God’s Little Daughters: Catholic Women in Nineteenth-Century Manchuria 029599472X, 9780295994727

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God’s Little Daughters

God’s Little Daughters c at hol ic wom e n i n nin et een t h- cen t ury m a nchur i a

Ji Li

u n i v e r s i t y o f wa s h i n g t o n p r e s s

Seattle and London

this book is made possible by a collaborative grant from the andrew w. mellon foundation.

© 2015 by the University of Washington Press 19 18 17 16 15 54321 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. University of Washington Press www.washington.edu/uwpress Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Li, Ji, 1976– (Historian) God’s little daughters : Catholic women in nineteenth-century Manchuria / Ji Li. pages cm. — (Modern language initiative books) Outgrowth of the author’s thesis (Ph. D.—University of Michigan, 2009) under title: Becoming faithful: Christianity, literacy, and female consciousness in Northeast China, 1830–1930. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-295-99472-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Missions—China—Manchuria—History. 2. Catholic Church—Missions—China— Manchuria—History. 3. Manchuria (China)— Church history. 4. Catholic Church—China— Manchuria. 5. Missions étrangères de Paris. I. Title. BV3420.M2L5 2015 282’.518082—dc23  2015002181 The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984. ∞

con ten ts

Preface: Discovering the Du Letters Acknowledgments 1. Christianity, Gender, and Literacy in Northeast China

vii ix 3

2. Religion, Women, and Writing in Rural China

20

3. Religious Knowledge and Behavior

45

4. Establishing Faith in Local Society

74

5. Institutionalization and Indigenization

99

6. Faith, Gender, and a New Female Literacy in Modern China

127



143

Epilogue: Meeting the Du Descendants

Appendix: MEP Missionaries and Indigenous Priests Glossary Notes Bibliography Index

145 153 157 179 209

p r e fac e : di s c ov e r i ng t he du let t ers

On a hot summer afternoon in 2004, I sat in a small reading room on the rue du Bac in Paris. After hours of reading the church records in the archives of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP), I happened to notice three packs of yellowed rice-paper documents among the French-language manuscripts. Unfolding the papers with their Chinese characters in dark ink, I unexpectedly entered another world and time—an intimate milieu of nineteenth-century Chinese Catholic women in Santaizi, a small village in northeast China. Addressed to Father Lin, or Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1812– 1871), an MEP missionary who had worked in the MEP’s Manchuria Mission from 1847 to 1870, the letters came from three of his Chinese Catholic converts. According to the MEP catalogue, the letters reached the MEP on November 14, 1871. “Merciful father, if you are recovered, God’s little daughter begs you to come back!” wrote one of the women; “God’s little daughter misses you and cries, like a lost sheep without a shepherd.”1 Another concluded her letter sadly, “If I were not female, I would come to stay in front of you.”2 I soon discovered that the letters contain a fascinating sentimental mixture of strong personal emotions, explicit religious terminology and metaphors, and a clear awareness of their authors’ gender. The letters were dated 1871. Although the late nineteenth century had witnessed the rapid growth of literacy in Europe, the level of literacy in China, especially among women, remained significantly low.3 The ability to write was particularly unusual for women in rural China. Writing to a foreign missionary provided these letter writers with a legitimate space in which to practice their literacy, articulate their faith and identity in writing, and safely express personal feelings. Religious language plays an important role both in the women’s sometimes clumsy writing and in their awkward personal expressions of emotion.

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I noticed that the letter writers remained somewhat mysterious even though in the letters they called themselves “God’s little daughters” (xiao shennü) and signed their letters “the second daughter of the Du family” (Du Xiao’erniu), “the eleventh of the Du family” (Du Xiaoshiyi), and “the eldest of the Du family” (Du Xiaodazi), respectively. Who were they? Why did they write the letters? Where did they learn to write? What is signified by the term “God’s little daughters,” which is seldom used by Chinese Christian women in other places? And what was the relationship between these Chinese Catholic women and their French priest? Questions such as these soon filled up a historian’s mind. Motivated both by my joy at the discovery of precious historical documents and by my curiosity about gender, religion, and identity, I began the long intellectual journey that finally resulted in this book.

Sources This book starts with an analysis of the Du letters and goes on to examine where and how these ordinary rural Chinese women gained their literacy. Besides the Chinese texts, the primary sources central to this book are French-language documents, mainly church records, housed in the Archives of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris (AMEP). In the course of three research trips to the archives, lasting two months in 2004, six months in 2005–6, and nine months in 2007–8, I examined all eight volumes of the manuscripts, containing several thousand individual items that pertain to the Mission de Mandchourie. Long neglected by scholars, many of these materials remained untouched and were classified only roughly according to time period. In a sense this very neglect was a blessing, enabling me to discover the Du letters and other precious documents among the manuscripts. These church records contain rich religious, ethnographic, and demographic information that cannot be found in Chinese materials.4 While French-language church records are at the heart of the book, I have also made use of Chinese-language documents, including imperial edicts, local gazettes, legal documents, Chinese converts’ journals, and other writings. However, because of the destructive movements against Christianity in China in the past century, in particular the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and the Cultural Revolution in 1966–1976, that destroyed most if not all local churches and church records, using Western-language records is a necessity to be able to reconstruct the Chinese Catholic community in the nineteenth century.

ack now l edgm e n ts

It has been ten years since that hot summer afternoon when I found the Du letters. That was my first trip to France to explore archival documents, which was encouraged by my Michigan advisor, James Lee. Jean Hébrard, my French mentor, welcomed me at Charles de Gaulle airport and introduced me to the Archives of the Missions Étrangères de Paris (AMEP). At that time, little did I realize that I would spend half of the following four years working in Paris, especially in AMEP’s small reading room within the beautiful courtyard of a seventeenth-century seminary. In the ten years of research, writing, and rewriting that went into this book, I have traveled around the world, from Ann Arbor to Paris to Beijing to Shenyang and finally to Hong Kong. My intellectual journey has encompassed three countries and four wonderful universities. It is my pleasure and privilege at long last to acknowledge these institutions, scholars, and friends. I owe my deepest gratitude to my advisor, James Lee, a great mentor and even better friend. He has supported my intellectual growth with enormous trust and warmth. He taught me how to become a realistic scholar with passion and commitment, pushed me along the path of excellence, and witnessed my every achievement. I thank James for his instruction and friendship: this book would not have been possible without his generous input, thoughtful training, and unfailing encouragement over the past ten years. In Ann Arbor, where this book was first hatched as a dissertation submitted to the University of Michigan, my first thanks go to Jean Hébrard, whose unconditional faith in me meant a lot to me in a most difficult time. In the final stage of my dissertation revision, Jean read my entire draft and helped me refine my French translations word by word. I am also indebted to Brian Porter-Szücs, whose knowledge of Catholicism inspired my analysis of my own subject; to Ernest P. Young, Yiching Wu,

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and Eric Mueggler, who served on my committee and helped me refine my thesis with their enthusiasm, generosity, and scholarly insights. At Michigan, I am also grateful to Dena Goodman, Anne Herrmann, Wang Zheng, and Mark C. Elliott, who have helped me at different stages of my graduate studies. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Rebecca J. Scott and Jean Hébrard for their encouragement at an important point early in my studies. I hope my work will assure Rebecca and Jean that their encouragement and trust were not wasted. For their help during the initial research for this book in Paris, I owe thanks to Jean Hébrard, Roger Chartier, and Zhang Guangda, who always welcomed me when I wanted to meet and talk to them. Their genial attitude and wisdom exemplify scholarly excellence. Many thanks also to Zhang Lun, Ji Zhe, Wang Chunhua, Chen Jinzhao, and Pierre-Emmanuel Roux, whose generous help and friendship made my research trips to Paris always safe and pleasant. In China, I am indebted to my advisors in Beijing, especially Luo Xin and Gao Yi at Peking University, where I spent the happiest six years as a student. Luo Xin enlightened my worldview when I was eighteen and showed me an exciting scholarly world that finally determined my career. Gao Yi first kindled my interest in French history, especially from a comparative perspective with China. I started my career in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HKIHSS) at the University of Hong Kong has been a warm and supportive intellectual home for the past three years. My gratitude goes first to Angela Ki-che Leung, a serious scholar and an inspiring role model, whose encouragement and help at the beginning of my career was crucial. My appreciation goes also to Helen F. Siu, whose insights on Chinese rural society and historical anthropology were eye-opening to me; and to my colleagues in the HKIHSS for their assistance and support during the revision of this book. In Hong Kong, I would like to give special thanks to Father François Barriquand. For about half a year, we met regularly during lunchtime at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and read the AMEP church records together. He carefully corrected my inaccurate French translations and patiently explained to me many theological and church terms. After he returned to Paris, he also generously helped me acquire some archival documents for this book. A particular group of people deserves my special gratitude. The Lee-Campbell research group, led by James Lee and Cameron Campbell, has been the most supportive cohort for more than ten years. No

Acknowledgments

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matter where we are, the group has met once a week over the Internet. I have shared every piece of my research with the group. From preliminary archival reports to conference presentations, from the first fragments of thesis writing to the final complete book manuscript, the group has read all my drafts and witnessed each step of my progress in this project. I thank every member of the group, especially James Lee, Cameron Campbell, Shuang Chen, Ren Yuxue, Liang Chen, and (earlier) Lai Sze Tso, Li Lan, Wang Linlan, and Jomo Smith. The initial research for this book was made possible by the generous financial support of the History Department, the Center for Chinese Studies, the Rackham Graduate School, and the International Institute of the University of Michigan. The Barbour Scholarship, offered by the University of Michigan, gave me a whole year to focus on archival research and analysis. The Bourse Chateaubriand, granted by the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, France, allowed me to stay in Paris for nine months working in different archives. The Chiang Ching-kuo Doctoral Fellowship provided crucial financial assistance in the final stages of dissertation writing. During the revision process in Hong Kong, the Hang Sang Bank Golden Jubilee Education Fund for Research administered by the HKIHSS and the Small Project Funding offered by the University of Hong Kong also provided me with valuable assistance in the final stages of preparing this book. My heartfelt thanks go to these generous institutions and to the dedicated people in the following libraries and archives: Archives des Missions Étrangères de Paris (AMEP), especially Brigitte Appavou and Olive Ghislaine; Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF); Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes (CADN); Liaoning Provincial Archives; First Historical Archives of China; the University of Michigan Library; and the University of Hong Kong Library. I reserve special appreciation for people in Shenyang. Gao Jing, former director of the Liaoning Provincial Gazetteer Office, offered me valuable help to gain access to local archives. Chen Weiran accompanied me to several archives in Shenyang. Her family, together with Gao Jing, drove me to find Santaizi, the home village of the Du women, for the first time in 2007. Since 2010, Xiu Chengtie welcomed me every year in Shenyang and introduced me to many local people who could be of help to my research. Du Huaisheng, Du Huai’en, Du Fengjun, and other Du family members showed great enthusiasm for my project and offered assistance for my research. I thank the villagers for their hospitality and generosity. I am also grateful to the two anonymous

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reviewers of my book for their suggestions and criticisms. The editors of the University of Washington Press, especially Lorri Hagman and her professional colleagues, have been particularly generous and efficient in bringing this book into its present form. Lorri meticulously edited the final copy. I thank them for their patience and professional editorial assistance. Finally, for their love, support, and sustained encouragement in my work, I am immeasurably indebted to my family. My maternal grandmother, Wu Bangshu, a witness to and survivor of various political movements in twentieth-century China, represents Chinese women who share her firmness, perseverance, and optimism. She is always my role model. My parents, Li Shiwei and Shi Jisheng, are exemplars of love and support. They always offer me a port of call, whether in sadness or in happiness. My parents and parents-in-law have been of great help in taking care of my son in the past five years. Without their generous support, this book could not have been finished as planned. I therefore dedicate this book to them. My deepest gratitude goes to my husband, Chenbo. For about twenty years, since we first met at Peking University, he has showed his consistent love and support for my academic life. Our son, Louis Zi Mu, is the sunshine of my life. Every day he shares with me the happiest moments of life through his jolly laughter. I am grateful that as I finished my dissertation at Michigan five years ago, our son Louis was about to arrive. Now, as I finish this book, we are awaiting the arrival of our daughter. This book and our two children are the most precious gifts of our twenty-year companionship. For Chenbo and my kids, thanks are not enough.

God’s Little Daughters

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Christianity, Gender, and Literacy in Northeast China

This is a book about dialogue between and within categories that are constructed as dichotomies: Christian and nonbeliever, missionary and convert, foreign and native, male and female, and above all the sacred and the profane. It tells the story of different groups of people dealing with one, ostensibly universal, religious activity: the translation and dissemination by French Catholic missionaries of the Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP) of Catholicism in late imperial China, and of the understanding, absorption, and transformation of the message by other actors, specifically rural Chinese Catholics, in their interactions with foreign missionaries—in the particular context of northeast China between the 1840s and the 1900s. Examining the letters and the historical context in which the missions were produced, this book explores answers to some perennial questions about the ways in which Christianity (Catholicism in this specific case) took root in modern China, and how Chinese Catholics, especially rural and female Catholics, participated in this process to form and transform identity in the context of the nineteenth century. This is a study rooted in analytical categories: gender and religion, knowledge and behavior, experience and explanation, concept and language, public and private, and imperial and colonial. Understanding how Catholicism took root in local Chinese society requires a study of the mechanisms, institutions, actors, and processes that interpreted the Catholic message through specific language, behavior, and beliefs. This involves pursuing questions such 3

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as how the Catholic Church translated the catechism to introduce concepts and rituals of the Christian faith to the Chinese; how it designed regulations that governed missions to enforce church discipline on missionaries, catechumens, and converts; how it made use of systematic parish reports to measure and assess the success of local religious experience; and how local converts, in turn, appropriated this religious language to both articulate and manipulate their new sense of self. Finally, this is an examination of language, literacy, and a communicative world constructed by two written and oral languages: French and Chinese.1 Language provides historical actors with an important instrument for articulating ideas and emotions. Literacy is the key to success in preserving and transmitting these ideas and emotions reliably. Understanding language through literacy proves particularly important for world religions in a transnational context, for literacy is a prerequisite for any interaction between oral languages and written texts. The intercultural exchange and transformation of ideas depend to a large extent on translation, not only between French and Chinese in this case, but also between the divine and the secular, the numerical and the literal, and the quantitative and the qualitative. This book is an endeavor to unpack the history of this process. It is inspired by Chinese Catholic converts’ appropriation of religious language, their practice of literacy, and their private sentiments, and it ends with an exploration of the models and norms that Christianity and the Catholic missions in China offered to them.

Christianity in Manchuria On February 22, 1846, Bishop Emmanuel-Jean-François Verrolles (1805–1878), the first apostolic vicar of Manchuria, delivered a public speech in the cathedral of Metz. After fifteen years in China, including five in Manchuria subsequent to the founding of the mission in 1840, this was Verrolles’s first return to France. I remained alone. This is why I come back to look for new colleagues. After fifteen years’ absence I see once more the beautiful land of France, the country so dear to my heart, which I will nevertheless leave again, and forever. You may find my language incorrect, maybe even barbaric, but that should not surprise you: when one has lived fifteen years surrounded by Chinese without

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Figure 1.1  Emmanuel-Jean-François Verrolles. Courtesy of Archives de Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris.

speaking any language but theirs, it is rather natural that one loses the habit of expressing oneself easily in French.… My Chinese Christians are poor, poor to the worst degree.… In these missions so desolate whose miseries I have described to you, among people exposed to so many temptations and of such natural timidity, we are nonetheless often comforted and edified by flashes of a heroic faith and courage, worthy of the best ages of the Church. 2

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Verrolles’s speech deeply moved his audience. In the nineteenth century, as the Catholic revival in Europe and the French government’s imperial goals in the Far East began to converge, French Catholic missionaries formed the vanguard in (re)evangelizing and (re)exploring the vast land of China. 3 As one of these trailblazers, Verrolles was the only missionary in the mission when he arrived in Manchuria in 1840. Manchuria turned out to be alien not only to the French audience but also to the early missionaries. MaximePaul Brulley de La Brunière (1816–1846), Verrolles’s first assistant, joined him in 1842. He soon felt similarly out of place. In a letter to a friend, de La Brunière complained, “I am a foreigner. I cannot understand well their language, which is so different from that of Jiangnan.”4 A controversial and historically loaded term, “Manchuria” refers geographically to northeast Asia, including the entire region of China’s northeast frontier, which, after the Manchu conquest of China in the seventeenth century, consisted of the three Qing military districts of Shengjing, Jilin, and Heilongjiang. 5 This vast area of northeast China, about twice the size of France, was first known as Tartary, according to the writings of early missionaries such as Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688).6 By the 1830s, “Manchuria” had emerged as the more common toponym of this region in various accounts and gradually replaced the older term “Tartary.”7 Manchuria was converted into “Three northeast Provinces” by the late Qing government. After the collapse of the Qing in 1911, this region was often known as Dongbei or northeast China. On the map of today’s China, it consists of three provinces: Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang. As the homeland of the Manchu, who founded the Empire of the Great Qing (1644–1912), the last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, Manchuria remained a significant but relatively isolated frontier area until the early twentieth century. This was largely due to the Qing government’s changing immigration policies, which aimed to maintain the Manchu homeland and to uphold the “Manchu way.”8 In the first two decades after the Manchu took over Beijing, from 1644 to 1667, the Qing government issued a series of edicts to encourage immigration to Manchuria for cultivation. This policy, however, was abolished in 1668. Subsequently, the official Qing ban on immigration to Manchuria by Han Chinese lasted until the end of the nineteenth century. In 1860, the Qing government partially

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lifted the ban on immigration, and in 1897, the ban was abolished altogether. Because of these policies, the late nineteenth century witnessed a large wave of immigration to Manchuria when various natural disasters afflicted other areas of China.9 Given this immigration background, one feature of Christianity in Manchuria is that the area’s Christian population predates the presence of missionaries. The earliest Christians in Manchuria may have arrived as early as the fourteenth century from Mongolia.10 When Ferdinand Verbiest visited Manchuria with Emperor Kangxi (r. 1661–1722) in 1682, he recorded that he saw some Chinese Christians who resided in Kaiyuan, a city in Liaodong.11 Later, in the fiftieth year of Emperor Kangxi’s rule (1711), the Portuguese missionary Carlos de Resende (1664–1746) visited Liaodong and recorded that there were more than three thousand Chinese Christians.12 Chinese official documents first recorded Catholics in Manchuria in the twelfth year of Emperor Qianlong’s rule (1747). In their memorial to the throne dated in 1747, Da’erdang’e (?–1758), general of Fengtian, and Su Chang (?–1768), prefectural magistrate of Fengtian, reported that there were eight Catholic churches and more than one hundred Chinese Catholic converts distributed over six counties in the region.13 In the nineteenth century, the majority of Manchuria’s Christians were Catholic migrants from other parts of China. The immigrant Catholic families scattered throughout the vast land of Manchuria, and they included the Du family of Santaizi and the Su family of Biguanbao in Liaoning, as well as the families of Li, Ding, and Xiao of Xiaoheishan in Jilin. The local Chinese gazetteers include many accounts of how immigration brought Christianity into northeast China. In 1796, for example, eight families, including five Catholic families, moved to Bajiazi, which literally means “eight [ba] households [jiazi],” in Jilin. These Catholic settlers did not see a priest until Verrolles visited them in 1842. Verrolles soon decided to build a Catholic community there, and in 1844 a Catholic church was erected in the village.14 Of these Christian immigrants, most were voluntary migrants from Zhili, today’s Hebei, and Shandong, which had been visited by European missionaries since the seventeenth century. There were also involuntary Christian migrants exiled to Manchuria during the century-long prohibition of Christianity started by Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1722–1735) in 1724. During the time of prohibition, the

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Qing court prescribed that “officials who convert to Christianity be dismissed, [and] common converts be exiled to Xinjiang or Heilongjiang.”15 In his work on Catholic missions in China, the Italian missionary Pasquale D’Elia recorded that in 1814, two Chinese Catholic converts from Guizhou, a southwestern province, were exiled across to the northernmost province of Heilongjiang on the other side of the country.16 Before Verrolles, only a few missionaries had ever visited northeast China, but the evangelical enthusiasm for the area was longstanding. In the 1650s of the early Qing, Jesuits Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592–1666) and Johannes Nikolaus Smogulecki (1611– 1656) expressed their willingness to go to Manchuria in succession, but both were rejected by Emperor Shunzhi (r. 1643–1661), for the emperor believed Manchuria was too vast and barren to receive missionaries.17 After Pope Alexander VIII established the diocese of Beijing in 1690, Manchuria attracted interest among missionaries in Beijing, some of whom began to make trips to Manchuria to proselytize. These pioneer missionaries included the French missionary Dominique Parrenin (1665–1741) and an unidentified missionary from the Netherlands.18 In 1703, in his letter submitted to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit missionary François Noël (1651–1729) mentioned a Manchu prince, his family, and fifty servants, who all converted to Christianity. He also talked about an ambitious plan to establish a base in Mukden or Shenyang to spread Christianity to Manchuria and further to Korea and Japan.19 Since the seventeenth century, Lazarists and Franciscans had worked in the bordering areas of east Mongolia and west Manchuria. After Verrolles arrived in Manchuria, he noticed that old Christian communities did exist along the border of Manchuria and Mongolia. 20 Verrolles located these old Christians in an 1849 map in six established Christian communities, including the Christian community of Xiwanzi in southeast Mongolia, the district of Rehe, and communities in today’s east Mongolia and west Jilin. 21 In 1838, Manchuria was detached from the diocese of Beijing, and Pope Gregory XVI established the apostolic vicariate of Manchuria-Mongolia; two years later, the Manchuria-Mongolia vicariate was divided into two. The independent Manchuria Mission, or the apostolic vicariate of Manchuria, was established on August 28, 1840. The Roman Catholic Church entrusted the mission to the French Missions Étrangères de Paris. The MEP’s takeover of

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Map 1.1. Division of Mongolia and Manchuria vicariates, 1849. “Carte pour la division définitive des Vicariats de Mongolie et Mandchourie, offerte a la S. C. de la Propaganda par l’Evêque de Colomby de novembre 1849.” Source: AMEP 0562:7071–7072.

Manchuria marked the start of a new age of Catholic missions in northeast China, one conducted under French missionaries and the French protectorate. 22 In many ways, the story about Verrolles and his colleagues in the vast land of Manchuria went far beyond these graphical representations. Manchuria is a unique immigrant society. The most recent and largest migration to Manchuria happened in the late nineteenth century along with the rapid expansion of imperialism and Catholic missions in China. For Catholic immigrants newly settled in the vast land of Manchuria, religion became a crucial resource. The missionaries’ agenda to establish a Catholic community and to found a local church also fit the Christian settlers’ desire for stability, security, and a common identity. Thus the development of Christianity in Manchuria was not just about how missionaries converted settlers. It was also about how settlers made use of Christianity to establish their new lives. In many cases, the nineteenth-century Catholic mission did not introduce to local people in Manchuria a new, foreign religion but rather introduced the global institution of the Catholic Church. In this historical process, France and French missionaries, especially the MEP, played a particularly important role.

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Map 1.2.  Catholic Manchuria at the end of the nineteenth century. Map by Lan Yan.

The Missions Étrangères de Paris and the pays de m is sion It is not accidental that the French Missions Étrangères de Paris emerged as a major player in Catholic Manchuria. A Roman Catholic missionary society devoted to the evangelization of non-Christian countries, the MEP was established in Paris in the late 1650s for the purpose of founding churches, training a native clergy, and supervising Catholic missions.23 This new religious society differed from other comparable Catholic orders in China, such as the Jesuits, the Franciscans, and the Dominicans. The MEP is a société de droit pontifical (society of pontifical jurisdiction) composed of bishops, priests, and brothers. In the nineteenth century, it required all its priests and seminarians to (1) enter the society by the age of thirty-five; (2) meet the prerequisite of at least three years of mission experience; and (3) have either French nationality or French as the mother tongue.24 The French language requirement corresponded closely to the power shift within the Roman Catholic Church, specifically the decline of Portugal and the rise of France. By the seventeenth century, when the conflict between Rome and the Portuguese Padroado grew severe, the existence of a group of

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loyal priests became essential to Rome. 25 The MEP was directly accountable to the pope and operated under the supervision of the Propaganda Fide, the Roman center of evangelization, which aimed to organize worldwide Catholic missions that would be independent of national rivalries and specific religious orders and congregations. To fulfill the need for priests in mission areas and to free missionaries from the patronage of political powers, the Propaganda Fide established an evangelization order of apostolic vicars above all congregations. 26 In the seventeenth century, the stated policy of the MEP was to serve God instead of a specific country or congregation in the Far East. One early MEP priest even wrote in the late seventeenth century, “What could be more stupid than undergoing a dangerous journey to reach this extremely distant land to serve a country or a congregation but not Jesus Christ?”27 Contrary to the missionaries’ intention, however, from the time of its establishment the MEP was closely linked to the French government and its imperial interests. In the late seventeenth century, when both the French king and the French public demonstrated an increasing interest in the Far East, Rome wanted to promote this eagerness to restrain the Portuguese protectorate of the Catholic mission in Asia. In 1663, Louis XIV issued a permit for the MEP to purchase the mansion on the rue du Bac in Paris and to establish a seminary to train priests to join the Catholic mission in Asia. The French government was also involved in the finances of the MEP from the very beginning. François Pallu (1626–1684), one of the founders of the MEP, maintained a close relationship with the directors of the East India Company and with Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683), the French minister of finance from 1665 to 1683. Before the French Revolution, the financial resources of the MEP came mainly from the tithe of the ancien régime, the patronage of the king and aristocrats, and the Assemblée du Clergé de France. Not until the nineteenth century did the donations of the faithful and the mission’s trading business become part of the MEP’s finances. 28 In the nineteenth century, a new wave of overseas missionary enthusiasm welled up in France. Although the French Catholic mission abroad had suffered from the devastating effects of the French Revolution and from official prohibition in places such as Japan and China, the nineteenth century nevertheless witnessed the most extensive geographic spread of Catholicism to other parts of the world. France, the so-called pays de mission, predominated this

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modern age of evangelization. It not only sent tens of thousands of French men and women on distant religious missions but also claimed protectorate over Catholic missions in the Far East. 29 This global age of the French missionary activity was backed up by the domestic Catholic revival as well as the popular fever of evangelization. With the issuing of Napoleon’s Concordat of 1801 and the subsequent restoration of three primary missionary organizations—the Lazarists, the seminary of the Saint-Esprit, and the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris—in 1804, the Catholic missionary movement began to revitalize and gradually became overwhelmingly French. 30 Furthermore, domestic fundraising campaigns in support of global Catholic evangelizing also became vigorous. Metz, where Verrolles gave his speech in 1846, was one of several French towns in which the MEP had formed societies that required regular donations from their subscribed members to support Catholic missions abroad. 31 The fundraising campaign turned out to be exceptionally successful. From 1822 to 1872, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (l’Œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi, founded in 1843) received 150 million francs for work in China, over two-thirds of which came from France. 32 Similarly, the annual income of the Association of the Holy Childhood (Association de la Sainte Enfance, founded in 1843) in support of missionary work rescuing Chinese babies from infanticide reached 250,000 francs in 1851, and nearly two million by 1869. 33 Institutional and financial support from domestic sources facilitated the reexploration of China. Since the late 1830s, the MEP had expanded into the southwest, southeast, and northeast borderlands of the empire. Within the space of a single decade the MEP had founded five apostolic vicariates: Manchuria (1838), Tibet (1846), and Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan (all in 1848). 34 In all, between 1822 and 1921, the MEP sent 2,932 missionaries to the Far East, in comparison to only 287 in the period from 1658 to 1822. 35 These new missions stimulated the later expansion of French control over the Catholic faith in China, a control that was gradually confirmed between 1844 and 1865 by a number of treaties between the Qing court and the French government. 36 Article 22 of the Treaty of Whampoa (1844) allowed the French to establish churches, hospitals, schools, and cemeteries at five treaty ports, and guaranteed the right to practice Catholicism in these ports. Later, at

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Figure 1.2. A group of MEP missionaries at departure, 1860, including François Aussourd (1830–1860), who departed from Marseilles on Mercedès to the Manchuria Mission on July 25, 1860, but died during the journey. Source: AMEP, Photo Collection, Départ 1852–68.

the end of the Second Opium War (1856–58), the Treaty of Tianjin (1858) concluded that Christian missionary activity should be permitted to extend further into the interior of China and to benefit from the protection of the Chinese authorities. Under the terms of the treaty, France was the only nation entitled to issue the passports that allowed missionaries to operate legally in China. From 1858 to

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1888, France not only possessed this privilege but also exercised a religious protectorate over all Catholic missions in China. 37 In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to a large extent, Christian churches in China became part of a system of foreign privilege and power politics. 38Although the nineteenth-century missionary enterprise was not inherently imperialist, Catholic immersion in imperialism became unavoidable.

