC) in Francisco de Borja Chapel, in Barangay Sta. Fe Caraga Davao Oriental. The study was conducted through an in-depth interview and dissemination of research questionnaire to the selected BEC lay leaders who were able to respond actively. In the end, the result of our thematic analysis, which was used to utilize in discovering the different emerging and significant themes of the gathered data, narrates for us the core meaning of the gift of faith for the BEC lay leaders: (1) faith that centers on Christ, (2) it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, (3) faith makes a person open to salvation, (4) faith as a gift means a blessing from God, and (5) faith makes them victorious over the trials of life. Moreover, the transforming effect of faith in the utterance of the BEC lay leaders reflects in the consciousness of the researchers the vision and objectives of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (1991): (1) participation, (2) responsive, (3) service, and (4) becoming truly Christian. These core themes of the transforming effect of faith on the BEC lay leaders reflect the reason for the Philippines to continue cultivating and nourishing the Christian mission in realizing the Kingdom of God here on earth.