Missionaries, Women, and Religious Literacy Imperialism paved the way for the rapid expansion of Christianity in China in the second half of the nineteenth century. When the large numbers of missionaries, together with Western ships, arrived at the treaty ports of China’s east coast, their major task was to spread the Christian message by erecting churches and establishing faithful communities. Teaching and instillation of religious literacy became essential means to achieve that goal, and the missionaries established catechismal schools in almost every Catholic community. For missionaries, literacy was the key to evangelization; for local converts, religious literacy was decisive for the success of conversion. Literacy is not only associated with religion, in particular with the “world religions,”39 but is also rooted in Chinese religious culture. Beyond the canonical texts of Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity, literacy was crucial to the transmission of religious lore in Confucianism, Daoism, and other Chinese religions, such as in the form of baojuan or “precious scrolls” in heterodox popular religions, and prayer texts in popular Buddhism.40 Books and written prayers had special importance in ancient China.41 Incubated in Chinese culture, the dissemination of Christianity in China was closely associated with literacy from the beginning. In the early sixteenth century, Christianity was spread among elite Chinese via the “apostolate through books.”42 Christianity had taken full advantage of the flourishing of the publishing and printing industry since the sixteenth century. According to a list of writings composed by Jesuits up to 1636, “among 107 titles (340 volumes), 71 titles (219 volumes) had been printed and 36 titles (121 volumes) had not.”43 From the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, published Christian texts grew in popularity among elite as well as ordinary Chinese Catholics. According to 116 legal cases on religious conflict (jiao’an) from the prohibition period of 1724–1847,

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the Qing government confiscated thousands of prohibited Christian publications, prayer booklets, and catechisms throughout China.44 In the tenth year of Emperor Jiaqing’s rule (1805), a Qing minister of the grand council wrote to the general of Chengdu with the criticism that in Sichuan “all Christian families have kept Christian books that men and women study day and night.”45 “Apostolate through books” became a significant means of disseminating Catholicism in late imperial China. Missionaries had to resort to canonical Christian texts to explain religious concepts and requirements to Chinese Christians. The importance of texts lies in the stability of doctrines and the great variety of spoken dialects in China. While orality was one of the most important means of proselytism in Europe, missionaries in China, because of their generally poor command of Chinese, had to rely on written translations. The church had a well-established system to train European missionaries in indigenous languages, but the difficulty of Chinese language acquisition remained one of the biggest challenges to the missionary enterprise.46 Verrolles once wrote, “A missionary cannot be defeated by the language. If he cannot understand the characters he cannot work.”47 Another MEP missionary, Philibert Louis André Simon (1842–1874), shared this sentiment: “Farewell, noble French language. Farewell, my dialect of Melle. My sole ambition henceforth is to speak Chinese well.”48 Verrolles’s and Simon’s ambition to learn the Chinese language and the difficulties they encountered in doing so can be found in almost every missionary’s biography. Ironically, missionaries’ poor ability to speak Chinese reinforced the importance of teaching written texts and literacy to proselytize and to train Chinese catechumens. For missionaries, literacy did not simply mean the mastery of a foreign language. Already literate in at least several Western languages, these missionaries now lived and worked in a totally nonWestern context. In spreading the word of God, in addition to learning to translate the catechism from French to Chinese, they had to learn to interpret the basic concepts in locally acceptable terms. In reporting local religious experience, they had to translate everything from statistical records to comments for literal assessment. The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission (Catéchisme des missions de Mandchourie) in Chinese and French with romanization in both Mandarin and the local dialect, exemplifies the translation process

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of Western missionaries spreading the faith through native written and oral tongues. This crucial yet largely neglected realm of translation practice is a mutual process. On the one hand, there are words and discourses introduced and promoted by Western missionaries. On the other hand, there is a new kind of writing created by Chinese converts who have absorbed missionary and catechetical translation. Language in this analysis includes numerical representation of statistics of local converts and missionary observation. The latter is often ignored in the study of two cultures, but it adds a new dimension to our understanding of translation and transcultural practice: How often did a convert have to confess to turn into a “good” Christian? How many times did communion have to be conducted in a village to turn it into a “good” Christian community? Questions such as these can be answered only by the missionaries who had to confront this further translation from experience to explanation. If literacy provided missionaries with a useful tool for evangelization, it meant much more for local converts. Few cultures have enjoyed a long tradition of literary production comparable to China’s. Literacy in China reflects not only one’s intellectual status but also one’s social status, for literacy and education, measured by a civil service examination system in imperial China, were the gateway to social mobility.49 Before the mass educational movement began in the twentieth century, nonelite Chinese, especially women, had very limited access to literacy. When religious literacy, taught in the widespread Catholic schools and catechismal classrooms, was promoted as requirement for conversion, the Catholic Church virtually provided the first educational network for nonelite Chinese. For example, in Manchuria the MEP began to establish schools in Catholic communities as early as the 1850s. At the end of the nineteenth century, the total number of Catholic schools in Manchuria had increased to 230 in addition to the relatively informal catechismal classrooms established in almost every Catholic community. The church educational network provided unusual educational opportunities for nonelite locals, especially for women, and it predated both the later prevalent Protestant missionary schools and the indigenous mass educational movement for girls in the twentieth century. Protestant missionaries did not enter Manchuria until 1861 when Yingkou was forced to open as a commercial port due to the Treaty of Tianjin. In 1867, missionary William Chalmers Burns (1815–1868)

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of the English Presbyterian Mission arrived in Yingkou, followed by the missionaries of the foreign mission of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI), the United Free Church of Scotland (UFS), and the Danish Missionary Society (DMS). Major players in promoting Christian education in Manchuria, these Protestant societies had established over two hundred elementary and higher primary schools by 1920, but most of the schools were established in the first two decades of the twentieth century, and only a few existed at the end of the nineteenth century. 50 The indigenous mass female learning movement in Manchuria did not start until the early twentieth century, when it was inaugurated by the legendary Manchurian healer and educator Wang Fengyi (1864–1937). Wang started his first girls’ school in Shilitai of Jin County in 1906. By 1925, he had established 270 girls’ schools in the three provinces of the northeast. 51 The so-called Voluntary Schooling Movement (yixue) aimed to educate rural girls. The girls’ schools that Wang founded often were established in villages that had Catholic communities, such as Zhouzhengpu in Haicheng, Zhujiafangzi in Liaozhong County, and villages in Chaoyang County and Nong’an County. 52 It is possible that Wang was competing with Catholic schools already established in these villages, and his agenda was a rival of Catholic Church education in the local society. Wang’s promotion of rural girls’ education was based on traditional morality and Chinese yin-yang cosmology with the teachings of the three religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism). 53 In contrast, religious education provided by the Catholic Church focused on Christian doctrines and catechism literacy. Catechism literacy is the basic curriculum of all Catholic schools, which introduced to Chinese converts, regardless of their gender and age, Christian names, prayers, and hymns. Basic religious literacy as practiced in Catholic rituals helped local Christians express and confirm their Christian identity. For those who received more formal church education in Christian schools, religious literacy provided a tool for an articulation of faith and an opportunity to explore alternative avenues to access power and authority that would not be available in traditional Chinese rural society. Moreover, literacy evoked these converts’ emotions in translating public Christian concepts into their own private words and further articulating their own ideas, as the Du letters demonstrated.

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Catholic education in the nineteenth century implicitly tested the boundaries of faith and gender as defined by rural society. Christianity introduced the notion of faith to Chinese rural society through the instillation of a set of consistent religious knowledge and behavioral doctrines. In regulating Chinese converts, ironically, the Catholic mission in Manchuria also provided female converts with a sense of privacy and security, especially Chinese Christian Virgins, who took vows of chastity and continued to stay with their families. This relatively private space, both physically and spiritually, helped some women, such as the Dus, to practice their literacy and to articulate themselves through writing. As shown by the letters written by Chinese Catholic women in the late twentieth century, Christianity and the transplanted church institutions in which it was embedded have survived in China mainly thanks to the institutions established in the nineteenth century. The systematic indigenous church network, including seminaries, convents, schools, hospices, and orphanages, laid the foundation for Catholicism in today’s China. Its lasting influence is especially evident in the wide spread of church education, which provided a new female literacy to women in rural society. This detailed picture of the Catholic Church in nineteenth-century northeast China provides an empirical base for contextualizing the many social, economic, and cultural conflicts between the Catholic Church and local Chinese society at the turn of the century. The general landscape of Christianity in northeast China is measurable via statistics of the local converts’ religious behavior. The written narratives of female converts shed light on a unique feature of religiosity transforming into an articulation of the self. Annual parish reports, registers of Catholic communities, and the texts of the catechism and the regulations form the basis of my reconstruction of Christianity in northeast China. Missionary correspondence and Chinese female converts’ letters permit analysis of ordinary Chinese converts’ interpretation of faith. Two sets of fundamental concepts—knowledge and behavior, experience and language—frame this book. Translation, in both the literal and the numerical sense, is the key to deciphering multiple negotiations, assessments, and rearrangements of a whole array of contextual elements. In recent years, scholars have told similar yet distinctive stories of how Christianity took root in local Chinese societies: from the east coast to west inland, from the northern frontier to the southwest

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borderlands. 54 To write the history of Catholic missions in Manchuria is not just to add one more story to this scholarship. 55 To write stories of Christianity in Manchuria is to explore, through the windows opened up by rural Chinese Catholic women’s private writings, how nineteenth-century Catholic missions have shaped Catholic Christianity in modern China, and how religious education produced a new female literacy for Chinese women to articulate an awareness of self.

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Religion, Women, and Writing in Rural China

On the first day of the fifth month in 1871, in a small village called Santaizi in northeast China, a Catholic woman named Colette Du wrote a long letter to her French priest, who had returned to France because of poor health. She wrote emotionally to request the priest’s return, “Merciful father, if you are recovered, God’s daughter begs you to come back!” “When God’s daughter realizes that she cannot listen to your instruction any more, she misses you and cries.”1 At about the same time, two other women of the Du family, Marie and Philomene, also wrote to the same priest, “My merciful father, how are you? During the past four or five years since you have gone, God’s daughter feels like a lost sheep without a shepherd.”2 Philomene Du concluded her letter sadly, “If I were not female, I would come to be with you.”3 Six months later, on November 14, these letters arrived in the rue du Bac in Paris, at la maison mere, the headquarters of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP). They were addressed to Dominique Maurice Pourquié, known as Father Lin by his Chinese converts,4 a MEP missionary who had worked in the Manchuria Mission from 1847 to 1870. Unfortunately for Colette, Marie, and Philomene, however, Pourquié had in fact died six months earlier. The priest had passed away, but the letters were preserved, and with them, the rarely heard personal voices of three Catholic women in nineteenth-century rural China. Although imperfect in grammar and spelling, the letters are replete with skillful use of religious vocabulary and imitative expression. The interplay of religious experience, rhetorical skill, and gender relations demonstrated by the Du letters 20

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Figure 2.1. Letter of Colette Du. AMEP 0564:565a-567a.

provides us with an opportunity to reconstruct the voices of Chinese Catholic women and to document how rural Christian converts were able to appropriate heterocultural religious language to express and justify their intimate feelings. On the one hand, through the act of writing, the Du women translated the religious discourse into a private context of desire, love, and familial and spiritual affection, from which emerge an expression of personal emotions, an awareness of self, and an articulation of subjectivity. On the other hand, through the deployment of religious vocabulary and converted personal prayers, the Du women’s private writing becomes a sentimental mixture of religious prayers and reflective meditation. Their spiritual displacement and unique writing style express transcultural Christianity in the rural context of nineteenth-century China. For these women, Christianity was a vehicle of expression rather than of repression, allowing them to use such themes as gender relations, family conversion, and above all religiosity to articulate a new identity that existed outside of the “inner quarters” of traditional Chinese society. 5

The Letters The Du letters are written in dark ink on three large sheets of yellow rice paper. Reading from right to left, the Chinese characters are still clear and distinct a century and a half after their composition. The somewhat awkward handwriting shows that the writers had limited education. They knew how to use a Chinese writing brush, but

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Figure 2.2. Letter of Marie Du. AMEP 0564:569a-571a.

apparently had not mastered calligraphy. The letters often have miswritten or missing characters. The mixed use of the first-person “I” and the third-person phrases “God’s daughter” and “my merciful father” as both speaker and addressee makes the letters read unevenly. Among the three letters, the longest, by Philomene Du, contains 967 Chinese characters, while the shortest, by Marie Du, contains 710. The contents of the three letters are similar, with emphasis on different details. The main subject is the women’s emotional request for the return of Dominique Maurice Pourquié to Santaizi and their reluctance to enter a newly founded convent in the village. m a r i e du ’s l e t t e r Kowtow to submit6 Jesus, beloved merciful father, I hope you are well.7 Merciful father has been gone for a long time. God’s daughter does not know whether merciful father is recovered from illness or not. Merciful father, if you are recovered, God’s daughter begs you to come back! God’s daughter cannot thank you enough for merciful father’s instruction and kindness. When I realize that I cannot listen to merciful father’s instruction any more, God’s daughter misses you and cries. Indeed God’s daughter is a person who loses your instructions and who fails to live up to your kindness. Although God’s daughter cannot listen to merciful father’s instruction any more, God’s daughter depends on merciful father to pray as if God’s daughter was still standing in front of you. My merciful father knows God’s daughter’s pride and indifference. My merciful father and my God, God’s daughter begs you to make

Religion, Women, and Writing in Rural China

Figure 2.3. Letter of Philomene Du. AMEP 0564:572a-573a.

me follow my merciful father’s instruction. Since my merciful father has gone and Father Xi8 died, there is no priest who can instruct and guide God’s daughter. God’s daughter becomes so indifferent. Because of merciful father’s prayers, God kindly bestowed Father Xi9 to rescue God’s daughter and to instruct God’s daughter like my merciful father did. Father Xi did not come often. God’s daughter wanted Father Xi to come often to instruct and guide God’s daughter. My merciful father and Jesus, please ask Father Xi to come more often. God’s daughter often recalls merciful father’s teachings and feels remorse that I hurt merciful father’s heart by not following merciful father’s instructions. Without merciful father’s previous instruction I cannot understand the priest’s teaching today. Now God’s daughter can no longer listen to my merciful father’s instructions. Due to merciful father’s prayers, God’s daughter has benefited a lot from my merciful father’s prayers and God’s kindness. God’s daughter cannot repay my merciful father’s kindness. Jesus and the Holy Virgin Mary, God’s daughter calmly prays to you for my merciful father. Father Xi teaches me to love Jesus, to become Jesus, to love God the Holy Trinity, and to become a saint. My dear father, you should have known whether God’s daughter wanted to become a saint. Father, you know how I could become a saint with such pride and weakness. My merciful father, my Jesus, please teach God’s daughter to love Jesus wholeheartedly, to enter the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to become Jesus, to understand how to love God the Holy Trinity. Now I often see pride inside my heart. My merciful father and Jesus, please teach me to be humble and obedient. Father Xi has guided me to understand a bit of meditation and of sacrifice. My father, please help me to be humble and obedient. Father Bao10 is in charge of a convent in Santaizi. God’s daughter thinks the regulations of the congregation of the Sacred Heart of St. Mary are not as good as the regulations established by my father. I cannot obey other regulations. God’s daughter feels sad as I do not

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chapter 2 want to join them. God’s daughter wants to join the Carmelite Order.11 When you pray, please do not forget your God’s little daughter. I beg my merciful father to ask the priests who live with you and the convents you know of to understand my prayers. Priest Xi gets sick very often. I beg merciful father to pray to God to let him live several years longer. Now Du Guanxian is willing to correct his mistakes. My merciful father, please help him, begging God to be kind to him and let him become warmhearted. Father blesses us Du Xiaoshiyi, Marie, with tears Congregation name: Catherine The first day of the holy month of Saint Virgin Mary There is a nun named Zhao Oufu Mia who asked father to pray for her12

Marie Du’s letter is the most succinct of the three. The first part describes the woman’s emotional and spiritual loss after the departure of the priest. All three women used strong emotional words to express how they miss the priest and feel lost in their spiritual growth. The second part explains the reason why Marie and the other women wanted the priest to return. Apparently they had become involved in a disagreement with another priest, Father Bao or Joseph Boyer (1824– 1887), whose name Marie Du was reluctant to reveal. Boyer pressured the Du women to enter a newly founded convent, the Virgins of the Sacred Heart of Saint Mary, as Marie mentioned. But the women did not want to go, because they believed that the rules of the congregation were “not as good as the regulations established by my father.” The Du women’s dilemma was noticed by another MEP missionary, Philibert Louis André Simon, called “Father Xi” by Marie in her letter. Simon was the one who translated the first nine lines of Marie’s letter into French, written next to the Chinese characters, and sent the Du letters back to Paris together with his own. Addressed to Pourquié, Simon’s letter was dated June 2, 1871. It described the Du women’s conflict with Boyer in more detail. M. Pourquié, June 2, 1871 Mister and Revered Provicar, Here are the letters of your girls. I want to give you a translation of the Chinese characters, but I have absolutely no time. So I send you the rest of their letters sincerely. They always do the same things. Now the poor girls are bitterly struggling in a small storm. They do not want to enter the convent of M. Boyer because it applies only to active religious life. As they trust in me, I will make sure I can resolve this fight for the good of their souls. They have to go to the convent of the Sacred Heart of St. Mary. If in a year the block in their hearts

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is cleared, they will become saints. If the same disorder persists, they can simply leave. I advise them never to enter an institute, for it is of real repugnance. It is difficult for perfection to exist in the obstruction—All I fear is that they have wilted for the trifles and never get worked up—Pray for them. I think they are material to become saints—I second M. Boyer by all my efforts to lead this small foundation to a good end.13

Simon’s letter summarizes the conflict between the Du women and Boyer. The convent Boyer established was the Virgins of the Sacred Heart of Saint Mary. This order was originally founded by Bishop Emmanuel-Jean-François Verrolles in Xiaobajiazi in 1858. In contrast to the Institute of Chinese Christian Virgins developed in Sichuan in the eighteenth century, the Virgins of the Sacred Heart of Saint Mary lived together and wore a religious habit.14 Boyer tried to organize the Chinese Virgins in Santaizi by establishing a similar order, but the Du women found this new kind of institutionalized religious life too overwhelming for them to consider joining the convent. Sympathetic to the Du women, Simon nonetheless supported Boyer’s decision and agreed to persuade them to enter the convent. Although no documents revealing the resolution of the conflict, the letters clearly demonstrate that, at least initially, the Du women of Santaizi, who called themselves God’s little daughters, refused to enter the newly founded convent of Sacred Heart of Saint Mary. The context for this conflict is an important yet neglected piece of history: foreign Catholic female religious orders did not enter China until the second half of the nineteenth century. They introduced a new kind of organized religious life to Chinese women. However, not all Chinese Catholic women were willing to join the orders. There was apparent tension between the Catholic Church’s efforts at institutionalization and the ‘‘traditional’’ Catholic lifestyle chosen by Chinese Catholic women, especially Chinese Christian Virgins such as the Du women, who took vows of chastity but continued to live with their families.15 In Chinese culture, women are able to acquire membership in descent lines only through marriage.16An unmarried Chinese woman, who has no descendants to worship her as part of a lineage, is considered a humiliation in Chinese kinship system and often becomes a source of great embarrassment and concern for the family. Traditionally, unmarried girls were often not allowed to continue living at home.17 The Catholic Virgins in China, however, are an exceptional

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group of unmarried women in Chinese society. Most of these Catholic Virgins were from traditional Catholic families, and in many cases the parents supported their vows of chastity. In 1746, in his memorial to the throne reporting local Christian Virgins, General Xin Zhu of Fuzhou overtly recorded that in Fu’an, “All Catholic families here require at least one daughter not to marry out in order to keep her chastity.”18 The first recorded Chinese Catholic Virgins can be traced back to the sixteenth century,19 and to some young widows who were determined never to remarry. 20 These unmarried Catholic Virgins staying with their parents evoked all kinds of rumors, as voluntary celibacy was regarded with great suspicion in Chinese society. To evade such rumors, the Institute of Chinese Christian Virgins, founded by Father Joachim Enjobert de Martiliat (1706–1755) in 1744, required that all virgins acquire a separate room and avoid contact with males—including male relatives. 21 Many Chinese Christian Virgins participated in the local church work, acting as catechists or teaching in catechismal classrooms. Their vows of chastity and devotion to the church often improved the reputation of their Catholic family in the local Christian community.

The Authors The Du women are unknown to history, even though at the end of the letters, they write down their Chinese surnames, followed immediately by their baptismal Christian names. None of them, however, has a formal Chinese given name as does Du Guanxian, the male relative mentioned in Marie’s letter. The Chinese word guanxian means “the most worthy.” Colette, Marie, and Philomene all carry Chinese names that merely reflect their birth order in the family: Xiaodazi means the eldest, Xiao’erniu means the second girl of the family, and Xiaoshiyi means the eleventh child. As letter writing in Chinese culture is considered serious and often follows rules of etiquette, especially to respected elders and teachers, the Du women, if they had any formal Chinese ming or given name, should have included their Chinese names at the end of the letters rather than using the informal daily forms. In Chinese society, names classify and individuate, and are an important form of self-expression, as anthropologist Rubie Watson observes, “In Chinese society personal names constitute an integral part of the language of joking, of boasting, and of exhibiting one’s

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education and erudition,”22 as well as representing parents’ expectations, especially for boys. The Chinese names of the Du women that are provided in the letters, however, are not actual names according to the Chinese understanding. They contain no individual meanings but rather constitute simple labels to indicate their bearers’ rank in the family tree. “To a large extent women are excluded from this discourse,” wrote Watson, because “the namelessness of adult women and their inability to participate in the naming of others highlights in a dramatic way the vast gender distinctions that characterize traditional Chinese culture.”23 Although the Du family is Catholic and has a number of Catholic Virgins who have developed close relationships with foreign missionaries, it is still an ordinary Chinese family defined by Chinese culture and Chinese rural society, in which women are in a secondary position compared with their male counterparts in the practices of naming. The namelessness of the Du women is common in rural Chinese society, but the Du women are uncommon among nameless rural Chinese women, for they all have their own Christian names. Marie, Colette, and Philomene are three common Christian names in the register of MEP’s Manchuria Mission. In Jean Baptiste Franclet’s (1822– 1907) 1854 register of Catholic families in thirteen Catholic villages in the mountainous region of western Manchuria, Marie is the most popular Christian name for females. 24 Out of 385 Catholic women in Franclet’s register, 102 are named Marie. 25 Christian names gave Chinese Catholic women a new identity that associated them not only with Saint Mary, Saint Colette, and Saint Philomena, or with other European Christian saints, but also with a new system of religious knowledge, discourse, and opportunities that would hardly have been available to other nameless women in rural society. Besides their Chinese and Christian names, the Dus’ self-identification as “God’s little daughters” is another important appellation for deciphering their identity. “God’s little daughter” is a literal translation of xiao shennü. Xiao means “little”; shen means “god,” “spiritual,” or “divine”; and nü means “daughter” or “girl.” When I first discovered the Du letters, the writers’ identity as xiao shennü remained mysterious. Four years later, in the same archives, I found two letters dated 1988, sent from the Holy Family Convent, a community of Catholic nuns established by the MEP in Jilin in the late nineteenth century. 26 The authors of the letters also called themselves shennü, or God’s daughters. My fieldwork in this region in subsequent years

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confirmed that the term shennü—which, to my knowledge, does not appear in any other official Chinese documents—seems to be unique to northeast China. It may refer to Catholic nuns, such as the nuns of the Holy Family Convent, or to lay Catholic women affiliated with Catholic communities of virgins, such as the Du women.

The Background The Family The three letter-writing women share a common family name, Du, and, as their letters demonstrate, they belong to the Du family of Santaizi. Like many Catholic families in northeast China, the Dus were Catholic immigrants from Shangdong. Their ancestors came from Xidu Village, Ye County, Laizhou Prefecture. The household head, Du Shoushan, first led the family move to Shoushan, Liaoyang County, in eastern Manchuria in the early nineteenth century.27 Du Shoushan had two sons, Du Hai and Du Ping. Hai later moved to Santaizi in today’s Liaozhong County, and Ping to Shaling in Liaoyang County, bringing Christianity to both villages. A few years later, these two villages developed into important Catholic communities in Manchuria.28 The specific role of each of the letter-writing women within the Du family remains mysterious, but they all lived with their family. As devoted Catholic Virgins, they cared not only about their own spiritual life but also about that of their family. Marie Du mentions in her letter a relative named Du Guanxian, who is Catholic but apparently indifferent. Similarly, Colette Du also talks about her family: Merciful father, all the members of my family, old and young, expect you to come back. I beg you to come back! When my family and my father see me, they always ask me when you come back. I beg you to pray for my father. My father is still indifferent. Now my relatives who are outside of the Church want to know about God and to serve the Church. It is all due to your prayers, and to Father Xi’s and Father Bao’s prayers. I Hope God enlightens their hearts!29

An early twentieth-century missionary, Charles Robinson, observed, “In Manchuria, to a greater extent than in almost any section of the mission field, the growth of the Church has resulted from the efforts made by the converts to influence their friends and neighbors.”30 Colette’s letter supports Robinson’s observation, which refers to a key concept in China: family, kinship, and social networks play

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important roles in traditional Chinese society. Here they also play central roles in conversion in local communities. The Village Santaizi is a small village located in today’s Liaozhong County, about seventy kilometers south of Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning. Lying on the west bank of the Hun River, the village is surrounded by a vast, fertile alluvial plain. As in many other Manchurian areas on China’s northeast frontier, relics of a frontier fortress and defensive side walls, built between 1448 and 1566 in the mid-Ming dynasty, run along the north edge of the village. Although the village is insignificant in China’s political landscape, it was one of the most important spots on the map of Catholic Manchuria published by the MEP in 1904. According to Bishop Emmanuel-Jean-François Verrolles, there were 170 Catholics living in Santaizi as early as the 1840s.31 The Catholic church of Nansantaizi, or southern Santaizi, was established in March 1864 by Joseph Boyer.32 Pourquié came to Santaizi around 1860, after establishing seven stations in this area. In 1865 there were already two missionary schools for girls.33 Boyer called Santaizi a “good village” in his parish report of 1865.34 Similarly, Philibert Simon praised Santaizi as a “true Christian parish, like a delicious oasis in the desert of paganism.”35 Santaizi was supervised by the MEP from the 1840s until the early 1950s, when all missionaries were expelled from China. During the century, about ten missionaries-in-residence lived in this village, and almost all of them maintained good relationships with prominent Catholic families such as the Dus. For a long time, until Liaozhong County was officially established under the governance of Fengtian prefecture by the late Qing government in 1906, Santaizi was a natural community with little state presence. To a large extent, the village church served as the village government, and missionaries, local priests, and prominent Catholic families such as the Dus virtually administered the village’s daily affairs. Archives show that the Du family had established a good reputation and was able to assemble Christian villagers for collective action. During the Boxer Rebellion, for example, Santaizi, like other Christian communities, was deeply threatened by a massive anti-Christian movement. In 1901, several months after the Boxer Protocol was signed, a Du family member named Du Yintang summoned two hundred

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Christian villagers and kidnapped a general inspector named Shan Ying, who, according to the Dus, had not kept his promise to protect the Santaizi Catholics during the Boxer Rebellion.36 The village survived many destructive anti-Christian political movements in the nineteenth century, and remains Catholic today. A Catholic church that was demolished twice, in the 1900s and 1960s, was rebuilt in the 1980s and now stands at the south entrance of the village. The Missionary The Du letters were addressed to Dominique Maurice Pourquié, a MEP missionary who was born on January 28, 1812, in the parish of Saint-Nicolas in Toulouse. Ordained on December 21, 1839, at the age of twenty-seven, Pourquié became a minister in his diocese. At the age of thirty-four, he entered the seminary of the MEP. After six months of training in Paris, Pourquié left for Manchuria on October 21, 1846, with Charles Émile Colin, and arrived in Manchuria sometime between late 1846 and early 1847.37 Pourquié was one of the four initial MEP missionaries assigned to the Manchuria Mission. 38 He started his work in Songshuzuizi in 1849, moved to Xiaoheishan in 1850, and continued to Yangguan in 1852–53. From 1854 on, he was in charge of the Catholic post of Bajiazi. In the same year, he was nominated apostolic provicar or assistant deputy to the bishop. Three years later, Pourquié moved to Lianshan and Jinzhou, where he founded a new Catholic post. In 1858, he moved to Shaling. He worked in this area, which includes the village of Santaizi, until 1870. By 1862, Pourquié had established seven stations in the area, and there were 1,065 Catholic converts under his supervision. Pourquié returned to France in 1870 due to illness. Shortly after his return, on May 9, 1871, he died in Paris. Only eight days before his death, on the other side of the earth, his Chinese followers had written their long and emotional letters to him asking desperately for his return. The Du letters depict Pourquié as a kind and beloved father. In fact, among the nine missionaries who worked in the Manchuria Mission before 1862, Pourquié showed a particular interest in converting Chinese women. Pourquié left us a few letters. In 1858, he wrote a long letter about the life of a Chinese woman whose conversion to Christianity had changed her life. After describing the difficulties of mission work in China in the opening paragraphs of the letter (“The triple icy wind of selfishness, indifference, and realism has covered the unfortunate earth

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of China in a thick layer of ice”), Pourquié suddenly changed his tone and began to talk excitedly about a Chinese girl who had been born into a poor pagan family and had converted to Christianity after marriage. Pourquié wrote emotionally about the woman’s life story until her death and praised her as “a little flower.”39 Pourquié’s writing style is similar to that of the Du women, explicit and emotional.

Writing and Literacy: Personalization of Faith Our understanding of Christianity in rural China has long been constructed through the study of official decrees, missionary writings, legal documents of religious conflicts, local gazetteers, and journals by Chinese literati and mandarins. Due to the lack of documents, few studies have incorporated the voices of rural Catholic women. This is not just because men, whether foreign missionaries or local elites, have dominated the representation of rural women. Rather, rural women without access to education lacked ways of expressing their views through written texts. The Du letters are thus unusual in the Chinese epistolary tradition in two ways: they were written by rural women, and to a male, foreign priest. Reading and translating these letters is not easy. Their writing style is awkward and confusing, and they are filled with mistakes. Among the three authors, the handwriting of Colette Du is the worst, and she makes the most mistakes. The letters were proofread by their authors, who sometimes carefully add missing characters between the lines or rewrite an entire sentence: To correct her letter but keep it neat, Colette completely rewrote five sentences and phrases. Today the two layers of paper with distinctly different characters are clearly visible in Colette’s letter. The same “cut and paste” method is employed in all three letters. It is clear that writing was a serious endeavor for the Du women and requires a great deal of effort. Even though they tried to write well, they could not help but make mistakes. The current version of the letters, the result of their careful proofreading and correction, thus accurately reflects the level of these women’s literacy and their diligence in sending their best work to their spiritual advisor. Spelling A careful reading of the letters reveals the following types of mistakes: wrong characters (cuobiezi), missing characters, and incorrect

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character order. There are four forms of wrong characters: homophone substitution; misuse of different characters with similar pronunciations; misuse of different characters with similar written forms; and wrongly written characters. Homophone substitution is the most common mistake in these letters: writing the wrong Chinese character that is pronounced the same way as the intended character. The most common reason for this mistake is the writer’s limited understanding of the character’s meaning. Without knowing exactly which character is correct, the writer just chooses whatever sounds correct. Since there are so many homophones in Chinese, homophone substitution is a common mistake for beginners in Chinese language. In the letter of Colette Du, as table 2.1 shows, among the 864 Chinese characters Colette wrote, there are forty-two incorrect homophones and nineteen missing characters. Fourteen of the latter have been added to the letter later. Besides wrong and missing characters, there are also some grammatical errors, such as incorrect ordering of characters. The orthographic practice in the letters is phonetic. The phonetic spelling is the biggest problem in the women’s writing. Colette uses the character dao, or “to arrive,” fourteen times in her letter, but nine of those fourteen times are incorrect. Five times she confuses it with a homophone that means “to know.” Four times she confuses it with another homophone meaning “path.” She also misuses characters with similar pronunciations, such as shui (“who”) and sui (“to follow”). In the dialect of northeast China, people do not distinguish between the phonemes sh- and s-, so it is easy for them to confuse the two characters phonetically. Examining Colette’s writing in detail, the most striking error concerns the words zhi, “to know,” and buzhi, “to not know.” In the first six lines of her letter, Colette writes three times the phrase “you know” and once “I do not know.” Unfortunately, she writes all of them wrong. An inspection of the mistakes indicates that Colette apparently knows the character zhi and its meaning of “to know,” and she is able to use it in affirmative expressions. But surprisingly she is not able to use the character correctly in a negative expression. For example, in sentences such as “I do not know,” she always uses the homophonic character of an auxiliary verb, rather than the correct character. One explanation for this odd writing mistake is that Colette has not received formal training in literacy. Instead, she has learned the character “to know” by memorizing it in its rigid affirmative form in certain templates. Consequently, she does not truly

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table 2.1. characters and writing mistakes in the du letters

Characters

Unique characters

Unique Mistakes mistakes

Missing (characters added later)

Incorrect order of characters

Colette

864

194

42

25

19 (14)

3

Marie

710

188

12

9

12 (12)

0

Philomene

967

233

28

13

34 (33)

2

source :  Colette Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), Marie Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), and Philomene to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (May 1, 1871), AMEP 0564:565a–572a.

understand the grammatical rules of the verb of “to know.” Therefore, when it is necessary to use the character in its negative form, she has to resort to the phonetic spelling and to choose the most familiar homophone in her daily life experience. Colette’s poor use of homophonic characters stands in sharp contrast to her accurate use of sophisticated characters of religious vocabulary. She is familiar with a character that means “to pray” and wrongly uses it in place of the common verb “to rise.” This is an unusual case of confusing a common everyday character with a more unusual, religious homophone. The three letters are written in the same way and have similar phonetic spelling mistakes. Such odd spelling errors demonstrate that the Du women are more familiar with religious words than with common words. Instead of spelling and grammar textbooks, they appear to have learned writing through religious education and through memorizing characters from certain religious templates, such as the catechisms used in this region. The catechism of the Manchuria Mission was written in vernacular language, and the pedagogy of catechism is based on constant repetition and correction.40 Catechism is also an examination of converts’ ability to memorize.41 In each parish there were catechists whose major responsibility was to examine local converts’ literacy of faith. The Du women’s writing clearly relies on mere imitation, because they are unable to use the same character correctly in different sentence styles. In other words, they have not been taught the principles of spelling and writing. Instead, they write according to their familiarity with catechist textbooks. Whenever their intended message goes beyond the religious template, they write it according to their experience of the spoken word. The Du women’s literacy is constructed through instruction of God and faith. They employ religious

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language awkwardly to articulate their thoughts. Therefore, their writings end up full of odd spelling mistakes, and their personal feelings are voiced in mixed and transformed religious language. Religious Vocabulary and New Devotion For the Du women, religion appears to play a catalytic role, facilitating their articulation of personal feelings. They are not afraid to expose their affection for the foreign male priest. Their expression of love is in fact accentuated by their unique epistolary style, infused with spelling errors and accurate religious terminology. The religious language of devotion that they skillfully use in the letters seems to have contained a certain stimulation of the sentiments they sought to express. In other words, their feelings are constructed and defined through the language of devotion. Imitation becomes the most fundamental narrative form to articulate self.42 In her letter, Philomene Du vividly describes her desperation by using the passionate language of devotion: Father, please beg God to forgive God’s daughter’s big sin that I fail to live up to God’s kindness. Jesus and Holy Ghost, please bring my father back! My father, you know all my big sins, big pride, weakness, and indifference. If you cannot come back to pray for God’s daughter and do daily Mass, please remember to pray for God’s daughter whenever you pray to God. My father, you said that you wanted God’s daughter to enter the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Father, please ask Jesus to teach me how to enter the Sacred Heart and stay in there forever. Sometimes when I realize that I do not know on what day I can see my father again, God’s daughter’s heart suffers more. God’s daughter wants to enter the Sacred Heart of Jesus to meet my father. Then Jesus can help me remember my father’s instruction. My father, since you have gone, there is no other priest like you who knows my heart. The words that you told God’s daughter come to my mind now. Other priests do not understand what I am saying and I cannot understand what they say. God’s daughter’s heart is so bitter.43

The writing of Philomene is the best among the three, and she is able to use the first-person “I” and the third-person noun “God’s daughter” appropriately in most places. Through her use of religious phrases and expressions, Philomene’s desperation becomes an emotional exclamation. Her exclamation to God always precedes her emotional appeal to the priest. The religious vocabulary and expressions learned from catechism and prayers provide her with a means

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of passionately expressing her feelings of being lost. Philomene writes, “During the past four or five years since my merciful father has gone, God’s daughter feels like a lost sheep without a shepherd.”44 This is a Biblical expression. Since the Du women are pious converts, their familiarity with religious expressions is not surprising. But their skillful use of them to articulate personal emotion is impressive, given their poor level of literacy and writing. The religious exclamations intensify their emotional appeal and make their strong and explicit personal feelings a legitimate reason to request the priest’s return. The most distinctive term used in the above passage from Philomene’s letter is the “Sacred Heart of Jesus.” This denotes a religious devotion to Jesus’s physical heart. Such devotion is predominantly invoked in the Roman Catholic Church, and it stresses the central Christian concept of loving and adoring Jesus. Pictured with Jesus’s bleeding heart, the Sacred Heart of Jesus represents the divine love for humankind. It also emphasizes the indifference, coldness, and ingratitude of the majority of people toward Jesus’s presence in the Blessed Sacrament.45 In its modern form, this devotion originates with a seventeenth-century French Catholic nun, Saint Marguerite Marie Alacoque (1647–1690), who allegedly learned the devotion directly from Jesus in visions. Alacoque’s vision of Christ reaching into her body to remove her heart and placing it within his own brought new attention to this particular devotion in Europe. Promoted by the Jesuits, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus soon became a popular theme targeted at lay Catholics and a response to religious reforms. After the eighteenth century, when anti-Jesuit factions such as the Jansenists began to dismiss it as a sentimental and embarrassingly anti-intellectual devotion, the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus revived in the nineteenth century. According to some scholars, “For the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth, the Sacred Heart defined ‘Frenchness’ for French Catholicism.”46 In the revival of Catholicism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Sacred Heart became a central icon not only in France but also worldwide until the Second Vatican Council.47 The vision of Alacoque deeply affected the three Chinese women. Philomene, Colette, and Marie all use the Sacred Heart in their letters to describe their emotional attachment to the priest. In contrast to the vision of Marie Alacoque, the Du women envision the Sacred Heart in relation to their beloved father, Pourquié. Philomene enters the

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heart of Jesus by herself to meet her father: “God’s daughter wants to enter the Sacred Heart of Jesus to meet my father. Then Jesus can help me remember my father’s instruction.” In Philomene’s mind, then, she can see Pourquié again only if she enters the Sacred Heart. Colette has a similar expectation: “I hope to enter the Sacred Heart of Jesus just as you do.” “My merciful father, if I want your teaching, I will read it in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” Marie knows the most religious terms: “My merciful father, my Jesus, please teach God’s daughter to love Jesus wholeheartedly, to enter the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to become Jesus, to understand how to love God the Holy Trinity.” As the Du women understand, entering the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the best means to meet their father and to define their religiosity. Unlike Alacoque, who is taken and led by Jesus to enter his heart, the Du women all envision entering the Sacred Heart themselves. For the Dus, the purpose of entering the Sacred Heart is intertwined with both spiritual pursuit and personal desire to meet their father and to recall his teachings. The Du women appropriate devotion as a personal appeal. Theologically, devotion to the Heart of Jesus means becoming a noble part of his divine body. In the devotion, there are two elements: a sensible element, the heart as flesh, and a spiritual element that the heart of flesh recalls and represents. The devotion is based entirely upon the symbolism of the heart. To the Du women, however, the Sacred Heart signifies only the heart of flesh. The love of Jesus Christ and the moral life of Jesus that is metaphorically signified and symbolized by the word “heart” are completely missing. The vividly described meetings with Pourquié in the Sacred Heart easily transcend time and space, allowing the illusion that both “God’s daughters” and their “merciful father” participate in the same present moment. They also easily bridge the gap of divinity between the priest and his converts. The women’s repetitive use of the Sacred Heart to request Pourquié’s return draws on two devotions: to God and to their priest. Their exclamations to Jesus Christ are always juxtaposed with the exclamation of “father, my merciful father.” Although the modern devotion to the Sacred Heart focuses on lay Catholics’ attention to Jesus, in exploiting the forms and techniques of devotion, the Du women’s ritual fascination with the Sacred Heart cultivates and articulates their own personal and emotional attachment to the priest. This displacement of sacred devotion and private emotion demonstrates the Du women’s appropriation of what they learned from religion. The

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women display a gift for employing forms drawn from the religious context to demonstrate their own personal emotions. The employment of the devotion of the Sacred Heart to demonstrate personal attachment makes it possible for religion more generally to serve as the cultural host for evolving sentimental forms. The Du women’s inner emotions are accentuated by the iconic object and the vivid description. Later, in the early twentieth century, Chinese women writers would revel in exclamations of love and sexuality. But the Du women’s articulation of personal sentiment simply borrows naturally from the forms of religious devotion, catechism, and confession that are discussed in greater detail in the following chapters. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the lack of formal education for girls in rural China provided an opening for foreign missionaries, whose religious education mingled spiritualities, sentiments, and passions. It empowered female converts to construct their independent contributions to the discourse of faith and religiosity.

Writing as Confession: Articulation of Self Writing is a means for the presentation of self. The articulation of self in epistolary writing has a long tradition in Western literature.48 In the relatively longer history of Chinese epistolary literature, however, we seldom find an established way to articulate self, particularly for women.49 In many cases, women lack the legitimate language to articulate and express their intimate feelings, and there is little room in traditional Chinese society to value their feelings. The Du women were faithful Catholics living in a village. They received limited education by converting to Christianity. They wrote neither to exhibit their refinement nor to gain any sort of social mobility. Their letters display a unique style of writing that is different from that of literate women in traditional Chinese society, and they differ from Christian women’s writing produced in the cities.50. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, Christian women’s writing has emerged against the background of formal missionary school education. Western missionaries, particularly Protestants, came to China and established a number of schools for girls in towns and cities. Respecting the authority of the Bible, the Protestants followed its dictates and encouraged education in reading and writing for their converts. By contrast, the Catholic Church required respect for the authority of the priesthood and the pope through devotion to the

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Blessed Sacrament. Reading, writing, and literacy were usually not encouraged. However, the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission required that the missionary should provide all Christian children in his district with a truly Christian education; in order to achieve this, he should establish in each Catholic community, or at least in each principal area, one catechist school for boys, and one for girls. 51 Such an educational network made possible the instillation of religious literacy, the effects of which went beyond conversion. The Du women were apparently the beneficiaries of this Catholic educational system. Confession and the Awareness of Self In the letters, the Du women employ the language of devotion to express their sense of self. Their use of religious vocabulary and Catholic devotion makes the Du women’s epistolary writing close to a form of confession. Their language—represented by emotional words such as “pride,” “indifference,” and “weakness”—is expressing not necessarily an emotional state of humility or shame but a life experience refracted through a set of spiritual conventions and the language associated with them. Philomene wrote, “My father, you know all of my big sins, big pride, weakness, and indifference.”52 Marie expressed frustration, “Now I often see pride inside my heart. My merciful father and Jesus, please teach me to be humble and obedient.”53 Colette, likewise, wrote, “Merciful father, you know God’s daughter is weak and confused.”54 The repetitive reference to sins makes the Dus’ writing a heartfelt confession. Although in the Catholic tradition converts are not expected to write, the Du women not only write but also display a considerable religious literacy and boldly express their intimate feelings to a person both foreign and male. The exclamation “My father” is the narrative key to the Du letters. Solitary confessions, like individual prayers, are aspects of private religious experience already established in the public discourse of the Catholic Reformation. Individual confession is virtually encouraged. It constitutes a structural analogy that facilitates the sentimental displacement: confession to God, letters to the priest. Triad of Saint, Father, and Daughter Another distinctive feature of the Du women’s writing is the interplay of third-person nouns such as “saint,” “father,” and “God’s

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table 2.2 frequency of reference to saints, father pourquié, ,and selves in the du letters

Shengren 圣人 [Saint]

Shenfu 神父 [Holy Father]

Enfu 恩父 [Gracious Father]

Cifu 慈父 [Merciful Father]

Shennü 神女 [God’s Daughter]

Xiao Shennü 小神女 [God’s Little Daughter]

Xiao Nü 小女 [Little Daughter]

Colette

1

11

35

15

21

0

0

Marie

3

15

37

0

32

1

0

Philomene

2

34

2

4

26

1

5

source :  Colette Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), Marie Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), and Philomene to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (May 1, 1871), AMEP 0564:565a–572a.

daughter.” Saints are mentioned in each letter, but the term is mostly used generally or in the abstract. “Father” has three forms: shenfu, or “holy father”; enfu, or “gracious father”; and cifu, or “merciful father.” In most places the forms refer to Pourquié but imply subtly different meanings. In the letters, the first-person pronoun “I” is usually missing. Instead, all three Du women call themselves “God’s daughter” to refer to the first-person subject. The interplay of the three terms, illustrated in table 2.2, reveals the spiritual and emotional world within which the Du women understand the relationship between God, Pourquié, and themselves. Saint  How to become a shengren, or saint, is a central theme in the Du women’s letter-confessions. Both Colette and Philomene express their willingness to “walk the saintly path.” A letter by Pourquié dated 1858 best illustrates the MEP’s preaching on direct emulation of the saints as the way to personal holiness. In that letter, Pourquié depicts the life of a Chinese woman who followed a saintly life by offering charity to poor people: Being faithful to fill the office of Martha, she feared at the same time to hear her divine master reproach her for talking to the Holy Virgin. She strove to join the life of St. Mary, her sainted sister. Each day at the crow of the rooster, she got up while everyone else in her family was still sleeping quietly. Her heart overflowed before her God in prayers and meditation. Every day, she could say with the royal prophet: I watered my couch with tears, my heart was broken with grief and love to remember the suffering of the savior. 55

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Pourquié also describes the saintly death scene, with miracles, of this pious Catholic woman. The Du women were instructed in the “saintly way” by Pourquié, and they write to him, “My dear father, you should have known whether God’s daughter wanted to become a saint. Father, you know how I could become a saint with such pride and weakness.”56 The Du women’s sacred desire, however, is soon formulated in the personal and emotional request for Pourquié’s return. Philomene writes, “I know that without holy fathers like you who can guide me, remind me, and help me, I cannot walk the saintly path by myself.”57 Similarly, Colette cries out, “Merciful father, help me. I am willing to walk a bit of the saintly path. I have no power to pray for myself.”58 In this touching appeal, the Du women tend to depict themselves as weak and powerless. The nineteenth-century female saint Thérèse of Lisieux, known as “The Little Flower of Jesus,” once cried out, “To become a great saint!”59 Encouraging converts to become saints or “little flowers” was the MEP’s preaching strategy—especially with regard to female converts. In his letter, quoted above, Pourquié begins by praising the pious Chinese Catholic woman using this metaphor: “Please allow me to offer you a rose of charity. It blossoms under the freezing blow of a deadly breeze in Manchuria. No doubt you were astonished when you received this little flower from so far away.”60 The association between “a little flower” and the daily life of Chinese Catholic women, between sanctity and pain, is emphasized and reinforced in the preaching. The dynamic of passion even allows the Du women to describe their miserable religious life without the priest with a level of intensity that renders it in some ways analogous to the experience of suffering saints. Their suffering after Pourquié’s departure is not meaningless. Although they themselves are modest, the missionary Philibert Simon writes confidently in his letter, “I think that they are material to become saints.”61 Father  Fu, literally translated as father, is a key term in dissecting the emotional complex revealed by the Du letters and the relationship between Pourquié and the Du women, in which establishing intimacy is essential to the sense of privacy.62 As Simon’s translation of Marie Du’s letter shows, Pourquié’s Chinese was surprisingly not good enough to allow him to read the letters himself, even though he had worked in China for about two decades. What, then, replaces

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language as a medium to establish the relationship between the priest and his converts? The usage of “father” in three different forms— “holy father,” “merciful father,” and “gracious father”—provides us with a clue. The term “holy father” is the literal translation of the Chinese term shenfu, or priest, normally used to address Catholic priests, both local and foreign. In the Du letters, “holy father” is used alternately with “merciful father” (cifu) and “gracious father” (enfu). Neither of the latter two terms has religious connotations, and both can be used to address one’s biological father in daily life. The frequency of the terms used in the three letters demonstrates the degree of emotional attachment that the Du women felt to Pourquié. Colette, for example, uses “merciful father” and “gracious father” many more times than “holy father.” In fact, for Colette, “holy father” is a term to refer to priests other than Pourquié. She uses “merciful father” and “gracious father” exclusively to address Pourquié, and where she does employ “holy father” in reference to Pourquié, she changes it to “gracious holy father” in her subsequent editing. It seems that Colette tries hard to differentiate Pourquié from other priests and to establish an intimate relationship between Pourquié and herself. In contrast to Colette’s emotional attachment to Pourquié, Philomene appears more serious and tries to define her relationship with him in a relatively more formal way. She uses “merciful father” only four times and “gracious father” twice. Instead, she prefers the most formal term, “holy father,” to address Pourquié. What makes Philomene so reserved and demure is perhaps her awareness of her own gender. By concluding her letter sadly with “If I were not female, I would come to stay in front of you,” Philomene demonstrates that she has realized the limitations imposed by her gender, which perhaps makes her less bold in expressing her emotions in writing. As the alternating use of shenfu, cifu, and enfu shows, Pourquié represents not only a sacred representative of God, who could bestow on the Du women honor and grace, but also a realistic relative, who could offer them solutions to everyday difficulties—most prominently, their refusal to enter the convent established by Joseph Boyer. The convent that Bishop Boyer set up in Santaizi is one of three female congregations founded in China by the MEP, and it is the first female congregation founded in northeast China.63 The Du women’s refusal to enter this convent is historically important but also demonstrates a primarily emotional and personal conflict rather than defiance of

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the increasing institutionalization of the Catholic mission in China, for the women did express their willingness to enter other convents, such as the Carmelite Order and the convent of Saint Teresa.64 Most probably it was an uncomfortable personal relationship with Bishop Boyer that made them reluctant to join the convent and simultaneously prompted their urgent request for Pourquié’s return. What makes their refusal so significant is the transformation of the relationship between the church and the converts. During the transitional period, when the foreign convents entered China and the indigenous female congregations were founded, individual missionaries played an important role as mediators between the church and the converts. As demonstrated by the Du letters, the women not only trusted and loved their missionary but also identified their personal attachment to him as a religious devotion that they juxtaposed to joining a convent. Their personal defiance did not gain much support, as indicated by Simon’s letter. With the rapid expansion and development of the Catholic Church in northeast China, religious communities of women came to pose an increasingly important challenge to the personal and emotional bonds between local converts and individual foreign missionaries that had developed in the early years of the mission. God’s Daughter  As discussed earlier in this chapter, “God’s daughter” is a unique term used in northeast China to indicate Catholic nuns or Christian Virgins. In the letters, shennü (“God’s daughter”), xiao shennü (“God’s little daughter”), and xiaonü (“little daughter/girl”) are used alternately. In contrast to the former two, “little daughter” is a common word used in daily life. Philomene is the only one who selfidentifies as “little daughter,” a term with no religious connotations that implies a close and intimate relationship and a weak self-representation. She is also the one who has a clear awareness of her own gender. In her letter, she writes explicitly, “My father, you know women are useless.”65 The instances in which Philomene calls herself “little daughter” are all connected to her complaints about her current situation without Pourquié. Through their alternating use of divine and secular addresses, the Du women implicitly establish an association among female converts, male priests, and the saints. This affiliation can be interpreted in divine terms, within a family framework as father and daughter, or in a social world as teacher and student. All framings test certain moral and cultural boundaries in Chinese rural society.

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Conclusion Religion provided the Du women with an outlet for expressing their intimate feelings, while religious educational templates provided them with particular patterns in which to articulate such feelings. For women in rural society, Christianity established a connection with God, giving meaningful direction to their austere daily lives. Christianity also established a connection between them and foreign male priests, allowing them to use their intimate emotions as an outlet. At the same time, their writing, narrative, and expression also reflect a process of appropriation and personalization of faith. In the Du letters, Christianity, no matter how awkwardly it is learned and used by Chinese Catholic women, provides a set of new discourses for articulating an awareness of self, a concept deeply alien to traditional Chinese culture. This new Christian discourse gives Catholic women the possibility of looking at themselves from a perspective very different from their everyday experiences. By appropriating this transplanted religious discourse in writing, the Du women have begun to explore a self that would hardly be recognized in Chinese culture. The Du letters also provide us with a unique opportunity to analyze the interplay of religious experience, rhetorical skill, and gender relations in nineteenth-century Catholicism in rural China. The Du women stress the parity between the loss of one’s priest and the loss of religious piety. Their adaptation of religious expressions and forms is distinctly imitative. They play upon ambiguities of religious language across cultures, appropriating the spiritual forces of devotion to serve their personal sentimental articulation. In this creative appropriation, writing becomes a transformed personal confession. Letters and prayers, two distinctive forms of private communication, mingle and stimulate each other. The Du women invent their own epistolary style by appropriating religious vocabulary and spiritual devotion to serve their own selfexpression and self-construction. In this construction of self, they permit their passions to overwhelm nineteenth-century conventions concerning women and their personal relationships with men. Their personal obsession with the foreign male priest, however, does not trespass the gender line in society. The Du women write in response to a hierarchical and androcentric environment. They develop ways to phrase their personal appeal that match the requirements of the

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church. Religious historians argue that women were especially active in converting to Christianity, which, in turn, had a reciprocal influence in promoting the position of women in the religious realm of Chinese society. The Du letters illustrate this awakening by rural Catholic women to the possibilities that religion offered them.

chapter 3

Religious Knowledge and Behavior

The Catholic catechism was developed by the Council of Trent to confront the challenge of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. The council defined such essential Church teachings as original sin, justification, the sacraments, the Eucharist in Holy Mass, and the veneration of saints.1 After years of discussion, the council commissioned the Catechism of the Council of Trent, or the Roman Catechism, to confirm Christian doctrine and to improve the theological understanding of the clergy. 2 The catechism formed the basis for the pedagogy of Catholic knowledge. It embodied the council’s far-reaching results, including the definitive determination of the doctrines and reforms of the church and the duties of the clergy. It was the most important text of the Catholic Church for domestic clergy and for Christian missions to non-Christian countries. The Roman Catechism, however, was not originally intended for common use by the laity; rather it was a general-use reference book for priests.3 The Catholic revival and missionary movement in the nineteenth century necessitated a catechism that all Catholic faithful—not only priests but also lay Christians and people outside the church—could relate to and understand. The catechism of Saint Pius X, authorized by Pope Pius X, was developed in the nineteenth century and finally issued in 1908. It was a small book, fewer than fifty pages, that presented all of the essentials of the Christian faith and morality in a simple but comprehensive questionand-answer format. Saint Pius X emphasized the necessity of catechismal instruction not only for children but also for adults. Besides the 45

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catechism of Saint Pius X, various popular Catholic catechisms have been developed since the catechism of the Council of Trent.4 Most of them employed simple language and aimed to raise both interest and understanding among the faithful as well as among non-Christians. In China, early European missionaries from the sixteenth century onward developed different types of catechetical writing, primarily focused on revelation and the nature and knowledge of God. 5 These early works included theological writings, apologetic works on Christian doctrines, biographies of saints and sages, sacraments and liturgy, and prayer books. Besides translating essential concepts, these early Catholic writings all tried to engage in a dialogue with conventional Chinese wisdom, particularly Confucianism, for the early missionaries, especially the Jesuits, were interested in converting educated Chinese elites and official-scholars rather than the largely illiterate populace. Indeed, the spread of Christian writings in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China was an important strategy for Ming-Qing Catholic missionaries. During the prohibition of Christianity in the eighteenth century, Christian writings, such as mission regulations, ritual pamphlets, and prayers, spread widely underground in local Catholic communities and became popular among ordinary Catholics. The Qing court, in dealing with hundreds of religious cases (jiao’an), even concluded that “all Christian families have kept Christian books that men and women study day and night.”6 These Christian catechetical and theological books played an important role in helping local Christian communities organize their religious activities, and they enabled Catholicism to survive and become indigenous in mid-Qing China.7 With the revival of the Catholic mission in the nineteenth century, many popular Catholic catechisms were published in China.8 The new catechism was different from the individualized Catholic writings previously circulating in China, and it followed the strict pattern of questions and answers. Under the influence of popular nineteenthcentury catechisms in Europe, the Catholic catechism in China during the missionary expansion period developed its own features.

The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission (Catéchisme des missions de Mandchourie) issued by the Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP) in the late nineteenth century, contains four parts:

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1. Fundamental Truths 2. Commandments of God and of the Church, Sins and Virtues 3. Grace and Sacraments 4. Prayer and Liturgy9 The catechism defines Catholic knowledge, including essential concepts of God, Trinity, heaven, hell, purgatory, resurrection, judgment, commandments, sin, sacraments, church, and prayers such as Pater Noster (the “Our Father” or “Lord’s Prayer”) and Ave Maria (“Hail Mary”). The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission, like the Saint Pius X catechism, is simple and brief. Its 170 pages include the French text, two kinds of romanization, and a Chinese text that is composed of 860 of what missionaries thought were the most common Chinese characters. The Saint Pius X catechism is directed at the laity, with the goal that all Catholic faithful could relate to and understand it; the simple language and straightforward format is consequently necessary. The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission, in addition to serving the same purpose, is aimed at the “new French-language missionaries working in Manchuria or north China,”10 who supposedly lack experience of indigenous languages. The catechism thus serves two main tasks: first, it is an authorized manual for spreading the word of God to the laity; and second, it is a language textbook to help French-speaking missionaries who are new to the mission. Format The Manchuria Mission produced a sophisticated and refined version of the Catechism of the Manchuria Mission that was multilingual and multidimensional. In addition to the Chinese and French texts, it contained two kinds of romanization indicating the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation and the northeast dialect pronunciation. Unlike alphabetic written languages, Chinese characters are pictographic and ideographic. To learn a Chinese word means learning both to pronounce it and to write (or read) it, which are separate activities. China is a vast country with many different dialects. A standard form of the written Chinese language was established in the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE), allowing a common means of written communication despite the dramatic diversity of dialects of Chinese spoken in

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different places.11 The main difference between the pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese and that of the northeast dialect lies in their tones. The lack of a correct pronunciation guide would thus compromise local people’s ability to understand the romanized text. Providing the romanized pronunciation in the local dialect allowed the foreign missionary to read the Chinese text aloud with locally correct tones, even without knowing the characters’ written forms. Romanized texts linked two different dimensions of Chinese language—written and spoken—and helped the French missionaries with limited Chinese literacy to communicate better with the local Chinese Catholics. The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission was thus printed in two languages and four different orthographies. Each page was divided into two halves. The upper half had three columns, the left column featuring the Chinese text, the middle the romanization for Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, and the right column the romanization for the northeast dialect pronunciation. The bottom half of the page contained the French text. To facilitate cross-checking, the text was divided into identical small, numbered sections. The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission presented perfect uniformity of two different languages (Chinese and French) and two types of language (written and spoken). Romanization was the key that linked two languages that represented two worlds and two cultures.12 The unity of the written and spoken worlds exemplified in this catechism expanded literacy as a symbol of elite culture to include the daily life experience of an ordinary Christian. The catechism functioned as a medium of Christian knowledge and pedagogy, influencing Chinese Christians, shaping their spiritual experiences and everyday behavior. The catechism was both a source of religious literacy and a behavioral doctrine that would generate transformative force. Contents The content of each of the four parts of the catechism is divided into three categories according to the estimated degree of difficulty for local Catholics: beginning, basic, and advanced. In the first part, on fundamental truths, four articles in the opening preliminary section introduce a set of essential Christian concepts to establish and justify a relationship between God and human beings. The teaching starts with the first article, which concerns the ultimate purpose of human existence: “Question: Why do we exist in

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the world? Answer: To worship God and to save our souls” (CMM 1).13 This opening article introduces two fundamental concepts of Christian faith: God and soul. However, the concepts of God and soul do not appear as exclusive nouns. Instead, the concepts are introduced in a relational context: God is to be worshipped by human beings; and our souls are to be saved by God. The simple yet condensed words in the first answer straightforwardly establish the relationship between God and human beings. The following two articles explain the answer to the first question. “To worship God” means “to know, to love, and to serve God” (CMM 2). “To save our souls” means “to avoid going to Hell and to ascend to Heaven” (CMM 3). These two answers introduce three proactive behavioral concepts crucial to the Christian faith (to know, to love, and to serve) and two new Christian concepts (hell and heaven). Unlike the first three articles, which focus on concepts, the fourth and last article in the preliminary section concerns behavior. It details how to worship God. “Question: In what way to honor God?” “Answer: To join and serve the Christian Church established by God; to believe entirely the revealed doctrine; to obey the Commandments; and to use well the established means in order to obtain blessing” (CMM 4). The fourth article, by mentioning the concepts of church, doctrine, commandments, and rituals, presents the four essential teachings of this catechism. The following six sections in part 1 elucidate the concepts of God, Creation, Jesus Christ, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church, and “Four Last Things” (death, judgment, hell, and heaven) in condensed and abstract language. The concept of God, for example, is followed by the concept of the Trinity. The idea of the Creation consists of the notions of angels, “first parents,” souls, and original sin. To explain these supernatural concepts, which are alien to most indigenous people, all answers appear in simple yet abstract language. “God is pure spirit; no form, no figure” (CMM 7). “God exists by himself; no commencement, no end” (CMM 8). “God is everywhere” (CMM 10). Mastery of these three essential definitions of God is required for beginners. The words are simple, but the notions are complicated. Similar language also characterizes the definitions of the Trinity, the soul, and the descent of the Holy Spirit. In a word, the language of the Catechism of the Manchuria Mission denaturalizes Christian concepts to make them more comprehensible to local Christians. Memorization of the essential definitions is mandatory.

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This first part of the catechism gives an introduction to essential Christian knowledge by defining fundamental Christian concepts. The definition of each concept, no matter how conceptual the language, is considered to belong to the beginning level, which in part 1 includes definitions of the following concepts: God, Trinity, Creation, angels, “first parents,” original sin, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary, resurrection, the Church, and the “Four Last Things”. These concepts collaboratively picture a Christian life different from the ordinary, earthly one. Conversion to Christianity means starting a Christian life constructed by these concepts. Specifically, it means learning about the concepts, accepting the definitions, and believing in the teachings. The Christian knowledge defined and introduced in this part is a prerequisite and a precondition for all Christian conversion. Without the acquisition of this body of knowledge, converting to Christianity is impossible. The second part of the catechism concerns behavioral codes and moral guidance for the faithful. It consists of three sections on the Decalogue, sin, and virtue. The first question in this part asks, “In order to save the soul, is it enough to believe the doctrines revealed by God? Answer: No. We should also entirely observe God’s Commandments” (CMM 108). God’s commandments (or the Ten Commandments) are precepts bearing on fundamental obligations of religion and morality. These imperatives were written by God and given to Moses in the form of two stone tablets. There is no numerical division of the commandments in the Book of Moses. Saint Augustine established the system of numeration of the commandments in the fifth century in his book Questions of Exodus, and this was later accepted by the Council of Trent. The current system of numeration found in Catholic Bibles is the result of historical arrangements. Although the content is the same, the division of the Ten Commandments of the Roman Catholic Church slightly differs from that of Judaism and of Orthodox, Anglican, Reformed, and other Christian denominations.14 The division of the commandments in the Catechism of the Manchuria Mission conforms to the standard Catechism of the Catholic Church. It starts with the precept of worship of the one true God and ends with the prohibition on the unlawful possession of goods. The remainder includes specific sins under profanation (wrongful use of God’s name and neglect of the holy day); different species of moral wrong under covetousness (adultery, theft, and dishonesty); and the

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protection of people’s natural rights to life, bodily integrity, and reputation. Of the forty-eight articles in the section on the Ten Commandments, eleven are considered beginning level, and eight advanced. Articles at the beginning level use simple words to define each commandment in the most straightforward way. Advanced articles focus on further explanation of each definition or clarification of the precept in specific conditions. The division of the commandments is universal, but the explanations feature indigenous content pertinent to China, especially at the advanced level. On the first commandment about worship of the one true God, for example, there is the question “What is the difference between our worship of Angels and Saints and the pagan worship of Buddha, Laozi, idols, and other bad spirits? Answer: It is very different. The worship of Angels and Saints is justified and leads people toward God. The worship of Buddha, Laozi, idols, and bad spirits is superstition and incites people to betray God” (CMM 122). In plain and simple words, this answer differentiates the Catholic God from Chinese popular gods, and it confirms the Christian faith in the one, true God in contrast to all other, non-Christian worship, which is identified as superstition. On the fifth commandment of “You shall not kill,” one article further explains that not to harm one’s body means “not to commit suicide, not to get drunk, not to smoke opium, and not to take various actions to harm one’s body” (CMM 138). All of these actions violate the sacred relationship between humanity and God. Among them, the mention of smoking opium refers to a severe social problem in Chinese society. In the second half of the nineteenth century, addiction to opium drove society into chaos; some scholars estimate that in the late nineteenth century there were between one and forty million opium addicts in China, representing about 10 percent of the population.15 After the two Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860), the MEP took strict action against opium. Not only in the catechism but also in the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission (Règlement de la Mission de Mandchourie), smoking and dealing opium were strictly prohibited. Following the Ten Commandments are the “four precepts of the church.” The four precepts concern ritual behaviors: attendance at Mass, abstinence on holy days, confession, and communion. The latter two—confession and communion—are two of the seven holy sacraments, and the third part of the catechism goes into great detail on the significance and practice of these two rites. This section offers

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rules of personal conduct in the form of specific quotas for the frequency of necessary confession and communion. The third precept stipulates, “All the faithful above the age of reason should confess at least once a year” (CMM 168); “All the faithful above the age of reason should receive the Eucharist at least once a year” (CMM 169). The catechism further clarifies that “at least” means that the church hopes the faithful will participate in communion more than once a year, indeed, the more often, the better (CMM 170). Such a requirement of personal conduct regarding confession and communion is extremely important. In the MEP’s annual parish reports, yearly confessions and yearly communions are two fundamental measures by which the missionaries evaluated local Christians’ religious behavior. The third part of the catechism concerns the sacraments. The faithful are divided into two groups: sinners and good believers beloved by God. Baptism and confession are sacraments for the sinners; all the rest are for the beloved ones. As the first step of conversion, baptism is the most important sacrament, because without baptism one cannot ascend to heaven and cannot participate in the other sacraments (CMM 210). Confession is one of two ways to receive sanctified grace from God; prayer is the other. The last part of the catechism consists of prayers and knowledge of liturgical holidays and Holy Days. The latter is considered advanced knowledge, difficult for common Christians to understand. Knowledge of the content of the three primary prayers, the Pater Noster, the Credo, and the Ave Maria, is required of all Christians, but the explanation of each prayer is not required of beginners. Pater, according to the catechism, is the most important prayer, because it comes from the mouth of God and is the most critical for the salvation of souls (CMM 337). The catechism emphasizes the importance of the study of essential Christian knowledge. The catechism defines catechumens as those who “sincerely accept the Catholic religion, renounce superstitions, and study the Catechism” (CMM 212). The study of the catechism is of equal importance to the acceptance of the faith. Also, “understanding the Catechism is a prerequisite to receive confirmation” (CMM 226). Study of essential Christian knowledge and the progression from learning to belief are integral parts of Christian faith.

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Classification and the Degree of Faith As a guidebook of the Christian message as well as a language textbook, the Catechism of the Manchuria Mission divides catechetical knowledge according to the literacy and diligence of the faithful. The eighty-seven articles at the beginning level introduce essential Christian concepts (God, Trinity, heaven, hell, purgatory, sin, and church), rules (the Ten Commandments), facts (resurrection, judgment), and behaviors (the seven sacraments and the Pater Noster and Ave Maria prayers). All of the faithful (including young children and the elderly) must learn the definition of each concept, rule, behavior, and fact. According to the regulations, memorizing and understanding these concepts, rules, and prayers are prerequisites for baptism, especially for adult catechumens. The 112 articles at the basic level, intended for all adult Catholics, also explain essential concepts and rules and provide details on facts and behavior. However, unlike the beginning-level articles, which define concepts in the simplest words, most articles at the basic level focus on the conditional boundaries of each concept’s definition or on the special behavior required to fulfill certain obligations. In the preliminary section on God, for example, three articles explain specific deeds required of the faithful to be saved. “To worship God” means “to know, to love, and to serve God” (CMM 2). Worshiping God means “to join and serve the Christian Church established by God; to believe entirely the revealed doctrine; to obey the Commandments; and to use well the established means in order to obtain blessing” (CMM 4). This article associates Christian truth, rules, and rituals with the church, whose hierarchy is also defined: “The faithful should listen to the instruction of priests; priests should listen to the instruction of bishops; bishops should listen to the instruction of the Pope. In doing so, according to the word of God, we are bound together” (CMM 82). Regarding specific rules of behavior, the catechism of the basic level focuses on what the faithful should do rather than on what they should not do. This pedagogical strategy makes faith easier to understand and to practice. The 169 articles at the advanced level are required of all priests, catechists, and other lay Catholics who are intelligent and have enough time to study. This part of knowledge contains (1) notions too abstract for the “average” Christian to understand, such as explanations of the Trinity, purgatory, soul, grace, and benefits; (2) details

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on ritual and church administration, such as required procedures, detailed requirements and explanations of sacraments, and explanation and administration of Christian feasts; (3) the life story of Jesus Christ; and (4) explanations of prayers. All of this knowledge concerns the explanation of essential Christian notions, administration, and prayers. It deals with intellectual understanding rather than with devotional ritual and sacred experience. The three categories of the catechism signify three levels of literacy and diligence required by the Catholic Church of the Manchuria Mission. Local Christians are thus classified into three groups: the young and the old; the most intelligent and dedicated; and those in between. As most adults in rural northeast China were occupied by work in the fields or other necessary labor, time devoted to learning was also taken into consideration. Age, intelligence, and diligence are the three determinates of this classification. According to the classification criteria, the content of the Catechism of the Manchuria Mission is thus largely laymen-oriented.

The Regulations of the Manchuria Mission To evangelize and establish new missions in non-Christian countries, most congregations and religious orders issued their own versions of mission regulations to enforce the principles of the Catholic behavioral code defined by the church. The aim of the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission was to implement the Catholic knowledge provided in the catechism and to regulate the religious behavior of both missionaries and local Christians. In a vast and alien region with little Christian legacy, the purpose of the regulations was not only to regulate religious behavior but also to impose uniformity, authority, and hierarchy in local society. The Regulations of the Manchuria Mission (Règlement de la Mission de Mandchourie, henceforth RMM) were issued in 1881 by Bishop Constant Dubail at the Synod of Shaling and published in Paris in 1882. Fourteen of the twenty-two MEP missionaries of the Manchuria Mission participated in this synod. In his opening remarks, Dubail emphasized that these were regulations specifically designed for the Manchuria Mission and that their importance was thus self-evident. Reflecting the concern of the Holy See, the Propaganda Fide urged superior bishops in all missions to propose regulations containing the principles and practices of apostolic work for

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their missionaries to ensure that they conduct the sacred ministry properly. The regulations contain three chapters: “Holy Sacraments,” “Personnel,” and “Administration of Christians.” The first chapter on sacraments lists rules for six of the seven sacraments—baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, holy unction, and marriage. The second chapter on personnel contains rules for church personnel, including both priests and active lay Christians—missionaries, indigenous priests, Christian Virgins, catechists, indigenous administrators (huizhangs), and “domestics of the fathers” or servants (domestiques des pères). The third chapter on administration sets out rules regarding the adaptation or regulation of local practice and tradition. This chapter includes rules about routine missionary work (annual visits to Catholic villages, supervision of Catholic schools, and fundraising for church maintenance), secular activities for local Christians (betrothals, lawsuits, funerals and playacting, music and gambling, affectionate relationships and mutual protection), and religious associations for lay Catholics (establishment of religious societies). For each specific aspect, the regulations carefully lay down rules to control Chinese indigenous practices to avoid blasphemy. The regulations turn out to be a prudent behavioral guide closely associated with the essential Catholic concepts embodied in the catechism. The overarching aim of all of the principles within the regulations is to establish uniformity within the mission. Dubail states that the first uniformity to be established is that between a missionary’s private life and the exercise of his holy ministry. The second goal is to regulate Catholic behavior in a new mission, even though local Christians may interpret some of the rules as unwelcome. The third goal is to unify all missionaries of the mission under the strict hierarchy of the church. Based on the regulations, missionaries should also transmit this hierarchical uniformity to indigenous priests, catechists, and ordinary local Christians. Listening to and following the authorized voice with charity, respect, and complete submission are the most important principles of the regulations. In fact, efforts to regulate and unify the mission started a decade before the regulations were published. The compilation of annual parish reports, for example, represented the most important work for all missionaries since the mission was founded. In the first three decades, from the 1840s to the 1860s, the format of parish reports remained highly personalized. Although all parish reports contained

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essential sacramental and demographic information regarding each Catholic community in Manchuria, it seemed unclear how many details were necessary and how specific the statistics should be. Not until 1873 was a standard form for statistical parish reports printed and widely used. At that time, the early evolution of the mission had resulted in significant progress in institutional development, and the number of local Christians had increased considerably. In the 1880s, the mission moved into a relatively stable and rapid phase of development. The task of unifying and regulating local mission work and the necessity of establishing authority to strengthen the hierarchy became urgent. However, for missionaries in the Manchuria Mission as well as for local Christians, these rules became a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the missionaries were encouraged to work intensively with the local Christians. On the other hand, they had to avoid establishing intimate relationships with local Christians, not only with women but also with men—their indigenous assistants, translators, and catechists. More importantly, to safeguard the required hierarchy, the missionaries had to continuously maintain their dignity, both in their holy ministry and in their daily activities. All of these goals required detailed rules regarding such issues as proper dress and contact with women in private confession. For local Christians, the Catholic behavioral rules, which aimed to teach them submission and obedience, sometimes produced side effects with subversive implications for rural Chinese society. A change in the rules for confession, for example, sought to avoid church scandals. But the decrease in public confessions and in the publicity of private confessions emphasized a growing sense of privacy, which was novel to Chinese Christians, especially those from rural backgrounds. In addition, the emphasis on religious literacy for the baptism examination, or the study of the catechism, made religious education an unavoidable necessity for all local Christians. Religious education and the attendant introduction of literacy embodied a transformative potential for local Christians’ achievement of an awareness of self. These rules, which sought to regulate the behavior of missionaries and Chinese Christians, induced some unexpected results with important consequences for rural Chinese. While the catechism transmitted essential Catholic knowledge to define Catholic faith in China, the regulations sought to implement the formalistic display of such faith.

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Both knowledge and behavior were integral parts of the MEP’s Manchuria Mission. Requirements for Baptism The catechism thus established the religious knowledge required of local Christians, and the regulations sought to implement such knowledge through rules of behavior. Baptism was the first and the most important sacrament to achieve this goal. The regulations presented strict rules on the examination of catechumens before baptism. This prerequisite raised the bar for Christian conversion and turned the process of conversion into a process of education. The catechumen should always be examined in the doctrine before being admitted to baptism. This examination should never be completely abandoned to the laity. It is moreover desirable for the missionary, before baptizing the adults, to propose to each person a private conversation. During this interview the priest should ask them carefully and discreetly about certain delicate points, which ignorance or dangerous illusion would cause them to neglect, such as commutative justice, sins against the sixth commandment, etc. (RMM 1.1.15)

In the Catholic Church, a catechumen was someone who underwent training according to the principles of Christian faith with a view to baptism. He or she had not yet been baptized. “As the acceptance of Christianity involved belief in a body of doctrine and the observance of the Divine law, it is clear that some sort of preliminary instruction must have been given to the Christians.”16 Those who were baptized as children had equal need of education but with a different theological foundation. The regulations also prescribed rules for adult rebaptism, for which examination of the validity of the previous baptism and the adult’s confession were essential. The above rule stated that an examination of Christian doctrine was obligatory for every adult Catholic. The personal interview proposed by this rule intended to test the catechumen’s understanding of Christian concepts. The rule singled out two of the Ten Commandments: commutative justice of the seventh commandment (“You shall not steal”) and sins against the sixth commandment (“You shall not commit adultery”). Both commandments belonged to the knowledge classification that the catechism designated for beginners. These two seemingly simple doctrines, however, contained complicated

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moral connotations, which directly affected the Christians’ everyday behavior. Three detailed rules on how to examine a catechumen’s knowledge of the catechism were listed in the fourteenth rule of baptism: Catechumens from other vicariates can be admitted to baptism only after accurate information about them has been collected and verified. Except for exceptions made for the sake of good, the examination of a catechumen before baptism takes about one year. To be admitted to baptism, the least educated catechumen should at least know how to do the sign of the cross and be able to recite the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, the Credo, and the commandments of God and Church; the acts of faith, hope and charity; the act of contrition; the first volume of the Catechism; and half of the Catechism of the Eucharist. Those who learn more easily should know all of the Catechism and the prayers of the morning and the evening. This prescription does not affect old people, half-idiots, and others who are unable to memorize. (RMM 1.1.14) This rule, in accordance with the catechism’s knowledge classification, divided the local Christians into different groups according to their intelligence and diligence. It further gave detailed instructions regarding the knowledge required of each group for the baptism examination. It included the most basic Christian behavioral code: the sign of the cross and the three prayers; the fundamental Christian moral code of the Ten Commandments; and the most basic Christian truths of faith, hope, and charity. The first volume of the catechism, mentioned above, referred to Christian knowledge, including God, the Creation, Jesus Christ, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church, and the last judgment. This rule singled out the sacraments of confession and Eucharist. The first half of the catechism on the Eucharist referred to Mass and the Holy Communion. These aspects constructed the required basic understanding of the Catholic faith. Advanced Catholics must display understanding of the complete catechism and pray more frequently. The long fourteenth rule of baptism sought to translate the teachings of the catechism into behavioral guidance for local Christians in

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their post-baptism daily life. A Christian’s identity, according to the catechism and the regulations, was constructed, displayed, and reaffirmed by a series of educational and behavioral instructions. Such behavioral rules were especially crucial for a mission in a non-Christian country with a distinct culture. To reinforce Christian knowledge and behavioral education, in addition to rules on baptism, the section on the missionaries of the Manchuria Mission emphasized again the importance of education, especially of children: On Sundays and compulsory feast days, missionaries should announce the word of God to the faithful. The instruction should be carried out after the reading of the gospel. The entrance of the church or chapel should remain open at all times during the service. We can close the door during the sermon only if this measure is judged necessary to maintain a prayerful atmosphere. According to a practice current in the ecclesiastical region of the north, catechumens can be admitted to assist in the sacred service after the Sanctus and the Consecration. These same catechumens should, as much as possible, attend the compulsory catechism instruction given to children on Sundays or on compulsory feast days. The missionaries must be very careful never to forget this second instruction. (RMM 2.1.5)

This rule encouraged catechumens to participate in the sacred service and in catechism lessons. The education of catechumens was a responsibility of the church. In the early years of the mission, however, the number of missionaries was rather limited. Even in the 1880s, when the regulations were issued, the increased number of priests could not fully meet the needs of the rapidly growing Christian population. Besides indigenous priests, who were authorized teachers of Christian knowledge, the church also had to recruit lay Christians, such as catechists and Christian Virgins, into the teacher pool, which guaranteed routine religious instruction in local communities. Catechumens could also participate by assisting in the sacred service. This rule sought to transform the religious education of a catechumen into evangelical behavior and to further associate religious education with Christian activity. The baptism of children was, however, problematic and made the adult baptism examination more meaningful. No examination was required to baptize young children until they reached the age of confirmation, usually around seven years old. In the early years of the mission’s development, baptizing as many young children as possible became its foremost task. The regulations prescribed that “if

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Christian parents who do not fulfill their religious duties present their children to be baptized, their request should be approved even if the indifference of the parents is excessive and even if the missionary cannot guarantee the future education of the children” (RMM 1.1.11). This rule admitted children from irresponsible and indifferent Christian families to baptism. To a large extent, this was the actual practice of the Manchuria Mission, especially in the early decades after the founding of the mission. In his annual parish report of 1850–51, missionary Siméon Berneux commented that in Kalima, a Catholic village in Manchuria, children under the age of twenty were very ignorant. He demanded that mothers take responsibility for helping their children learn the catechism before his next visit; otherwise the mothers would not be admitted to confession.17 The catechism, as Berneux pointed out, played an important role in how the Manchuria Mission construed baptism. It was not only the most important part of the baptism examination for adults, but also a central focus of doctrinal manuals for Christian children’s religious education after baptism. According to the regulations, baptism also meant the start of a lifelong process of catechism education. Such educational redundancy sought to strengthen local Christian identity and to guarantee the exactness of new Christians’ post-baptism Catholic faith. Regulating Dress Code Costume is one of the most evident means of demonstrating one’s identity. A popular picture of the famous early missionary Matteo Ricci shows him in the costume of a mandarin. During the time of the Rites Controversy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European missionaries, especially the Jesuits, widely accepted Chinese costume and used Chinese dress as a social code to gain access to and make a favorable impression on Chinese mandarins. In the nineteenth century, when the Manchuria Mission was founded, the situation for Catholic missions in China had become favorable. Transcultural dressing was no longer approved as a missionary strategy to attract upper-class Chinese. In fact, later missionaries renounced many of the Jesuits’ strategies in China. The MEP missionaries, in particular, were determined to uphold the exactness of Catholic doctrine and refused compromises with Chinese customs. This general rule,

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however, had to be adjusted for most MEP missionaries working in the countryside. Although dress was in most cases a means to establish rather than to hide missionary ecclesiastical identity, and displaying authority and dignity was an important task for a new mission, in their daily lives the MEP missionaries were still encouraged to dress as laity. The aim was to avoid common hostility from ordinary Chinese directed at foreign strangers, especially in rural society. To meet these goals, the regulations contained many rules about dressing for particular occasions. The general dress rule stipulates: European missionaries who always appear in the eyes of pagans, who are very suspicious and skittish about things that differ from this country, should always during their journeys wear their lay costume, like that of honorable Chinese. This costume should be the most irreproachable and as complete as possible. Any elements that appear to be either sophisticated or singular, such as the colors red, yellow, violet, green, and sky blue, should be avoided. The white robe is tolerated during the summer; the lay costume of any other foreign country is absolutely prohibited even in the smallest detail. In fact, the long black robe will conveniently replace the ecclesiastical costume that is worn in France. (RMM 2.1.7)

The main purpose of this general costume rule is avoidance of suspicion among ordinary Chinese. Unlike the early Jesuits, who deliberately dressed like educated Chinese elites, the MEP encouraged use of the common lay Chinese costume. Apparently, winning the favor of as many potential local Christians as possible was a more urgent goal than securing the favorable opinion of the local gentry and elites. In addition, most Catholic communities of the Manchuria Mission were distributed in rural areas; the dress code there was not as rigorous as it was in cities, where early Jesuits tried so hard to gain access to the court. The MEP’s lay-dressing strategy in the midnineteenth century demonstrated a new age of the Catholic mission in China that witnessed a wave of missionary activity and a rapid growth in the number of Chinese Catholics but also, at the same time, slowly increasing hostility toward foreign missionaries and the Christian population. Avoiding suspicion and hostility, however, did not mean compromising authority and dignity. In each section concerning the sacred sacraments, specific rules regulate proper missionary dress. The basic rule was to wear a stole and to maintain cleanness. In the Eucharist for the sick, for example, the regulations prescribe that if the communion

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has to be conducted in a domicile, “the priest should, as far as possible, wear the stole under his coat or under whatever clothing he has if not a coat” (RMM 1.3.6). Similarly, in confession, the regulations order that “to listen to the confession, the missionary should always wear the stole” (RMM 1.4.6). The priest who blesses a marriage must follow a stricter requirement. He should be “covered by the white surplice and the stole, but not by the white robe with the stole folded on the chest” (RMM 1.6.7). On other occasions, cleanness is also emphasized. To administer unction to Chinese Christians who live far away from the missionary residence, the regulations remind that “the invited priest who is to administer the sacrament should note all prescriptions of the ritual and take the precautions that are recommended for the administration of holy communion in order to ensure the cleanliness and decency that belong to the apartment of the sick” (RMM 1.5.2). To protect the dignity of the sacred sacraments, rules of costume existed for ordinary Chinese Christians as well. In a rule concerning the Eucharist, the regulations decree that “those who present themselves at the holy altar should never be admitted if they appear unkempt, wear overly dirty clothing, or have a careless demeanor” (RMM 1.3.3). Other rules, such as keeping the room neat and tidy for the holy communion of the dying, sought to create an honorable occasion to establish the authority of the missionaries and to confirm the dignity of Catholic sacraments. For certain lay Christians, whose identity might generate suspicion in traditional rural society, the dress code was also set austerely. A Christian Virgin, for example, had to follow very strict costume rules: “The Virgins should provide an example of simplicity and modesty. In consideration of their condition, they should avoid in their costumes, their shoes, and the arrangement of their hair excessive feeling for elegance” (RMM 2.4.3). According to the regulations, the costume of Chinese Christian Virgins was a showcase to display Christianity to ordinary Chinese. Simplicity and modesty had not only religious significance but also moral connotations. As all Christian Virgins took vows of chastity, their state of celibacy must have seemed very suspicious in a rural society that assumed marriage was a woman’s destiny. Modesty of costume was supposed to safeguard these Christian Virgins against rumors, but the austere dress code was also intended to conceal their sexual attractiveness, especially to foreign male missionaries. Many

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Christian Virgins served as teachers in catechism schools and were actively involved in evangelization. Their contact and relationship with the male missionaries always aroused suspicion on the part of local people. The dress code for the Christian Virgins was, however, only one of the many rules that the church established to regulate gender protocols between the Virgins and the missionaries. Rules on Gender The rumors about foreign missionaries in Chinese society never ceased, especially rumors of sexual affairs between male missionaries and female Chinese Christians. Regulating the behavior of missionaries and avoiding scandals was an urgent task for all missions. The Regulations of the Manchuria Mission list a number of strict rules governing missionaries’ contact with Chinese women, both Christian and non-Christian. The most general rule about meeting with nonChristian Chinese women is given in the first section: When important affairs require a meeting with women, we can meet in the church or in the oratory, but never in a private apartment. The discussion should be simple and short, and we should always observe all rules of prudence and discretion. We should never forget that familiarity, which is disapproved by the pagans themselves, could always be dangerous to us and extremely incriminating to our work of evangelization. During the visit, we should never allow these women to serve us at table; their entering the private space and the apartments of our residence is strictly prohibited. (RMM 2.1.4)

Obviously, avoiding direct and private contact between foreign male missionaries and Chinese women was a concern of the church. Private contact was often circumscribed by the nature of the meeting space and conversational behavior. All of the missionaries’ private spaces were prohibited to non-Christian women. Restricting contact between missionaries and non-Christian women also implied a criticism that non-Christian women themselves were the source of sexual scandals involving male missionaries. The bigger concern for the Manchuria Mission was contact between missionaries and female Chinese Christians. All sacraments (especially confession and unction, which require personal and physical contact with the local Christians) were under careful scrutiny. For holy unction, for example, the regulations prescribe that “it is neither necessary nor expedient to expose completely the feet of the infirm

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women. The unction should be done to the upper part of the feet” (RMM 1.5.3). This rule applied particularly to China, as many rural women in the nineteenth century had bound feet, which had sexual connotations in Chinese culture. Confession is by nature a private rite involving only the confessor and the priest. The regulations explain that in a location where no confessional has been duly installed, the missionary should “place a screen between himself and the penitent in order to separate them,” and this prescription is “especially required for the confessions of women.” The rule further specifies that “it is never allowed to listen to female confession at night, except if the penitent is severely ill; in that case, the door of the apartment where the sick penitent lives should be left open” (RMM 1.4.7). The rules regarding missionaries’ contact with Chinese Christian Virgins are particularly strict. The regulations say that “it is forbidden for a missionary to give direct assistance to a Virgin for her personal subsistence. He is, however, allowed to give money from his own pocket to support the foundation or prosperity of communities” (RMM 2.4.6). Besides avoiding contact with foreign male missionaries, Chinese Christian Virgins were also advised to avoid contact with other males, even male family members. “Those who live with their families, unless they have a special exemption, must have a separate apartment from the rest of the family” (RMM 2.4.5). “If one of the girls becomes a subject of scandal for others or remains obstinately disobedient to the missionary, she must be excluded publicly from the Virgins” (RMM 2.4.4). Avoiding scandal and being submissive and obedient were strongly emphasized. In addition to the mission regulations, all Christian Virgins had to follow in their private conduct the twenty-five rules, or “the regulations on Chinese Christian Virgins” (Tongzhen xiugui), formulated by the founder of the Christian Virgins movement. These rules regulating contact between missionaries and Chinese women demonstrate the church’s anxiety about and efforts to avoid scandal, but in practice, contact between the missionaries and female Christians often went beyond that permitted by the church regulations; scandals were unavoidable. The regulations were important not because they established certain gender roles in reality. Rather, their significance lies in the authority and hierarchy that the behavioral code conveyed to both missionaries and Chinese Christians. These rules set up behavioral guidelines and depicted an outline of

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the Catholic Church, which was especially important for a newly founded mission. Rule Change on Privacy Examination of the regulations demonstrates that changes to them could have implications that went beyond the original intentions of the Catholic Church and introduced new concepts to Chinese society. The concept of privacy was one of these. According to the Catechism of the Manchuria Mission, confession means “a clear and distinct accusation in front of the priest of each sin that has been found in the examination.” Among the seven sacraments, confession is a private ritual between a priest and a believer. Privacy is thus an inevitable requirement of this sacrament, and a private space is required for its performance. A change that the MEP enacted regarding the rules of confession and penance, discussed below, introduced the concept of privacy to rural Chinese. Confession, the Catholic sacrament of penance, has been one of the most important rituals in Catholic history since the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The Council of Trent confirmed the necessity of confession by those who committed sins after baptism. Penance, therefore, is a key to understanding a culture in which identification of fears besetting the faithful intersected with the promotion of a sense of guilt and security imposed by the church. Forgiveness is the core of Christianity. By communicating the divine pardon to the faithful, priests become the most important mediators between the faithful and the divine. In some cases, as the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission dictate, “the priest can refuse holy absolution to certain sinners, but the priest cannot refuse to listen to their confession” (RMM 1.4.1). The imposed obligation of annual confession is a Christian’s basic religious responsibility within the Roman Catholic Church. Since the Catholic Reformation, confession as a ritual began to transform into a mode of private communication. In a series of studies on a great many late medieval and early modern texts pertaining to the practice of private confession, historian Jean Delumeau shows that private confession served as a mutual process that promoted a sense of security for the faithful; the Church, in turn, exacted from them in exchange an explicit confession. Delumeau argues that no other Christian church (or, for that matter, other religion) has placed as much emphasis as Catholicism has on the repeated and detailed

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confession of sins. By this incessant questioning, confession makes a powerful contribution to the knowledge of the self.18 To protect confession as a private ritual, the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission first reduced the frequency of public penance. In early Christianity, the public penance was often imposed on penitents who publicly spoke about their sins or obtained forgiveness for those sins by practicing prayer, good deeds, fasting, and almsgiving.19 The Regulations of the Manchuria Mission stipulates that “no public penance should be required without the permission of the apostolic vicar.” It then explains that in all cases, this public penance should be in keeping with procedures that have been demonstrably beneficial for the mission in the past, that is to say, the public confession of a committed sin by the penitent in the Church. It must take place at the beginning of Sunday Mass or on an obligatory holiday, and it can only be required as a salutary means for the prevention of a public scandal. (RMM 1.4.5)

This rule was formulated after the Synod of Beijing “because of the fear that the authority of the Church might suffer damage if this kind of repression is too frequent” (RMM 1.4.5). The second change made by the Manchuria Mission was to revoke the rule, approved in the early years of the mission, that required the number of confessed penitents to be publicized before the day of communion: “Posting or suspending a public sign in the sacristy or on the confessional so as to broadcast to the penitents the number of communions to be administered the next day is absolutely forbidden” (RMM 1.4.8). The key change effected by the revised rule was to end the practice of announcing publicly the number of Chinese Christians who had confessed. What motivated this change was the implicit goal of protecting privacy. According to the Manchuria catechism, only those who have confessed can participate in communion and receive the Eucharist. Reflection on and confession of one’s sins represented a process of exposing one’s inner (usually dark) self. The prohibition of public announcement of the number of penitents implicitly encouraged further exposure of one’s self in front of the priest, for the revised rule reduced the possibility that the public would come to know a penitent’s wrong deeds. In a rural society where a closeknit community tended to publicize each member’s private affairs, the revised rule created a new standard for protecting local Christians’ privacy.

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Together with the increasing sense of privacy, however, came an increasing fear of scandal that was prompted by direct and personal contact between missionaries and female Christians. To avoid familiarity and personal attachment between the penitent and the priest during confession, the regulations also issued rules to make this private ritual as unenclosed as possible: “In churches with better supplies, the confessional should be installed in a visible place, and if, for some reason, the place chosen is in the sacristy, the door should remain open throughout the confession. This rule is waived for people affected by deafness” (RMM 1.4.7). The rule change on confession and penance resulted in the promotion of privacy for local Christians; the reasons for the changes were more complicated. In the second half of the nineteenth century, when more and more foreign missionaries came to work in China, legal conflicts involving missionaries and general hostility among the Chinese populace also increased. The church had to exercise caution and reduce its exposure instead of promoting it so as not to raise public suspicions and resentment. Especially after the Second Opium War (1856–1860), which was ignited by the persecution and death of MEP missionary Auguste Chapdelaine in Guangxi, the MEP deliberately revised its administration in all China missions. Compared to other regions in the second half of the nineteenth century, northeast China was not a heated arena of religious conflicts, but its rule change best illustrates the general concerns of the MEP in its period of expansion. Both the lowering of the requirement of public penance and the cancellation of announcements of confession numbers had the key effect of reducing publicity. As a result of this reduced publicity, however, the increasing privacy had a subtle impact on the local Christians and made them aware of alternatives to realize their selfhood. The Eucharist and Swallowing The regulations admonish that with respect to the sacrament of the Eucharist, “no one may ignore that the sacred elements must be swallowed, not kept in the mouth until they are dissolved or confused with saliva. Our Christians are sometimes dangerously naive in this regard” (RMM 1.3.4). The Eucharist embodies a complicated and sophisticated Christian conception, one usually incomprehensible to ordinary Christians, especially in a non-Christian country. The catechism introduces the basic concepts of the Eucharist, and the above

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rule in the regulations further teaches the correct way to receive the Eucharist. In Catholicism, the Holy Eucharist is the sacrament that contains the body and blood of God. For the laity, not swallowing the bread (the body of Christ) means not receiving Holy Communion at all. Apparently, before this rule was issued, many Chinese Christians did not truly understand the concept and consequently received the Eucharist incorrectly. This rule specifies the correct behavior in receiving the Eucharist, and the key concept is swallowing. The Eucharist constitutes a key controversy in religious debates between many theologians and historians. The act of swallowing is therefore closely associated with the church’s understanding of and response to such theological disputes. The Roman Catholic Church usually forbids chewing the Eucharist and requires believers to swallow the Eucharistic bread before opening their mouths again. This is a way to show as much respect as possible for God while He is with one, and to prevent any part of the Host from falling out of the mouth. In this way, the Catholic ritual of the Holy Communion represents a truly sacred experience, as the Christ is directly involved in the action of the Eucharist. The significance of swallowing lies in the dynamic that transforms a local Christian’s role in the sacrament from that of passive receiver to active digester. It incites the Christian’s inner agency to behave as an active Catholic. Within the theological context, the church calls the Eucharist a sacrifice. It is a unique sacrament of the unique sacrifice of Christ; it is the sacrifice of praise and supplication of the church; and it makes the faithful receive a sacrifice acceptable to the Father by the power of the Spirit. These sophisticated theological connotations are transformed into a clear behavioral instruction to swallow. For ordinary local Christians, the act of swallowing demonstrates acceptance of and a willingness to understand and embrace this essential Catholic symbolic rite. The instruction to swallow demonstrates the church’s efforts to implement Christian knowledge and behavioral doctrines established by the catechism and the mission regulations. Correctness was a major concern of the time. To guarantee correctness, the active participation of local Christians was particularly necessary. For local Christians, such participation induced a sense of active involvement and stimulated their innate agency to work for ultimate salvation, which implicitly shifted local Christians’ understanding of fate from being determined by the land and limited access to social mobility to

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being led by God and by the church. The latter represented a mutual process: you were not only chosen and judged by God; you also had to do good works and follow precise Christian doctrines to be saved. The illumination and guidance of the church could be achieved only through the Christians’ active involvement, including through the self-reflection of confession and the swallowing of the Eucharist. Such rules, in practice, promoted local Christians’ own agency.

Knowledge, Behavior, and Christian Faith When Catholic missions in China revived in the nineteenth century, MEP missionaries made efforts to reassert Christian orthodoxy and to reinforce the practice of rites. These missionaries faced challenges in dealing with the growth of Christianity in the local society. From the perspective of MEP missionaries, who were firm opponents of the Jesuits’ compromise with Chinese ritual practices during the Rites Controversy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 20 the religiosity of Chinese Christians worsened during the prohibition of Catholic missions. 21 After Emperor Kangxi officially proscribed open Christian missions in 1721, most foreign missionaries were expelled. Without regular priests, Chinese Christians in many areas developed their own communities based on kinship networks and began to gather and practice Christian rites by themselves. These “faithful” Chinese Christians, however, used language and behavior that were deemed blasphemous and intolerable by nineteenth-century missionaries. To establish legitimate and faithful Christian communities thus became the foremost task for MEP missionaries in the newly founded missions. The missionaries understood that Christian religion was not just based on experience. It possessed a whole system of knowledge and doctrinal behavior that preceded experience and acted as a prerequisite for conversion. This was especially the case in the nineteenth century, when new missions were established in China. The returning missionaries made efforts to emphasize the prerequisites of knowledge instillation and behavioral regulation before conversion. In the case of the Manchuria Mission, this unique prerequisite is demonstrated by two written documents: the Catéchisme des missions de Mandchourie and the Règlement de la Mission de Mandchourie. The catechism lists essential Catholic ideas and principal behavioral rules that every Catholic was required to memorize to achieve conversion.

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This requirement was not unique to Manchuria. Historically, all versions of the Catholic catechism contain a question-and-answer format that depicts a dialogue of two parties, usually a teacher and a student. The regulations contain rules to regulate the behavior of both missionaries and the faithful in order to implement the Catholic knowledge defined by the catechism. The two texts set up the boundary conditions for all Catholics, including the Du women who wrote the letters. For Chinese Catholics, embracing Catholicism meant not only replacing local Chinese gods with the Christian God but also accepting a new system of religious knowledge and a new doctrine of religious behavior before conversion. Ironically, although most mission work depends on orality, conversion and dissemination rely on the absorption of classic written texts and therefore necessarily require a degree of literacy. For missionaries, preaching the Christian message in a foreign country requires literacy in that country’s indigenous language. For local Christians, learning the catechism means memorizing articles of essential Christian ideas, prayers, and behavioral doctrines so that they can pass the examination that precedes baptism. This prerequisite, involving learning from written texts to achieve conversion, was completely new to people in rural Chinese society. It raised the bar for conversion to Christianity much higher than the requirements for entry into other popular religions. By spreading Christian knowledge and catechism literacy to rural people, Christianity became a source of empowerment that provided new alternatives to rural society. This empowerment may not have led to power, authority, or social mobility as prescribed by Chinese society; rather, it opened up an alternative social, communal, and internal space, one that did not originate in Chinese society. The implementation of Christian knowledge and behavioral doctrines requires active participation. This participation necessitates the local Christians’ active involvement or inner agency, and it is introduced and enforced by the catechism and by church regulations. Converts must memorize what they should do as Christians and then live these lessons. Moreover, they must do so before they are allowed to convert. The regulations require missionaries to instruct and supervise all details of a local Christian’s behavior. Some specific behaviors, such as swallowing the Eucharist, signify an active response to internalizing essential Christian knowledge. This agency, originating from catechism literacy and religious behavior, could become a transformative force to shape an individual Catholic’s identity. This

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identity, created and expressed by ritual performances strictly prescribed by the nineteenth-century Catholic Church, persisted through a long period of political and social upheavals until today. The Catechism and Regulations of the Manchuria Mission demonstrated how the requirement of Christian doctrinal knowledge and behavior lead to empowerment and agency, and how they worked together as a transformative force that distinguished Christianity from local Chinese popular religions. Although the Catholic Church prescribed the importance of Christian knowledge and behavioral doctrines, there exists possible a discrepancy between normative text and social practices, as many scholars of Christianity in China have stressed the similarities of Christianity with native popular religions. 22 However, this interpretation is challenged by some recent studies that argue that despite the similarity between Christianity and local religious practices, Christianity is in fact never considered by its local devout believers as simply part of a large local pantheon.23 The strictness of Catholic practices in these newly founded communities, as emphasized particularly by the nineteenth-century catechism and regulations, intended to gradually confirm Christianity’s distinctiveness from other Chinese popular religions. In this process, the nineteenth century was a critical period, because the missionary movement and its systematic establishment of local Catholic communities reinforced the orthodoxy of Catholicism. Normative texts such as the catechism and the regulations played an essential role. To define Catholic Christianity in nineteenth-century China without studying such knowledge and behavioral doctrine is inadequate.

Conclusion The uniqueness of Christian faith rests in its combination of systematic knowledge with formalistic, behavioral displays of faith. Knowledge and behavior are both integral parts of Christian education, the purpose of which is to define Christian faith in local communities. This was especially true for the Catholic mission, as the greatest emphasis in the decrees of the Council of Trent was placed on the sacraments. When the MEP missionaries described some Chinese Christians as being “very religious” or “fervent” in their parish reports, they often meant that these people frequented the rituals and followed strictly the behavioral code regulated by the catechism and the mission regulations. This is a heightened yet narrowly defined religiosity.

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In a larger context, religious behavior concerns the practices that suffuse the local Christians’ consciousness and daily activities. The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission seeks to bridge the gap between written texts and orality through the pedagogical elaboration of Christian knowledge. Literacy was essential for missionaries and active lay Christians involved in the mission, but local Christians, whether literate or illiterate, had to receive preliminary religious education to meet the necessary requirements for conversion. For a mission newly founded in a non-Christian country, it was especially crucial to establish a strict, clear, and standardized behavioral code for the implementation of the catechism. If we compare Christian knowledge as embodied by the Catechism of the Manchuria Mission to knowledge of Chinese popular religions, it is clear that Christianity requires a relatively high level of understanding, one that covers systematic and consistent knowledge; the system of Christian education thus sets the bar high for conversion, especially for adult catechumens. Although the bar for baptism of children is relatively low according to the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission, continuous religious education after baptism as well as instruction in the sacraments, such as confirmation, communion, and confession, all aim to guarantee the making of good Christians. Converting to Christianity, therefore, spontaneously starts a period of intense religious instruction. By studying the catechism for baptism, confirmation, and communion, a Christian is involved in a lifelong rite of education. This rite of education points toward a perennial feature of Christianity: its appeal to marginal populations, such as women and the illiterate in rural China. The classification of religious knowledge in the catechism breaks the boundaries of social status and takes differences in local Christians’ intelligence and diligence as its criteria. The required beginning-level knowledge guarantees those with the least capacity access to basic literacy. By converting to Christianity and receiving the teachings of the catechism, women, children, and the elderly in nonelite families in rural China thus obtained legitimate access to religious knowledge and a literacy that they would never have acquired by other means. 24 In addition, the MEP’s efforts to define the Catholic faith of local Christians through exact behavioral doctrines established the foundation for the Manchuria Mission. The Regulations of the Manchuria Mission are supplementary to the catechism but nonetheless

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essential. They transformed the Catholic concepts taught in the catechism into Catholic behavioral doctrines. Through the religious practices prescribed in the regulations, local Christians further internalized the essential Catholic concepts. Knowledge and behavior worked together to define Catholic faith: this describes a successful and important strategy in the MEP’s efforts to disseminate faith in nineteenth-century China. Examination of specific rules in the catechism and the regulations also demonstrates an unintentional process of empowering local Christians. The requirements of sacramental precision guaranteed the implementation of catechetical knowledge. Rule changes regarding confession increased the Christians’ sense of privacy and enhanced their self-awareness. The rule on swallowing the Eucharist went beyond the church’s intention to implement a sophisticated Christian message and implied a promotion of the local Christians’ active participation. With the establishment of the church in China and the formation of local Christian communities, Christianity also created a space accessible to the faithful in rural society, where Catholic behavior spontaneously stimulated the local Christians’ realization of their inner selves.

chapter 4

Establishing Faith in Local Society

Western missionaries and early Sinologists often agreed that China was a land of “superstition” and paganism, not of faith and religion.1 Sociologist C. K. Yang summarized this view in his classic study Religion in Chinese Society: The Chinese people were generally regarded as a superstitious lot who had yet to experience an ethicoreligious life of a higher order.… This view was most familiar to the Western world, as it was popularized for over a century by Western missionaries who found this situation to be wholly incompatible with the Christian faith and took it as the most convincing justification for their evangelical zeal. 2

Yang challenged the undervaluation of religion in Chinese society by examining the function and origins of Chinese religion. He argued that religious systems are firmly integrated parts of Chinese culture, though he viewed China as a country whose religion is characterized by the absence of faith. “In popular religious life it was the moral and magical functions of the cults, and not the delineation of the boundary of religious faiths, that dominated the people’s consciousness.”3 The practice of the Catholic faith aimed to illustrate the formality of Catholicism across time and space. Before the nineteenth century, however, due to the lack of missionaries and proper institution, some local Chinese Christian communities conducted ritual practices similar to other local religions. In the newly founded nineteenth-century Chinese Catholic communities under missionary’s supervision, the basic Christian rites and practices became essential. In fact, after

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the defeat of the Jesuits in the century-long dispute over Chinese rites, the Jesuits’ rivals, including the Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP) missionaries, made an effort to restore strict rules for the practice of Catholic rites in China and to demarcate Catholic ritual practice from that of Chinese popular religions. These missionaries’ efforts, however, were hampered by the Qing court’s prohibition of Catholic missions in the eighteenth century. During the prohibition most foreign missionaries were expelled from China, and Chinese Catholics in local communities began to gather and practice Catholic rituals by themselves. Some of their practices, such as collecting money for incense4 or naming a chapel Guanyin Hall, 5 blurred the boundaries between Christianity and other Chinese religions.6 This specific historical phenomenon, however, does not characterize Christianity in Chinese society in modern times, especially after the nineteenthcentury missionary movement, which defined Christian faith with greater precision and strictly enforced the correct practice of Christian rites. It is this redefined Catholicism that has most deeply shaped the Chinese Catholic communities surviving to the present day. Recent scholarship emphasizes the uniqueness of Christian religiosity and conversion in Chinese society. Shifting the perspective from a narrative of acculturation to individual testimonies and narratives of conversion, such studies paint a sophisticated picture of how Christian faith confronted Chinese society and how this unique religious experience became inextricably intertwined not only with Chinese religious culture but also with the Catholic Church in other parts of the world. The focus on and examination of religious faith and experience in Chinese society demonstrate a deepening of our understanding of Christianity in China, and it also rehabilitates the tendency to replace essential experience with interpretations. Although missionaries gathered measurable data through observation and estimation, scholars have tended to ignore what these missionaries themselves emphasized the most: the church’s definition of faith and knowledge and the local Catholics’ adherence to Catholic rituals. This “intrareligious dialogue” merits examination.

Measuring Behavior and Religious Assessment The interaction between religious faith and observable religious behavior often ignores a possible discrepancy between belief and practice. Yet the missionary effort to translate religious behavior into

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assessments of religiosity aimed to sustain this interaction and to further justify the instruction of the Catholic catechism and the doctrinal regulation of behavior. A central issue in examining MEP missionaries’ observations in relation to their estimates of the local Chinese Catholics’ religiosity concerns their choice of a measuring instrument as an objective criterion of evaluation, which in turn embodied a certain basic definition of religion. The conceptual framework that MEP missionaries used to estimate the religiosity was one-dimensional: the local Chinese Catholics’ participation in the sacraments. Ritual practice has a long tradition in China. In rural societies in particular, the common ritual practices of popular religion and festivals organized and strengthened community identity. Village life, to a large extent, was ritual-based. Working in rural China, missionaries were often deeply concerned about local Christian faith because popular Chinese ritual practices such as veneration of ancestors, temple commissions, and yearly drama festivals violated Christian doctrines and were strictly forbidden by church authorities. To avoid conflicts between Christian and non-Christian villagers and to help establish a collective identity for Chinese Christian Catholics, missionaries had to regulate Christian ritual practice. In addition, many Catholics in the nineteenth century could neither read nor write. For these illiterate rural Catholics, Christian faith was embodied by Christian sacraments. Conversion to Catholicism was linked more closely to rituals than to faith. More importantly, due to the longtime absence of missionaries and priests during the prohibition and the consequent ignorance of Christian rituals in local communities, setting up strict rules on Christian sacraments and monitoring their practice became an important task for missionaries in nineteenth-century missions. Catholic sacraments and ritual behavior in general were designed to reinforce the ecclesiastical and social hierarchy. The practices in the Manchuria Mission reflected both the early emphasis on making more Catholics and the later transition to making good Catholics. These major concerns of the MEP were reflected in the organization’s emphasis on systematic statistical records. Counting the frequency of sacraments was the most important task of the missionaries. Underpinning the missionaries’ judgment of local Catholics’ participation in the sacraments is the assumed link between local Catholics’ religious behavior and their inner religiosity. In other words, according to MEP missionaries, the beliefs, attitudes, and behavior of a local Catholic or a chrétienté (Catholic community)

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are manifest and measurable because they are consequences of the fact of being Catholic.7 Shown by the annual parish reports, a possible link exists between missionaries’ numerical observations and literal assessments. The significance of the numerical and literal record is evident in the missionaries’ efforts in translating the quantitative data into the qualitative assessment. They also established a link between the divine behavioral code and the Catholics’ secular activities. Their emphasis of church attendance in their numerical records resulted in positive assessments, while their negative assessments were often based on local Catholics’ transgressions rather than on the intensity of their religiosity.

Annual Parish Reports From the 1840s to the 1920s, MEP missionaries produced systematic annual parish reports, called comptes-rendus (reports) and tableaux d’administration (administrative charts), which recorded local Catholics’ religious behavior and assessed local faith. These reports contain both quantitative statistical records and qualitative, literal evaluations by missionaries. They embody rich ethnographic and demographic information and shed light on the Christianity of the Manchuria Mission on the ground. The Manchuria Mission developed three types of annual parish reports, showing a range of differences in style, content, and intentions reflecting different stages in the development of the mission. In the first period, from 1843 to 1865, when the MEP’s activities were guided by the effort to establish as many Catholic communities as possible, the annual parish reports focused on individual communities. Emmanuel-Jean-François Verrolles composed the first statistical parish report in 1843. This statistical table covered twenty-one Catholic communities in the region. Compared to later reports, Verrolles’s table contained only basic sacramental categories: total instances of confession, communion, baptism (adults, Christian children, and non-Christian children), confirmation, unction, and marriage per year. Later missionaries inherited Verrolles’s table format for reporting on individual communities. The only change was an expansion in the number of categories in accordance with the interests of individual missionaries. Calculation of the number of deaths, for example, first appeared in 1846, and calculation of the number of Christians Virgins who participated in mission work was added in 1847–48. In

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this period, consolidating and expanding the mission was the foremost priority, so establishing basic demographic information for each community was particularly important. However, the information had not yet been institutionally standardized. All statistical tables in this period were written by hand, and the categories, in French or Latin, varied depending on the emphasis of the recording missionary. Verrolles’s first statistical table of 1843 includes a column titled “Observation,” which contains his personal comments on the communities that he visited. Instead of giving each community an evaluation as later missionaries did, Verrolles made comments about selected communities only. He wrote, for example, that “in Lianshan, someone in the Mu family smokes opium.… There were two baptizers. Last year one baptized 160 people and the other 98.”8 In the following several years, only random comments are found in the parish reports. From 1850 to 1865, all missionaries of the Manchuria Mission began to include personal comments on and assessments of each community’s religiosity in the “Observation” column.9 Some comments include rich information on local religiosity in relation to gender, family, and children. Others consist of only simple assessments: “good” (bien) or “very bad” (très mal). In general, the reports of 1850–65 contain the most detailed information in both statistics and literal assessments of local faith. In the second period, from 1873 to 1898, statistics on individual communities were replaced by statistics on the whole mission.10 The official printed form was first used in 1873. This standard form was in French and consisted of five primary categories: population, maisons d’instruction, établissements, personnel, and sacraments administrés. Each category contained five to ten subcategories. The new format of the parish report did not provide space for personal comments. Examination of the statistics shows that by this time the development of the Manchuria Mission was relatively stable. The total number of Catholics and of parishes had doubled since the early 1840s and was increasing at a proportionate pace. The mission transitioned into a period of steady development, and the statistics served to track the mission’s progress rather than to provide detailed information on local Catholic chrétientés. In the third period, from 1898 to 1920, when the Manchuria Mission was formally divided into a northern and a southern mission, two statistical reports were produced each year. The southern mission consisted of Liaoning, and its center was in Shenyang. The northern mission was geographically larger and consisted of both Jilin

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and Heilongjiang. From 1898 to 1920, both missions used the same renewed standard form for recording parish statistics. The new form was more comprehensive and specific. Besides the basic information given in the five primary categories used from 1873 to 1898, the new form emphasized education and various manifestations of charity and relief. This shows that the mission had entered into a phase in which it was deeply involved in local society, for during this time period, severe social and natural disasters afflicted northeast China. The increasing number of orphans and refugees required more orphanages, hospitals, shelters, and other ways of providing relief. In summary, the earliest parish reports focused on individual Catholic communities, or chrétientés, and the contents varied depending on their authors. A feature of these reports was the individual missionary’s comments on and assessments of faith in each community. To standardize the reports, in the 1870s the Manchuria Mission issued official printed forms to replace individual reports; statistics on individual communities were replaced by statistics on the mission as a whole, and missionaries’ personal assessments of faith disappeared. After the Manchuria Mission was divided into the southern and the northern mission in 1898, each mission produced its own statistical reports using the same standard form, which became more specific and contained an increasing number of subcategories, such as orphanages and hospitals, that emphasized contemporary social needs. The general trend of these changes reveals the MEP’s efforts to standardize routine missionary work in the Manchuria Mission. Routinization became an important strategy for the MEP to guarantee the continuous development of Christianity in northeast China. Missionary statistics not only documented the experiences of local Christians but also revealed the criteria by which missionaries understood and interpreted Catholicism in China. Analysis of the most important analytical categories that all missionaries used to interpret the statistics they recorded shows that within the conditional boundaries defined by the local church, these nineteenth-century missionaries made an effort to translate the specific situation of the Manchuria Mission into the inclusiveness of Christianity.

Santaizi and Catholic Ritual Practice Santaizi, the hometown of the writers of the Du letters, was one of the earliest MEP chrétientés in southern Manchuria, and it remains

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Catholic today. According to missionary Joseph André Boyer’s 1865 parish report, Santaizi was a village of “good faith.” It is also one of the few MEP chrétientés that has records of local Catholics’ religious behavior covering a period of more than half a century. The systematic statistical records of Santaizi demonstrate how missionaries measured Chinese Catholics’ religious behavior and how this behavior was displayed within the boundaries defined by the conceptual framework of the Catechism and the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission. Baptism In a new mission, baptism—the symbol of entering the church and accepting a new identity as a Christian—represented the most important evangelistic goal. The Regulations of the Manchuria Mission discussed baptism at the beginning and specified fifteen rules to regulate each aspect of this ritual. Among the fifteen rules, seven applied to missionaries’ conduct during the baptism to guarantee the ritual’s validity. The other eight rules addressed the qualifications of those to be baptized, with three rules dealing directly with children. In fact, the most significant yet controversial issues in the mission concerned children. Figure 4.2 illustrates the composition of the recipients of baptism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Santaizi. The figure shows that before the Manchuria Mission was divided in 1898, the number of children baptized in Santaizi was much higher than the number of baptized adults. The rate of adult baptism did not increase significantly until the end of the nineteenth century. Among baptized children, pagan children (that is, children from non-Christian families as defined by missionaries, especially children who were registered in the parish reports as being “in articulo mortis” or at the point of death) numbered far more than children from Christian families. Overall, children represented the majority of those being baptized. At particular times in history, however, children were not the majority. In 1908, for example, the number of adults baptized in Santaizi doubled while the total number of children baptized decreased, as compared to the previous year. In the same period, the total number of Christians in Santaizi increased more than fivefold, from 843 in 1891 to 2,904 in 1915. This unusual shift indicates that the pattern

Figure 4.1.  Catholic Church of Santaizi (rebuilt in the 1980s), 2012. Photo by author.

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Figure 4.2.  Practice of Baptism in Santaizi, 1843–1915. Source: Parish reports in AMEP 0562, 0563, 0564, 0565, 0566, 0567, and 0567A.

of baptism and mission expansion in Santaizi changed at this time, largely due to an increase in older converts. The pattern in Santaizi was not replicated in the mission as a whole. The baptism of children continued to predominate overall, even at the turn of the century, when adult baptism increased significantly. The unique phenomenon of a sudden increase in Santaizi’s adult conversion rate in 1908 may be the result of an increase in religious tension, which is often caused by natural disasters or wars, and the subsequent need for a sense of security. Since adults were more sensitive to the challenges caused by natural or social catastrophes, they might choose to respond by joining the church for a sense of community and belonging. Beyond isolated anomalies, examination of baptism in the chrétientés over the long term confirms the importance of children in local Catholic communities. In fact, the preponderance of child baptism in the local communities illustrates a significant mission strategy in nineteenth-century rural China. With the exception of one particular time at the turn of the twentieth century, the Manchuria Mission’s focus was always on the conversion of children. What made this strategy controversial was the fact that the bar to baptize children was rather low in the early years of the mission. The regulations specify that even children from Christian families that neglected their religious duties should be baptized without question. Admission of children to the church was the priority, regardless of the indifference of

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their parents or the uncertainty of their future Christian education. The general pattern of Santaizi in which children predominate among baptism recipients is even more pronounced at the level of the whole mission. In this time period, then, the foremost task of the Manchuria Mission was making more Christians rather than making good Christians. Confirmation Confirmation represents another milestone in a Christian’s life, yet it was the least significant ritual in the Manchuria Mission. According to Catholic doctrine, confirmation is a sacrament to strengthen Christian faith. It is a symbol of the completion of the process of conversion and can be conferred only on those who have already been baptized. The Catechism of the Council of Trent holds it to be most fitting that the sacrament be deferred until a child is seven years old. The regulations, however, include no rule about the age of confirmation. Of the three rules on the subject, two concern the need for missionaries to be authorized by the bishop to conduct this ritual. The only rule concerning Catholics involves an ambiguous statement about the qualifications necessary to receive confirmation; Catholics should be prepared for the sacrament through instruction in its “nature, dignity, and facts,” as well as appropriate “exercise of piety” (Règlement de la Mission de Mandchourie, 1.2.3; henceforth RMM). The recorded number of confirmations in Santaizi between 1843 and 1915 was small compared to that of other sacraments. Before the 1870s, the number of confirmations remained insignificant and relatively stable in Santaizi: seventeen confirmations in 1843, four in 1850, seven in 1852, and five in 1862. On the one hand, this was a consequence of the number of children baptized, many of whom died and thus did not reach the age of confirmation. On the other, the lack of missionaries in Santaizi also hampered the practice of confirmation. As the Du women complained in their letters, there had been no priest in residence in Santaizi for four or five of the years since Father Pourquié’s departure around 1865. Without priests, the ritual of confirmation was not practical. From the 1890s to 1915, a period in which the number of missionaries and local priests increased significantly, the number of confirmations in Santaizi also increased, to 75 in 1891 and 136 in 1915. This matches the general pattern in the mission as a whole, although the general pattern of the whole

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mission undulated in certain years. The lack of priests in the 1860s also explains why there is no record of confessions or communions in Santaizi during this period, even though the two sacraments were carefully observed for decades. Confession The first rule of penance in the regulations states that confession is a sacrament required of all Catholics regardless of their sins. “All penitents, whether criminal or scandalous, should be given access to the Holy Tribunal, as long as they are seriously willing to repair the scandal and to perform any other atonement required by the Church. The priest can refuse holy absolution to these people, but the priest cannot refuse to listen to their confession” (RMM 1.4.1). Priests have the right to determine whether divine forgiveness is bestowed on a sinner, but they cannot refuse to listen to the sins. Confession, according to this rule, is defined as a convert’s conscious and active behavior rather than an enforced activity. The imperative behind confession is the fear of hell. Only those who understand and believe in hell and holy absolution will confess proactively. The frequency of confession by Chinese Catholics therefore provided an indication of their degree of involvement in and understanding of the Christian faith. All missionaries made an effort to count and record the local Catholics’ frequency of confession annually. Santaizi is one of the few chrétientés that have left data relating to confession from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. In view of the likely increase of the Catholic population, by the late 1840s the number of annual confessions was not high, and the rate of repeated confessions by the same individuals was quite low. After the 1840s the number of annual confessions remained relatively stable for most of the rest of the century, while the number of repeated confessions was insignificant. Between 1891 and 1915, however, the number of annual confessions increased dramatically, and Santaizi Catholics became much more likely to confess more than once. The religious climate had changed in Santaizi at the turn of the century; furthermore, the change was not unique to Santaizi. Comparing Santaizi to the mission overall, from 1908 to 1915 we see a similar significant increase in repeated confessions in southern Manchuria. The most significant feature of the changes experienced by the mission in this period was not the expansion of participation in confession but increased religious tensions and an accompanying

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table 4.1 practice of confession in santaizi, 1848–1915

Year

Annual Number of Confessions

Repeated Confessions

Total Christians

1848

132

34

not known

1851

173

17

not known

1853

161

10

not known

1891

558

no data

863

1908

1,581

6,253

2,340

1915

1,794

6,235

2,904

source:  Parish reports in AMEP 0562, 0563, 0564, 0565, 0566, 0567, and 0567A.

increase in local Catholics’ degree of religiosity. But not every Catholic in Santaizi experienced the same religious culture change. Table 4.1 shows that between 1891 and 1915, more than half of the Catholics in Santaizi confessed. That is to say, even in the most zealous years, half of Santaizi Catholics did not confess even once. However, in 1908 and 1915, those who did confess confessed at least three times. These years witnessed significant religious tensions. Hostility to Christianity and Christians increased dramatically as the result of the nationwide Boxer Rebellion of 1900. During the rebellion, Santaizi, like all other Christian communities, was deeply threatened by a massive anti-Christian movement, which led to the deaths of about 240 missionaries and more than twenty thousand lay Christians.11 The change in the frequency of local Catholics’ participation in confession demonstrates the changing degree of local Catholics’ religiosity. Obviously, the average zeal for confession in Santaizi remained low over the years. In the nineteenth century, annual confession was moderate, while repeated confession was insignificant. At the turn of the century, when the mission experienced its great expansion, the Christians in Santaizi formed two distinct groups. Those who did confess became increasingly dedicated, but those who were indifferent remained lukewarm. Catholics in Manchuria thus needed a relatively long time to truly embrace the ritual of absolution, for about half of the Chinese Catholics in Santaizi never confessed, and their Catholic identity cannot represent their understanding of the faith. Over half a century, children always represented the majority of those who did not confess in Santaizi. As Franclet’s 1854 Catholic

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family register shows, children who were too young to confess usually comprised the majority of the Christian community in Manchuria, especially in the early years of the mission. The predominance of children among the nonconfessors is thus reasonable. The number of adult Catholics whose nonconfession was linked to specific reasons remained insignificant. “Absent” and “tepid” (in faith) are two explanations that missionaries gave for these nonconfessors.12 However, the small number of nonconfessors whose behavior was accounted for by such descriptions was dwarfed by the much larger total number of Catholics who did not confess. In fact, the words that missionaries used to denote the reasons why some Catholics did not confess are completely subjective. It is generally impossible to know why certain Catholics did not participate in confession. The fact that the missionaries used these words to make sense of the data demonstrates their emphasis on confession in promoting a local community’s religiosity. But their efforts to raise the degree of local Catholics’ faith were unfortunately largely unsuccessful. Communion As the most important ritual for building a sense of shared identity within Christian communities, the practice of communion held great significance in the Manchuria Mission. Communion is a repetitive and collective activity meant to be observed again and again throughout the life of a Christian. Children usually receive their first communion around the age of seven or eight, when they have reached the age of reason and are capable of participating in the sacramental life of the Roman Catholic Church. In northeast China, however, missionaries encouraged attendance at communion regardless of age. “It is forbidden to set a fixed age for children to receive the first communion, because all the faithful who can reason can receive the Eucharist, as long as they are sufficiently taught and have the required disposition” (RMM 1.3.1). This accommodating strategy was especially prominent in the early years of mission expansion. As a collective activity conducted on public and regulated occasions, communion demonstrates the general degree of a local community’s religiosity. Table 4.2 shows that the number of both annual communions and repeated communions were insignificant in the early years of the mission. The total number of Christians increased markedly after the division of the mission in 1898. So did the total

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table 4.2 practice of communion in santaizi, 1846–1915

Year

Annual Confessions

Repeated Confessions

Total Christians

Percentage

1846

66

29

not known

—

1850

87

14

1852

84

8

1891

399

no data

not known

—

not known

—

863

46%

1908

1,102

16,702

2,340

47%

1915

1,585

20,166

2,904

55%

source:  Parish reports in AMEP 0562, 0563, 0564, 0565, 0566, 0567, and 0567A.

number of people who received annual communion. But the percentage of Catholics who received annual communion remained almost the same from 1891 to 1908. The total number of repeated communions, by contrast, increased dramatically, thus showing a pattern similar to that of confessions: those who received communion received it more than once per year. Particularly in 1908 and in 1915, those who received communion had attended the rite at least ten times that year. This means that those who were faithful became extremely fervent, while those who were indifferent remained indifferent in spite of the dramatic change in other Catholics’ behavior. Communion offers local Catholics not only a sense of community but also the reassurance of church structure and mission administration. As communion requires the presence of a missionary or local priest, the frequency of communion in a local community demonstrates the community’s importance in the administration of the whole mission. In the early years, because of the limited number of church personnel, missionaries visited only select chrétientés. Santaizi was obviously one of the most important such communities. Missionaries and indigenous priests frequented this chrétienté, particularly in the first two decades of the twentieth century, and the rate of repeated communion increased dramatically. The frequency of communion in Santaizi over the years and especially the significant number of repeated communions in 1908 and 1915 show that Santaizi did not develop into a community with a strong Christian identity until the early twentieth century.

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Although only about half of Santaizi’s Christians received annual communion, this half of the Christian population demonstrated an impressive community passion. This may well explain why Santaizi survived so many devastating anti-Christian movements in the twentieth century and why it remains a prominent Catholic community today. Examining the four major sacraments observed in Santaizi between 1843 and 1915, baptism and confirmation increased steadily in the second half of the nineteenth century (see fig. 4.3). Confirmation, however, remained insignificant in spite of the change in religious intensity. Annual confession was the most-practiced ritual among the four sacraments, and the number of Catholics who confessed at least once a year was always higher than the number of Catholics who received communion at least once a year. After the Boxer Rebellion, Catholics in Santaizi became more zealous, as the total number of annual confessions and communions increased significantly. Such a pattern of communion and confession shows that it took about half a century, from the 1840s to the early twentieth century, for a chrétienté in northeast China such as Santaizi to develop into a Catholic community with a strong religious identity. This transformation was due not to a new wave of Catholic conversion but to increasing participation in the sacraments, which implicitly stabilized the community. Analysis of these statistics of local Catholics’ religious behavior demonstrates two notable aspects of proselytizing and Christianity in northeast China. First, children initially made up the majority of those baptized. Second, it was only in the early twentieth century that Chinese Catholics became devout in terms of the practice of sacraments. This is not merely due to the sharply increasing number of Catholics and active laity. More importantly, it reflects an increase in religiosity and church attendance as indicated by the repetitive rituals of confession and communion. Regardless of the rate of increase of the total Catholic population during this formative century, about half of the Catholic population remained indifferent and did not participate in annual confession or annual communion. The change in religious intensity in the early twentieth century was attributable to the other half of the population, which was deeply involved in church practice. It is this devoted half that finally transformed the Chinese Catholic community in terms of Christian faith.

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Figure 4.3.  Practice of Christian Rituals in Santaizi, 1843–1915. Source: Parish reports in AMEP 0562, 0563, 0564, 0565, 0566, 0567, and 0567A.

Assessing Faith Participation in the sacraments was not the only criterion of religious assessment used by the MEP missionaries in their annual reports: they also recorded local Catholics’ transgressions. Positive assessments by missionary observers generally highlighted the degree of local Catholics’ adherence to the church, or, more specifically, the frequency of their participation in the sacraments. By contrast, negative assessments were often about transgressions, particularly local Catholics’ daily activities that violated the church behavioral code. These differing assessments show how missionaries understood Christianity in local communities and demonstrate that they made an effort to translate the specific situation of the Manchuria Mission into the inclusive and universalist terms of Christianity. From the 1840s to the 1910s, of a total of 201 chrétientés in Manchuria, 106 were assessed positively as communities with “good faith”; 91 were described negatively, as having “bad or no faith”; and four received a mixed assessment as being “neither good nor bad.” An important determinant for positive assessment was the number of baptisms. After his visit to Lianshan in 1854, Father Pierre Alexandre Mesnard (1813–1867) happily wrote that there was “great hope

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of conversion of pagans.” After visiting another village in the same year, Mesnard was similarly encouraged: “More and more satisfied. Rather promising for the conversion of pagans.”13 These comments correspond to the statistical record of the number of people baptized, both adults and children. Missionaries were also interested in the progress of religious education, especially of children. In 1854, Mesnard noticed that the chrétienté of Kaoshantun was generally “regulated and correct … except for some ignorant children, all the rest are good.”14 In Fanjiatun, however, Mesnard wrote that he felt quite relieved, because the religious instruction of children and the observance of religious holidays were no longer neglected. The emphasis on religious education, or the study of the catechism, demonstrates the MEP missionaries’ understanding that the faith of local Catholics was to be found in continuous religious education. The promise of local religious education meant the progress of local religiosity and a better understanding of the faith by local Catholics. Positive assessments of faith and piousness were often gendered. Women were often held up as role models of religious piety. In his parish report of 1850–51, Father Siméon Berneux (1814–1866) wrote that, in Shaling, “the women are rather good; the men continue to be indifferent; little progress.”15 Perhaps for this reason, missionaries entrusted women with the responsibility of religious education. During his visit to Kalima, Berneux noted that children younger than twenty seemed very ignorant. He wrote angrily in the observation column of that year’s statistical report, “On my next visit, if children under the age of twenty still do not know the catechism, their mothers will not be admitted to confession.”16 Identifying specific families as examples of good Catholics was another strategy employed by the missionaries of the Manchuria Mission to increase the general religiosity of the whole community. In 1852, Father Charles Joseph Venault (1806–1884) visited eight chrétientés in southern Manchuria. What impressed him most were not individual Catholics but Catholic families. When he noticed that some Christian families had acquired new Christian members, he commented, “Good families are still peaceful and faithful.”17 Berneux made more explicit comments about exemplary families. After his visit to the chrétienté of Xinmintun in 1851, he wrote, “There is only one good Christian family, the Shens, all the rest are truly insignificant.”18 The MEP’s focus on exemplary Catholic families demonstrates the importance of family conversion in the local community.

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In 1854, the missionary Jean Franclet departed from Tieling and traveled south along “les Monts Amba” to Kalima.19 En route, Franclet visited thirteen chrétientés along the mountains and registered 170 Catholic families comprising 804 individual Christians. 20 For each Catholic family, Franclet recorded all family members according to their relationship to the head of household, including each family member’s age, sex, and baptismal name. Analysis of Franclet’s register reveals that the 804 Christians of the thirteen chrétientés shared only eighty-seven surnames. In the chrétienté of Yixingpuzi, for example, the total of forty-one Christians were from only three families and shared only two surnames. Even in the most kinshipdiverse chrétienté of Tongjiafangzi, there were only sixteen surnames shared among 144 Christians. The phenomenon of family conversion in Manchuria contextualizes the missionaries’ focus on families in their assessments of local religiosity. The early twentieth-century British missionary historian Charles Robinson observed that “in Manchuria, to a greater extent than in almost any section of the mission field, the growth of the Church has resulted from the efforts made by the local faithful to influence their friends and neighbors.”21 Conversion through personal networks was a key feature of Christianity in China, especially in rural society, where local communities were largely structured by kinship. The missionary effort to establish Catholic identity in the community was, however, often impaired by individual violations of Christian principles, as most negative assessments of local Catholic communities concerned behavioral transgressions instead of ritual compliance. From 1850 to 1865, for example, MEP missionaries registered a range of transgressions. In his 1850–51 report on Bajiatai, Charles Émile Colin (1812–1854) noted that the community was “very tepid” in its faith. Similarly, Joseph André Boyer commented in his 1865 report that Sijiazi was a “tepid” Catholic village, while in 1854 Mesnard wrote that Yizhou had fallen “again into apathy.”22 Among the common terms used to describe local Catholics in the Manchuria Mission, the rubric of “laziness” had special meaning, because the catechism emphasized diligence and the devotion of time to religious study. By laziness, the missionaries often meant neglect of the study of the catechism or of the work the church required of its members. After his visit to Jinzhou, for example, Mesnard commented that the villagers were “always lazy” and showed “negligence of religious holidays and public prayers.”23 “Avarice” was another

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transgression. Rather than describing an excessive desire for wealth, the accusation of avarice leveled at Chinese Christians often denoted excessive requests for missionary protection or material goods in exchange for conversion to Christianity. 24 Then there were such notorious secular activities as gambling, opium smoking, drinking, illicit marriage, and bigamy. All of these violated the Catholic behavioral rules set down in the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission: gamblers could not be admitted to sacraments without serious amendment of their behavior; opium smokers could be refused absolution in confession; drinking alcohol on Sundays was not allowed; and illicit marriage and bigamy were in flagrant breach of Catholic doctrine (RMM 3.8.2 and 1.4.3). Such violations, however, were common in northeast China, where people were widely known to gamble and drink rice alcohol. Converting to Catholicism, for many local Chinese, also meant changing such behavior. In general, MEP missionaries were worried about weak morality in China. In his letter of 1858, Pourquié summarized three characteristics of ignorant Chinese: egoism, indifference, and realism. 25 Echoing Pourquié, Mesnard, after his visit to Songshuzuizi in 1854, pointed out in his report that the Chinese had moral weakness in their religion. Such moral weakness among the Chinese, he complained, made it hard to discuss faith with the Catholics. But after the visit of 1854, Mesnard wrote that the “vices of the Chinese nature seem no longer to exist, and there is more desire for faith and ferventness.”26 Such judgments about ethnicity and morality often affected the missionaries’ assessments. After commenting on the Manchus, Venault gave a negative assessment of that community. By contrast, the perceived moral progress of Songshuzuizi in 1854 made Mesnard give a positive assessment. Missionaries’ measurements of local religiosity represent an important method of assessing Catholic faith in nineteenth-century northeast China. The religious assessment of local Christian communities shows not only the accomplishments of mission work but also the landscape of Christianity in northeast China. Although missionary statistical records reveal the routinization of ritual practice in local communities, negative assessments expose missionaries’ struggles to deal with Catholics’ secular transgressions. To establish a Christian community with proper religious behavior, missionaries endeavored to correct local Catholics’ offensive activities and to shift their focus to the practice of Christian rituals.

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Christian Faith in Local Society Understanding how Christian faith and Christian identity changed the Du women and other Chinese Catholic believers in rural society requires a comprehensive perception of the Chinese context and the uniqueness of Christian knowledge in Chinese society, especially relative to other popular religions. Manchuria was a region so vast and diverse that it could accommodate a variety of ethnicities and different modes of livelihood: the Mongol nomads of the west, the agricultural communities of Han Chinese to the south, the Koreans to the east, the tribes (Dagur, Heje, Oroqen, Sibe, and Salon) along the northern frontier with Russia, and the scattered banner garrisons that housed the hereditary bannermen originally drawn from different ethnic groups. Although Manchu emperors restricted Han Chinese to lands within Manchuria, the southern part of the region, called Fengtian or Liaodong in the Qing, was occupied by Han Chinese well before the flood of nineteenth-century Han agrarian settlers. Some of these early Han settlers moved to the area as the result of state-organized migration since the seventeenth century. These state immigrants worked in this region with other indigenous people who had been organized by the Qing government as a state population of bannermen. In contrast to the pattern in other frontier areas, the state played a distinct role in the resettlement of involuntary migrants to northeast China and in institution building in local societies. 27 Ethnicity was not a major concern for the MEP missionaries in terms of conversion, but they did note ethnicity issues in their annual parish reports, for northeast China is the homeland of the Manchus, who conquered China and founded the last imperial dynasty in Chinese history. In Verrolles’s first report on the Manchuria Mission, he recorded that there was a chrétienté of more than 120 Christians. 28 All of them were “Ki-jen” or Qiren or bannermen who were employed by the Qing court, and their conversion to Christianity was dated to the eighteenth year of Emperor Jiaqing (r. 1796–1820), or 1813. 29 Verrolles did not identify whether these bannermen were Manchu or Han Chinese. In a few cases, MEP missionaries noticed the difference between Manchus and Han Chinese. In 1852, Venault visited a Manchu village and commented in his report that “the Chinese are better than the Manchus. The Manchus have no hope at all. But the Christians are a little better than they were last year.”30 Besides such random comments and the expeditions to the extreme north where

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some minority ethnic tribes lived, there are no records about ethnicity in the early reports of the Manchuria Mission. It seems that conversion of Manchu or other northeast ethnic groups was considered an integral part of proselytizing in northeast China. By the end of the nineteenth century, Manchuria was overwhelmingly populated by Han Chinese. Whether voluntary migrants or involuntarily resettled by the state, these Han Chinese immigrants transformed the landscape “in the image of their natal villages in north China.”31 The agrarianization of the landscape transformed the older spaces of fishing, hunting, and ginseng digging, and the newly developed popular beliefs in the northeast turned out to be a mixture of shamanism, animal beliefs, and various popular religious practices innate to the immigrants’ natal culture.32 Scholars of popular religions define these popular practices as “rituals carried out by ordinary people in families and local communities as part of their normal social activities, and the beliefs and values associated with those rituals.”33 Sociologists such as C. K. Yang describe them as “diffused religion in which beliefs, practices, and specialists are so intimately fused with nonreligious institutions that ‘religion’ cannot be identified as an entity … in traditional Chinese society, diffused religion was everywhere and always primary.”34 One major difference between Christianity and Chinese popular religions lies in the consistency (or lack thereof) of religious knowledge. The Council of Trent defined and codified essential Catholic concepts in the sixteenth century. In the subsequent four centuries, due to the spread of Catholic catechisms and Catholic missions, this Catholic knowledge became universal, despite distinct local cultures and languages. The consistency of Catholic knowledge in proselytism stands in sharp contrast to the inconsistent and varying knowledge held by practitioners of popular religions about Chinese popular gods. According to scholars of popular religions, “This is particularly true in China, where, as in Fujian, gods have specific functions like summoning rain and healing illness. They are not like the Christian God, a creator who has a philosophical dimension.”35 Scholars of animal beliefs in northeast China also note that dixian or animal gods often serve the multiple functions of protection, healing diseases, and guaranteeing business prosperity, career achievements, and family harmony. The pragmatic animal gods must satisfy the various needs of their worshippers. 36 There is no consistent body of knowledge (nor could there be) about these popular gods and spirits. They are an

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integral part of local people’s daily life and could function whenever the worshippers need them. The inconsistency of knowledge and of the everyday practices and beliefs of ordinary Chinese people in local communities allow Chinese popular religions to be understood in terms of “superstition” rather than “religion.” The “superstitious” and mysterious practice of rituals to worship popular gods is often characterized by the rituals’ localized specificity. Animal worship, for example, is defined by the local culture of northeast China. Major animal gods include huxian (various popular gods related to the fox), huangxian (various popular gods related to the weasel), changxian (various popular gods related to the snake), and mangxian (various popular gods related to the boa). They express popular beliefs in an area in which people’s lives are associated with forests, hunting, and animals. These people worship, with complete sincerity, the deities of their local places. The practices of worshiping these gods, in prayers and vows, sometimes by singing and dancing and by making special kinds of offerings, are mixed with local popular customs. In many cases, these “superstitious” practices are seen as an authentic expression of traditional Chinese cultural identity, especially in relatively isolated local communities. The uniqueness of local ritual practices and the inconsistency of knowledge demonstrate a discrepancy between belief and practice in Chinese popular religions, which contrasts sharply with Catholicism in this respect. Based on essential religious knowledge, the practice of Catholicism is closely associated with a formalistic behavioral display of faith. The Catholic catechism, for example, seeks to teach the Catholic faith to Catholics, including those with different histories and cultural traditions. The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission constructs belief through religious knowledge, which leads to understanding of God and a particular ontological status such as being saved or being condemned. This system of consistent knowledge as contained in the catechism establishes a strong association between one’s belief and one’s practice. In the Chinese context, especially in rural communities, this unique association between belief and practice was not only enlightening but also subversive. It legitimized a relationship between individual Catholics and priests, between converts and the church, and between converts and God. The relationship with priests transcended the familial and social networks of lineage; the relationship with the

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church established a new social space beyond kinship; and the relationship with God expanded a convert’s world from everyday reality to encompass both inner reflection and a conviction in the afterlife promised by God. In addition, systematic knowledge introduced to local Catholics through Christian conversion provided the Catholics with new opportunities otherwise unavailable in Chinese society. Catechism literacy, for example, was essential for the understanding of Christian knowledge. It was also a determinant in reshaping both the structures of belief and the nature of social relations. As anthropologist Rodney Needham asserts, unless a culture has a vocabulary to express and talk about religious belief, we cannot assume that this culture has such a thing as belief or that its people actually “experience belief.”37 In contrast to Chinese popular religions, Catholicism as embodied by the Catholic catechism presented the Catholics with not only a set of essential Christian concepts but also a new vocabulary and language to help local Catholics articulate and express their awareness of the Catholic faith and their new Christian identities. For local Catholics, this systematic teaching of Christian knowledge was fundamental to establishing an ontology they could never have derived from Chinese popular religions.

Conclusion After the end of the long prohibition of missionary activity in China, a key challenge facing the returning missionaries was reasserting Christian orthodoxy in the face of questionable ritual practices that had emerged in local Chinese communities. In the absence of priests, Chinese Catholics had begun to practice Christian rites by themselves, often within family circles and networks, which occupied a central position in Chinese Christian society. The importance of family relationships to Catholic identity is illustrated by a case in 1815, in which a group of Christians was arrested in Shanxi. They all confessed that they had converted because of family heritage and that they followed their grandfathers’ practice of Christianity. 38 Similarly, members of the Liu family of Sichuan, both men and women, assembled regularly to practice Catholic rituals. They did not know who had converted their ancestors, but generations later, by the early nineteenth century, the Liu family consisted of seventy-nine Catholics. Many family members were illiterate and followed the head of the family, Liu Sikun, who kept some Catholic catechistic booklets, could

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read popular Catholic writings, and was able to lead some Christian rites. The community gathered to perform rites such as communion by themselves, following instructions passed on by older generations of the family.39 In other cases, Catholic rituals also incorporated popular local religious practices, such as collecting money for incense as a prerequisite for conversion or renaming a chapel after a popular Buddhist temple.40 For nineteenth-century MEP missionaries, who took pains to restore orthodox Catholic rites, such popular practices not only violated Christian doctrine but also blurred the distinctions between Christianity and Chinese popular religions. In contrast to such popular religions, in which religious ideas and practices were embedded in the cultural and sociopolitical milieu, the practice of Christian ritual was meant to illustrate the universality of Christianity. In the newly founded Chinese Catholic communities, the basic Christian rites and practices served an essential function of safeguarding the community’s identity and cohesion. Therefore, after the defeat of the Jesuits in the century-long dispute over Chinese rites, the MEP endeavored to restore strict rules for Catholic ritual and to demarcate its practices from those of local religions, which represented a mixture of Chinese folklore, beliefs, and sects.41 The rich data on the local Catholics’ religious behavior collected by MEP missionaries over half a century reveal the institutional aspects of the religious life of local Chinese Catholic communities. Emphasis on the sacraments demonstrates the missionaries’ understanding of local Catholics’ needs as primarily social or external. The principal concern of missionaries was that the sacraments be administered and received. Members of the community could thereby affirm themselves as Catholics, and Catholic practice would be faithfully maintained. The Catholic sacraments gave each important stage of life a corresponding ritual. In this way, the believer was continually reminded that every juncture of life should be accompanied by an act of faith and a renewal of commitment to the Catholic community. The correspondence between local Catholics’ religious behavior and their religiosity was assumed by the MEP missionaries. But the connection between local Catholics’ observable religious behavior and the missionaries’ assessments of local religiosity remained, to a large extent, personalized. Before the standard statistical form began to be widely used in the 1870s, MEP missionaries in the Manchuria Mission expressed their personal estimates of each chrétienté’s degree of faith, and their estimates turn out to be more or less

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a self-justification. Their emphasis on local Catholics’ behavioral transgressions in their negative assessments reflects the emphasis on behavioral doctrine in both the Catechism and the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission. The data that the MEP missionaries collected about Chinese Catholic communities were intended to institutionalize the sacraments and regulate religious behavior as the first step toward establishing Christian faith in Manchuria. For over half a century, the missionaries observed and recorded local Catholics’ religious behavior, which they believed revealed the institutional vigor of the religious life of their communities. In the transformation of Christianity in northeast rural China, the MEP paid particular attention to behaviors that were closely associated with the church’s implementation of Catholic sacraments both in local communities and in China as a whole. To routinize these rituals through emphasis on Catholic behavior was an important strategy in the early years of the mission. But Christian religion was not just an experience. For missionaries, it required a translation from experience to explanation. To convert nonbelievers to Christianity, the missionary had to transfer to a potential convert a whole system of doctrinal knowledge and behavior that preceded experience and was a prerequisite for conversion. In the Manchuria Mission of the nineteenth century, this unique prerequisite was embodied by the Catholic catechism and the mission regulations. These texts set the boundary conditions for every convert, for whom adopting Catholicism meant accepting not only a new system of religious knowledge that replaced local deities with a Christian god but also a new doctrine of religious behavior. The missionaries’ focus on measuring and assessing Catholic faith in rural communities in nineteenth-century China strengthened the practice and routinization of Catholic sacraments, which continue to be performed in many of the same villages today. Through their efforts to measure Catholic faith, MEP missionaries worked to restore orthodox Christian ritual so that they could transform traditional Chinese villages into faithbased communities with a distinctly Christian identity.

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Institutionalization and Indigenization

The Catholic community in northeast China began to flourish in the 1840s after the Manchuria Mission was founded. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Catholic population in Manchuria had increased tenfold. In the following two decades, the Catholic population further doubled. By the early twentieth century, about four hundred Catholic communities (chrétientés) had been established in the northeast, mostly in rural areas. Although the twentieth century has witnessed various political movements destructive to Christianity in China, almost all of the nineteenth-century Catholic communities recorded in the Manchuria Mission survive today. This is a significant yet unexamined phenomenon. On the one hand, the persistence of Catholicism in local communities depends largely on genealogy. On the other hand, the nineteenth-century evangelical strategy, especially the institutionalization of the Catholic Church in rural areas, turned out to be more influential than scholars have often assumed. By the early twentieth century, the number of Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP) missionaries working under the auspices of the Manchuria Mission reached sixty, and most of them resided in rural Catholic communities. The profile of church personnel in rural communities also underwent a historical transformation. The increasing number of indigenous priests, catechists, and lay Christians became essential to the church’s routine work of evangelization. These significant changes have shaped many contemporary Catholic communities.

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The MEP’s focus on rural areas started as early as the eighteenth century in inland China and turned out to be crucial for expansion in nineteenth-century Manchuria.1 With the exception of Shenyang and Jilin, the two episcopal residences of the southern and northern missions, respectively, most nineteenth-century chrétientés in Manchuria were located in the countryside. Important missionary residences, such as Santaizi, Shaling, Xiaobajiazi, and Xiaoheishan, were all located in small villages that are insignificant on the map of today’s China. The importance of rural chrétientés in the early years of the Manchuria Mission is well illustrated by the records of the missionary Jean Baptiste Franclet, who traveled from Tieling to Kalima in western Liaoning in 1854. On the way, he visited thirteen chrétientés in the mountains and registered 804 individual Christians and 170 individual Catholic families. 2 In addition to collecting household data, Franclet also calculated the number of catechumens, catechists, and chapels in each chrétienté. Indeed, the MEP’s focus on rural communities was a conscious choice. The missions deliberately avoided locations with higher concentrations of magistrates and literati, whom the early Jesuits had believed would offer them better protection and help them have a greater effect. With the more favorable situation of the Catholic mission in China after the mid-nineteenth century, MEP missionaries became more confident and ambitious. They often established chrétientés that overlapped with immigrant communities and were usually composed of a number of families with a similar background or origins. If we compare this approach to what Nicolas Standaert called the determinative “four factors” of the Jesuits’ missionary expedition into China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—its focus on the center rather than the periphery, presence in the city rather than in the countryside, emphasis on personal relationships, and dependence on imperial policy3 —it is clear that the MEP developed its own strategies. A careful examination in this chapter of the MEP’s proselytizing strategies and of local Christians’ involvement in them illustrates a critical development and transformation of Christianity in northeast China. It also shifts our focus from understanding Christianity in China as a cultural contact constructed by the writings of foreign missionaries and Chinese elite converts to an on-the-ground study of the structures of such contact.

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Institutional Development Manchuria had first been separated from the Beijing diocese in 1696 by the decree of Pope Innocent XII and had been placed under Portuguese patronage. On August 14, 1838, Pope Gregory XVI established the Manchuria-Mongolia mission and entrusted the new mission to the French MEP. The decision, however, was not welcomed in Mongolia, where the Lazarists had successfully managed the area for a long time, even during the prohibition of Christianity in the eighteenth century. Rome later decided to establish two separate missions of Mongolia and Manchuria. The Manchuria Mission, or the apostolic vicariate of Manchuria, was established on August 28, 1840. Emmanuel-Jean-François Verrolles, a MEP missionary who had previously worked in Sichuan for about ten years, was appointed apostolic vicar of Manchuria as the titular bishop of Colomby. Verrolles was born in Caen in 1805. He joined the MEP at the age of twenty-three and arrived in Macao in 1831. Having spent fifteen months in Macao studying the Chinese language, he arrived in Sichuan in 1832 and did significant mission work there. At the time Verrolles was assigned to Manchuria, he was director of College de l’Annonciation in Mopin. On his journey from Sichuan to Manchuria, he was ordained the bishop of Colomby by Monsignor Gioacchino Salvetti (1769–1848) on November 8, 1840, in Taiyuan in Shanxi. In May 1840 Verrolles finally arrived in Yangguan, a community composed of 180 Chinese Catholics in eastern Manchuria. The Manchuria Mission was divided into two separate missions, the northern mission and the southern mission, on May 10, 1898. The southern mission extended from Port Arthur (Lüshun) in the south to Huaide County (in today’s Siping city, Jilin) in the north, and from Tonghua County (in today’s Jilin) in the east to Jinzhou in the west. The northern mission was double the size of the southern, extending from Manchuria’s western borderlands with Mongolia to the eastern borderlands with Korea, and from Kuanchengzi (today’s Changchun in Jilin) in the south to the northern part of Amur River, where MEP missionaries called “a land not yet evangelized” (pays non évangélise). After the division of the mission in 1898, however, the center of the Manchuria Mission still remained in the south, for the bishop of Manchuria resided in Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning and the heart of Catholic Manchuria. Well before 1898, the MEP showed an ambition to expand the mission up to the northern frontier of Jilin and Heilongjiang.

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Maxime-Paul Brulley de La Brunière began his expedition to “the extreme north” in 1845 and arrived in Yilan, where he lived with the Nanai, a Tungusic people who are also called Hezhe in their official designation in China today. De La Brunière subsequently went missing in the area. After that, the MEP sent out three additional expeditions to the extreme north in 1849, 1861, and 1864. The most successful adventure was by the missionary Charles Joseph Venault, who, in search of his colleague, arrived at the Ussuri River. This was the homeland of the Yupi Tartars, or “fish-skin tartars,” the native people living on the Ussuri and the Amur above the mouth of the Dondon River.4 On this expedition, Venault established a Catholic community in Jilin and settled there.5 In 1854, the chrétientés in Jilin first appeared in MEP’s annual parish reports. The division of the Manchuria Mission was primarily due to the unbalanced development of the southern versus the northern region. After the mission was divided, the northern mission developed very quickly. In 1898, there were thirty-six parishes in Manchuria, with twenty-five in the south and only eleven in the north. One decade later, in 1910, the total number of parishes in Manchuria had increased to forty-nine; the number of parishes in the north had doubled to twenty-three, close to the total of twenty-six in southern Manchuria. The Catholic Population in Manchuria The MEP maintained systematic annual parish reports, or comptesrendus, which offer rich demographic data about the Catholic communities in northeast China. These documents provide substantial records for investigating the growth of the Catholic population, a significant yet insufficiently explored subject.6 According to parish reports from 1841 to 1919, the Catholic population in Manchuria increased steadily, despite the dramatic political and institutional changes that China underwent between the 1840s and the 1910s. Figure 5.1 demonstrates two periods of increase. From 1841 to 1898, the number of Catholics in Manchuria increased from 2,319 to 25,000. After a short period of decrease at the turn of the twentieth century, the Catholic population grew further, at a faster rate, in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In 1919, the Catholic population had doubled since 1898 and reached a total of 56,708. The only two periods of slight decrease happened around 1900 and 1911, but these were insignificant in their scale and duration. The trend of

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Figure 5.1.  Catholic Population in the Manchuria Mission, 1841–1919. Source: Parish reports in AMEP 0562, 0563, 0564, 0565, 0566, 0567, and 0567A

increase was soon restored, and the Catholic population subsequently expanded even faster than it had in the previous periods. The growth of the Catholic population in Manchuria in the nineteenth century was largely due to the expansion of Catholic communities and had little to do with the dramatic social changes of the century. Social and political movements such as the Boxer Rebellion did not impede the spread of Christianity in Manchuria in the long run; instead, the rebellion marked the beginning of a more rapid increase of the Catholic population in the following decades. What the social and political movements did do, however, was cause a dramatic decrease in baptisms. Baptism was closely associated with the availability of church personnel. With the attacks against missionaries, local priests, and Christians in 1900, the number of baptisms dropped to one-fourth of the number in 1898 and reached its lowest point in the historical record. This sharp decrease was accompanied by a reduction in the number of local churches and chrétientés. The dissemination of Catholicism in Manchuria largely depended on the expansion of mission institutions, particularly the increasing number of missionaries, indigenous priests, and catechists. Therefore, when the social and political movements severely constrained mission personnel, baptism was deeply affected. After the damage of 1900, the rebound began almost immediately. Within no more than a decade, the numbers of baptisms, churches, and chrétientés had reached or exceeded 1898 numbers.

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table 5.1 proportion of catholic population in china in 1897 Catholic population

Province

Total population

Percentile

Guizhou



16,992



8,000,000



0.21

Sichuan



89,800



60,000,150



0.15

Manchuria



22,149



20,005,000



0.11

Guangdong



34,495



30,000,000



0.11

Yunnan



9,915



12,000,000



0.08

Tibet



1,271



4,000,000



0.03

Guangxi



1,349



15,000,000



0.01

source: “Tableau général de l’etat des missions et des résultats obtenus en 1897,” Annals de la Société des Missions-étrangères (Missions étrangères de Paris, 1897), 188–89.

Compared to other MEP mission areas in China, by the end of the nineteenth century the proportion of Catholics in Manchuria was quite high. In 1897, Manchuria ranked third in terms of the proportion of Catholics in its population, after the provinces of Guizhou and Sichuan and tied with Guangdong (see table 5.1). Compared to these three provinces, and given the late date of the establishment of the Manchuria Mission, the growth of Catholicism in Manchuria was remarkable. This fast growth was largely due to the mission’s institutional development, particularly the increasing number of missionaries and indigenous church personnel in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Missionaries The growth of the Manchuria Mission was a result of the increasing number of missionaries, but in the early years of the mission, the lack of personnel was its most severe problem. In 1840, Verrolles was the only missionary working in the Manchuria Mission. Two years later, he acquired an assistant, de La Brunière, who was dispatched to this new mission from Jiangnan. The early years were very difficult for the two men, even though they both had experience working in other regions of China. In 1844, two more missionaries, Siméon Berneux and Venault, arrived in Manchuria. Berneux had previously been a missionary in Tonkin. He was dispatched to Manchuria from Macao.

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These four earliest missionaries were all well-educated and experienced in proselytism. De La Brunière was born to a rich Parisian family and had been an excellent student of medicine. Berneux had been a professor of philosophy in Le Mans, and Venault had served as a parish priest in Poitiers for twelve years before going to China. In 1846, the MEP sent four more missionaries to Manchuria, including Pierre Négrerie (1814–1852), Pierre Alexandre Mesnard, Charles Émile Colin, and Dominique Maurice Pourquié. By the end of the first decade after its founding, altogether nine missionaries had been assigned to this new mission. From the 1840s to the 1870s, Bishop Verrolles and his Manchuria Mission made considerable progress, but the shortage of church personnel continued to hinder the development of the mission. The situation was significantly improved after the 1870s. In the following three decades, the MEP sent forty-eight missionaries exclusively to Manchuria, at a rate of sixteen per decade. The total number of missionaries reached a peak of fifty-eight in 1911. In 1875, the Sisters of the Providence of Portieux (les Sœurs de la Providence de Portieux) also responded to Verrolles’s request and decided to dispatch nuns to assist MEP missionaries in the Manchuria Mission.7 By the end of the nineteenth century, twenty-eight French nuns from the Sisters of the Providence of Portieux had joined the mission and actively participated in the mission work of establishing orphanages and hospices. Churches, Parishes, and Chrétientés A church building is significant for a Catholic community. It represents not only a symbol of Christianity but also a confirmation, both spatially and spiritually, for local converts that they have become part of the global institution of the Catholic Church. In 1841, when Verrolles arrived in Liaodong, he immediately purchased property in Xiaobajiazi to build a church there. Churches in other Catholic communities were later erected, including the church of Santaizi by missionary Joseph André Boyer in 1864 and the church of Niuzhuang by Verrolles in 1869.8 By 1873, MEP missionaries had established altogether twenty-eight churches and chapels in southern Manchuria. In the following decades, from 1873 to 1919, the number of missionaries increased significantly, and so did the number of churches, parishes, and chrétientés. Tracking the trajectory of records, the number of churches and chrétientés in Manchuria maintained a steady

Figure 5.2.  Catholic Church in Xiaoheishan, ca. 1900s. Photo by MEP missionary Jean-Marie Blois (1881–1946). Source: AMEP, Photo Collection, Chine 33, Mandchourie Mér., Activités Missionnaires.

Figure 5.3.  Catholic Church in Xifeng, ca. 1932–1933. Source: AMEP, Photo Collection, Chine 33, Mandchourie Mér., Activités Missionnaires.

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pace of increase. The number of churches and chapels decreased significantly in only two short periods, in 1900 and 1914–15. Such decreases occurred, however, primarily in the northern mission, that is, in Jilin and Heilongjiang. In addition to the Boxer Rebellion that destroyed a large number of Catholic churches in 1900, the decrease in churches in the northern mission was also caused by the floods of the Songhua River in 1910–11 and 1914–15.9 Floods in those years suspended the missionaries’ annual visits, which resulted in a dramatically low number of churches and chrétientés being recorded in the annual reports. Parishes are composed of individual Christian communities, or chrétientés in the Catholic terminology. In the MEP documents of the Manchuria Mission, chrétienté is one of the most common terms missionaries use to describe a local Catholic community, usually referring to a natural village. According to Jesuit historian Joseph Dehergne, chrétienté had two meanings. In a strict sense, it referred to “a place that had a church (chapel) and a fixed residence, or at least a nucleus of Christians who were visited once in a while by a missionary. This definition tends to imply that the missionary is the center of the community.” The other meaning was broader and referred to “a place with a Christian presence.”10 A chrétienté in Manchuria did not necessarily have a church or a chapel. In fact, chrétientés in Manchuria always outnumbered churches and chapels. For example, in 1899 there were 320 chrétientés but only ninety-five churches and chapels. Apparently, some chrétientés shared a church or chapel to conduct sacraments. In this sense, chrétientés in Manchuria connoted a broader meaning of Christian presence. A chrétienté was sometimes identical to the geographical/ natural village with the same name.

Indigenization of Local Church Personnel In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the Manchuria Mission experienced a fundamental transformation: indigenous evangelists, especially indigenous priests and catechists, became the majority of local church personnel. This trend continued into the twentieth century. By 1918, the total number of indigenous priests and catechists was six times that of Western missionaries (see fig. 5.4). Indigenous priests came to serve a crucial function by acting for the missionaries in community rites and religious affairs, and lay Christians such

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Figure 5.4.  Church Actors in the Manchuria Mission, 1873–1919. The definition of “catechist” was vague in the Manchuria Mission. In some years, missionaries also included Catholic schoolteachers as catechists, so the number of catechists in certain years was higher than in other years. source : Parish reports in AMEP 0562, 0563, 0564, 0565, 0566, 0567 and 0567A.

as catechists played particularly active roles in ordinary catechetical duties. Compared to the sharply increased Catholic population, the number of missionaries was very limited at the end of the nineteenth century.11 Although the hierarchical importance of the missionaries was greater than their number, few Chinese Catholics had any regular contact with them. Far more important to them were the Chinese clergy and the catechists. Indigenous Priests Indigenous priests were always central to the MEP’s policy of indigenization. Early mission development in Manchuria focused on establishing authority for indigenous priests in local communities rather than on their recruitment and training. According to the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission, indigenous priests were authorized to play an important role in routine mission work. One important task was to assist missionaries each July in preparing the annual parish report, which included visiting each chrétienté and calculating the number of Catholics as well as the number of sacraments, marriages, deaths, and various newly established church institutions. This task required constant attention from indigenous priests for almost a

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whole year, for chrétientés in Manchuria were scattered over the vast landscape of northeast China. In addition, indigenous priests were required to behave according to strict rules: their activities in daily life were regulated, and they had to follow a strict hierarchy within the church. For example, indigenous priests were paid for their work but were financially regulated: they were not allowed to lend money at interest or to lend money to their family members without the permission of the missionary. It was forbidden for them to serve as bondsmen to their parents or friends (Règlement de la Mission de Mandchourie, 2.3.4; henceforth RMM). The regulations also required that “the missionary should honor the relevant priests, treat them like brothers, and show them much affection, but avoid getting too familiar with them. On their side, indigenous priests should show their submission and obedience to the missionary in charge of them” (RMM 2.3.3). An indigenous priest was honored at his death. “The mission should have all missionaries do ten masses for the rest of his soul” (RMM 2.3.5). These rules aimed to create a hierarchy to distinguish indigenous priests from ordinary converts. Throughout the nineteenth century, the number of indigenous priests in Manchuria remained very low. From the mid-1870s to the mid-1880s, no more than five indigenous priests were recorded. In 1899, the number of indigenous priests reached twelve. Not until the second decade of the twentieth century did the number of indigenous priests increase threefold to thirty-six.12 Two factors may explain the limited recruitment of indigenous priests in Manchuria in the nineteenth century. First, the bar of recruitment was rather high, but the resources available for training were very limited. According to the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission, all indigenous priests were required to know Latin and to pass a theological examination. However, there was only one seminary in Manchuria before 1879. Two more seminaries were built in 1893 and 1899. In 1910, there were altogether five seminaries, and the number of students in the seminaries increased from 17 in 1873 to a peak of 116 in 1910. Students in seminaries were trained for two purposes: theology and Latin. Latin was required for more than theology, for it was used in baptism. The questions and responses of the rules of baptism that formed part of the sacrament were conducted in Latin, followed by a translation in the indigenous language to make certain that everyone understood them (RMM 1.1.1). In addition to using Latin for baptism and

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supplementary ceremonies, the presiding missionary was to inscribe the names of the baptized, the parents, and the godparents in the register in Latin (RMM 1.1.6). Although Latin was not the primary language for church work in nineteenth-century Manchuria, and most parish reports and correspondence were in French, because of its role in the sacraments, it became a symbol signifying authority and dignity. The second factor explaining the limited recruitment of indigenous priests in Manchuria at that time was that they had to be recruited from among faithful male adults who had to take a vow of celibacy. In rural society, where kinship and reproduction were of paramount importance, it was difficult to find such candidates. The MEP documents show that most indigenous priests were ordained in their thirties: from 1840 to 1898, the nineteen indigenous priests ordained in total included one in his twenties, eleven in their thirties, and two in their fifties.13 Thirty is a rather late age for marriage and reproduction in rural society. An analysis of Liaoning household registers from 1749 to 1912 indicates that 10 to 15 percent of men did not marry. However, there was a major social class gradient: almost all men of high socioeconomic status married, while lower-status men were considerably less likely to marry.14 Examining the list of indigenous priests in Manchuria, we may infer that most indigenous priests recruited in the nineteenth century either came from Catholic families or from families with lower socioeconomic status. Catechists Catechists in the nineteenth-century Manchuria Mission primarily served catechumens and nonbelievers. As the regulations explain, “Nominated catechists are people employed by the mission to propagate the doctrine. Their duty is to preach to the pagans; they will ensure that the new catechumens learn the doctrine, fulfill all their work, and prepare properly for their baptism. As a general rule, they will introduce those who wish to become catechumens to the missionary” (RMM 2.5.1). The major duties of catechists in nineteenth-century Manchuria were inherited from past practices and had remained basically the same for over a century. A seventeenth-century German Jesuit scholar, Athanasius Kircher, included a detailed description of early Chinese catechists and their duties in his 1667 China Illustrata:

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Their function is to go around the villages and streets and when they find infants who have been cast out to perish, they baptize them. By word and the example of their lives they bring the untaught to the knowledge of God’s truth. They give spiritual pamphlets to those who do not have them. They resolve dubious matters and gain souls for Christ. In the churches the elements of our Christian faith are shown in characters written on large tablets, which are hung on the walls. At a certain time of the day, when curiosity draws the heathen into our churches to look at the strange things, the catechists explain the inscriptions to show the truth and to disprove the false gods. Then, these persons are invited into the house for more instruction. I can scarcely say how many souls are added to the church this way. Each day the catechists give a full report to the fathers, who are their superiors.15

In the early years of the Manchuria Mission, missionaries, because of their very limited number, also relied on local catechists for proselytizing and religious education. Catechists taught the catechism and Christian behavioral doctrines to nonbelievers; they also helped catechumens prepare for proper baptism. Being responsible to the missionaries, catechists were required to submit monthly reports on the results of their work. To prevent catechists from developing too much familiarity with other Christians and consequently organizing any kind of associations of brotherhood, or ganqin, which were popular in northeast rural China, the regulations forbade them to live in other Christians’ homes without the permission of the missionary (RMM 2.5.6). Unlike indigenous priests, catechists were lay Christians involved in proselytizing. There were no specific rules regarding who could become a catechist. The Regulations of the Manchuria Mission only required that catechists set an example as good Christians, and that they avoid any worldly affairs with nonbelievers (RMM 2.5). The distinction between catechists and huizhangs (local administrators and chrétienté leaders), was not always clear.16 The Manchuria Mission thus made an effort to define each of the religious roles of lay Christians. The regulations required that the major responsibility of catechists be preparation for baptism and religious instruction. The huizhang of each chrétienté “must ensure the upkeep of the Church and assist the missionary under all circumstances where their help is needed” (RMM 2.6.2.a). They should “maintain harmony among Christians and prevent their conflicts being referred to the tribunal without the missionary’s assent. Furthermore, they will give their

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support to the missionary to suppress certain scandals that could make religion difficult” (RMM 2.6.2.c). In addition, “in the choice of administrators, personal qualities rather than personal wealth will be taken into consideration. Three things are desirable: a good example, education, and influence among the Christians” (RMM 2.6.3). Compared to catechists, huizhang also enjoyed some privileges, such as a reserved place in the church. In religious ceremonies, “the supplementary officers should be chosen among them, and, in all circumstances, they would have priority over other Christians” (RMM 2.6.5). The detailed and clear definition of the role of a huizhang as a local administrator of the Catholic community contrasts with the vague definition of the duties of a catechist. The latter sought to encourage the active involvement of as many lay Christians as possible. In the late nineteenth century, catechists became more and more important in proselytizing the Christian faith, but in the first four decades of the mission, their numbers remained very low. Not until the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century did the number of catechists increase dramatically. In 1919, the total number of catechists in Manchuria increased to 220, about five times the number of Western missionaries and six times that of indigenous priests. In Manchuria, the expansion of Catholic schools in the 1890s also increased the number of catechists. Many catechists worked as schoolteachers. Residential catechists based in a particular Catholic community were responsible for the day-to-day instruction of neophytes and children. The catechists themselves had access to elementary catechetical writings and relied on Catholic catechisms and regulation pamphlets, as well as prayers and hymns.

Faithful Females Ironically, while MEP missionaries and indigenous priests were all men, the large number of catechists and baptizers were mostly female. Figure 5.5 compares the proportions of men and women among the active members the Manchuria Mission; these included the clergy (missionaries, European nuns, indigenous priests, and indigenous nuns) and lay Christians (catechists and Christian Virgins). Except for a few years at the turn of the century, active religious women always outnumbered their male counterparts. Moreover, the gender gap gradually grew wider over the first two

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Figure 5.5.  Active Religious Men and Women in the Manchuria Mission. The definition of “catechist” varied. Sometimes missionaries also included Catholic schoolteachers as catechists, including Catholic women and Christian Virgins, so the number of catechists shown in the figure could be higher than the actual number of catechists. The total number of active women is significantly higher than that of men in these decades.

decades of the twentieth century, perhaps responding to the need for religious women to staff Catholic schools and orphanages. Chinese Christian Virgins Chinese Christian Virgins were a group of Chinese Catholic women who took vows of chastity and devoted themselves to the service of God and the church.17 They are often called shouzhennü (woman who keeps virginity), zhennü (virgin), or tongzhennü (little virgin) in Chinese documents. As early as the seventeenth century, under the instruction of Dominican missionaries, Chinese Catholic women in Fujian began to consecrate their lives to religious work as Virgins who swore vows of chastity but continued to live with their families.18 In the eighteenth century, a century before foreign female religious orders came to China, Chinese Catholic women in Sichuan were organized under the Institute of Christian Virgins.19 MEP missionary Joachim Enjobert de Martiliat established the institute in 1744

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Figure 5.6.  A group of Christian women in Manchuria, ca. 1910s. Source: AMEP, Photo Collection, Chine 34, Mandchourie Sept., Activités Missionnaires.

and issued twenty-five rules of Tongzhen xiugui, or “regulations on Chinese Christian Virgins,” based on the unfinished work of Luigi Maggi, the Dominican apostolic vicar of Sichuan. After the death of Martiliat in 1755, Jean-Martin Moÿe reorganized the institute in the 1770s to devote it to teaching and evangelism. 20 The twenty-five rules of Martiliat were modeled on Western rules for Catholic nuns. In their Chinese version, every rule starts with zaixi, or “in the West.”21 These rules covered all aspects of a Christian Virgin’s life and service, including recruitment, chastity, residence, obedience, work, social activity, contact with male strangers, costume and behavior, meditation, and church service. Martiliat’s original rules were an adaptation designed particularly for Catholic women in Chinese society, and they sought to position such women safely as ordinary women therein. The institutional structure and principles of the Institute of Christian Virgins remained intact in the nineteenth century and continued to follow Martiliat’s promulgation of the twenty-five rules. Moreover, these rules were made applicable to all Chinese converts in 1832 and remained in force until the twentieth century. 22

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The Virgins and Their Responsibilities  The primary responsibility of the Chinese Christian Virgins was to teach the Catholic catechism. Teaching was a major evangelical strategy for the MEP. Owing to Alexandre de Rhodes, the first MEP missionary to Asia, specifically Vietnam, the MEP developed its first catechism pedagogy in Asia in the seventeenth century according to the seven rules laid down by de Rhodes. 23 De Rhodes’s principles, with their concern for the indigenous context in teaching, established the framework for teaching the catechism for later MEP missions in Asia. In contrast to de Rhodes’s rules, the curriculum of the Christian Virgins focused on the pedagogy of the catechism. To help the Virgins better understand and play their instructional role, Moÿe later added seven rules about teaching to Martiliat’s original twenty-five rules: 1. First, teach the students to love God, appreciate grace, understand the Holy Trinity, and recite the catechism. 2. Teach the students to know Jesus Christ and understand the birth and life of Jesus; persuade children to learn from Jesus Christ, not from indifferent Christians. 3. On Fridays, talk about the sufferings of Jesus Christ and persuade students to revere this holy feast, not to waste the time in leisure, not to laugh, and to behave modestly. On Thursdays, talk about the Holy Body of Jesus Christ, Mass, and communion. Teach students to learn to listen to Mass, attend communion, and benefit from them. 4. Teach students to understand Faith, Hope, and Charity. Be grateful to God, behave like Jesus Christ, and submit to God. Teach them to love not only their relatives and friends but also humanity all over the world as well as their enemies. Teach them to suffer rather than to harm. Teach them to love their parents, because parents represent God in the world. 5. Teach students to cherish every day. Remind them to behave according to the catechism day and night. Teach them to behave as good Christians, be charitable to others, and live earnestly to be saved. 6. Keep Saint Mary and all saints in mind when teaching students. Pray for Saint Mary to be the holy mother of all students.

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7. Teach students to think about death, to prepare for death, to avoid various ugly temptations, to be penitent and to confess, to die rather than to fall. In case of sin, confess and pray for forgiveness. Persuade children to stay away from sins lest they become slaves of the monster.24 Moÿe’s teaching rules for Christian Virgins centered explicitly on pedagogy in teaching the catechism and proper Christian behavior. In the more favorable conditions of the nineteenth century, Christian Virgins were expected to understand all of the essential Christian concepts as well as proper Christian behavior. Christian Virgins, as instructors, were expected to be in the most advanced of the three levels of theological understanding. They had the responsibility to learn and understand the most advanced religious knowledge as well as to convey it to Christian children and catechumens. In short, these rules required Christian Virgins to have not only an advanced level of literacy but also a deep religious understanding. The relatively large number of Christian Virgins in the Manchuria Mission represents an unacknowledged group of religiously educated women in rural Chinese society. The active roles that Christian Virgins played in education in the Manchuria Mission and their level of literacy were a significant development of the MEP’s policy concerning Christian women and literacy. In the eighteenth century, when the Institute of Christian Virgins was founded, literacy became a controversial issue for MEP missionaries. Jean-Didier de St. Martin, the apostolic vicar of Sichuan from 1793 to 1801, for example, publicly criticized the Institute of Christian Virgins. Besides confirming several rules—such as that no schoolmistress should be below the age of twenty-five, that the number of schools in each district ought to be limited, and that missionaries should not actively recruit Christian Virgins in their districts—St. Martin also ruled that education in writing was not necessary for Christian Virgins. 25 St. Martin’s order was not, however, carried out. As the Du letters show, Christian women in nineteenth-century Manchuria were trained in both reading and writing. Although their training in literacy depended on the catechism and religious education, their writing skills were considerable. In addition, the Manchuria Mission faced a relatively high bar to recruit schoolteachers. With the expansion of the mission, the number of girls’ schools in the second half of the nineteenth century equaled

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the number of boys’ schools, and female students substantially outnumbered male students. 26 These Catholic girls’ schools required a number of female instructors. The mission required that teachers in the girls’ schools be selected from among Christian Virgins and that missionaries pay particular attention to the selection of schoolteachers: “A person of suspicious life or of suspicious morality should never be selected” (RMM 3.2.5). 27 Regulating Virgins in the Manchuria Mission  After the Manchuria Mission was established in the 1840s, the number of Chinese Christian Virgins increased sharply, especially at the turn of the twentieth century. According to the annual parish reports of the mission, there were forty-nine Virgins in 1882, and seventy-five in 1887. The number doubled in the following fifteen years, reaching 179 in 1901, and 229 in 1905. In 1919, the peak number of 258 Christian Virgins was recorded in Manchuria. Given that the Manchuria Mission was a relatively new mission in China, this was an impressive figure and compared favorably with other missions in China, with the exception of Sichuan. 28 The increase in the number of Christian Virgins in Manchuria was largely due to the rapidly growing number of Catholic schools founded during this period. According to the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission, the missionary should provide all Christian children in his district with a truly Christian education, and, to achieve this goal, he should establish in each chrétienté, or at least in each principal area, a school for boys and a school for girls (RMM 3.2.1). In the five decades after the 1870s, about three hundred schools were founded in Manchuria. Except for the devastating period of the Boxer Rebellion, the increase in the number of schools tracked the growth of the Catholic population and continued into the early twentieth century. 29 The increasing involvement of Chinese Catholic Virgins in mission work unavoidably increased contact between the Virgins and the foreign male missionaries. Although the relationship between foreign missionaries and indigenous Virgins was extremely sensitive, to expand the mission, the Church of Manchuria in effect encouraged the involvement of Christian Virgins and consequently the contact between missionaries and Virgins. For better regulation of such contact and of Chinese Catholic Virgins in general, the Manchuria Mission issued its own regulations for Christian Virgins in 1881, based on Martiliat’s twenty-five rules of 1744.

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Condition of Admission. The missionary should use much prudence and discretion in deciding to admit a young girl to join the Virgins. A proven desire to maintain virginity is not enough. The girl should also have three hundred diao in cash or in funds. Ceremony of Admission. On the day of admission, people bless and place on the girl in the church a veil of dark blue, six feet long and two feet wide. The newly admitted girl on this occasion should renew the promise of her baptism in a loud voice and at the same time express her desire to remain for her whole life submissive to the missionary of this place in relation to all that concerns the benefit of the religion. Modesty of Costume. The Virgins should provide an example of simplicity and modesty. In consideration of their condition, they should avoid in their costumes, their shoes, and the arrangement of their hair excessive feeling for elegance. Expulsion. If one of the girls becomes a subject of scandal for others or remains obstinately disobedient to the missionary, she must be expelled publicly from the Virgins. Rules. Those who live with their families, unless they have a special exemption, must have a separate apartment from the rest of the family and follow the Tongzhen xiugui in their private conduct. Conduct of Missionaries with the Virgins. In accordance with the Synod of Sichuan, it is forbidden for a missionary to give direct assistance to a Virgin for her personal subsistence. He is, however, allowed to give money from his own pocket to support the foundation or prosperity of communities (RMM 2.4). Compared to Martiliat’s rules, the Manchurian rules were stricter, and recruitment specifically targeted the wealthy. The Regulations of the Manchuria Mission required evidence of personal funds in the amount of three hundred diao as a prerequisite to join the Institute of Christian Virgins. 30 This radical requirement extended the fifth rule in Martiliat’s version, which required the Virgins to work but did not require that they be wealthy. 31 Since all Christian Virgins continued to live with their parents and remained isolated from secular society, it would have been hard for them to make a living

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without the support of their families. Otherwise, economic dependence would have made Christian Virgins very vulnerable. In 1784, the Propaganda Fide reaffirmed that no woman was to be admitted to the institute unless her family could support her financially. This meant that in the eighteenth century the institute began to exclude candidates from extremely poor families. This tendency was reinforced in the nineteenth century in Manchuria. The requirement of three hundred diao of property sought to solve the financial problems of Christian Virgins by adding an economic prerequisite for admission. As a result, most Virgins were from well-off families, for three hundred diao was not an insignificant amount of money in nineteenth-century Manchuria. The Manchurian rules also forbade personal contact between Christian Virgins and foreign missionaries to avoid scandals. Yet it encouraged missionaries’ assistance to convents or other women’s communities (RMM 2.4.6). This seemingly contradictory rule sought to prevent rumors about missionaries and Virgins. In the meantime, with the expansion of the mission, the church needed assistance from the Virgins. The first of Martiliat’s 1744 rules required that all admitted Virgins be aged twenty-five or older, since the age of twenty-five was considered to be beyond the typical age of marriage. 32 In 1784, the Propaganda Fide emphasized again that the vow of chastity taken at the age of twenty-five must be renewed every three years, and that those chosen to work in teaching or with male missionaries should be “advanced in years, if possible over the age of thirty,” the age in China at which women were thought to have lost their sexual attractiveness.33 Catholic Communities of Women In the second half of the nineteenth century, as the indigenization of church personnel progressed, many Chinese Catholic Virgins faced the dilemma whether or not to enter one of the religious communities of women, most of which were founded or supervised by foreign missionaries or foreign religious orders. Due to the segregation of men and women in traditional Chinese society, from the beginning missionaries experienced difficulty in contacting and converting Chinese women. Involving faithful Chinese women in mission work thus became especially important. In Manchuria, communities of Catholic women were started in the early nineteenth century after the

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founding of the Manchuria Mission. Verrolles first visited Xiaobajiazi in 1840 and a few years later began to train local Virgins by establishing a convent. Encouraging dispersed Catholic women to live a communal life and to be trained as mission workers or schoolteachers was a major strategy of the Manchuria Mission. By the early twentieth century, at least seven indigenous religious communities of Chinese Catholic women had been established in Manchuria. These communities included the Virgins of the Sacred Heart of St. Mary (founded in 1858 in Xiaobajiazi), the Religious Order of the Sacred Heart of Mary (1913, in Jilin and Liaoning), the Oblates of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus (1929, in Qiqihar), 34 the Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary (1930, in Jilin), 35 the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Shenyang (1932, in Liaoning), the Sisters of the Holy Family (1934, in Jilin), and the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Fushun (1939, in Liaoning). However, the establishment and development of indigenous communities was closely connected to the assistance of missionaries or foreign female religious orders. The first foreign female Catholic order, the Sisters of the Providence of Portieux, came to Manchuria in 1875. In the following decades, a number of foreign female Catholic organizations arrived in Manchuria, including the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Egypt (Italian, arrived in China in 1910), the Sisters of the Visitation (Japanese, 1920s), the Daughters of Mary and Joseph (Dutch, 1922), the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (Canadian, 1927), the Olivetan Benedictine Sisters (Swiss, 1931), the Polish Union of Ursulines (Polish, 1928), the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross (Swiss, 1929), the Daughters of the Holy Ghost (French, 1936), the Antonian Sisters of Mary Queen of the Clergy (Canadian, 1937), the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (international, 1930s), and the Sisters of the Child Jesus (French, 1936).36 Among these Catholic communities of women, two indigenous communities and one foreign Catholic congregation turned out to be the most influential in northeast China. Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary  The Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary was the first indigenous community of Catholic women in northeast China. Before it was officially approved by the Holy See in 1932, it had had a presence in the region for more than eight decades. Bishop Verrolles first established a community of Virgins of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Xiaobajiazi in 1858, and he later founded a second house in Hulan.37 This was the first form of communal religious life

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introduced to Catholic women in northeast China. In 1898, the Manchuria Mission was divided into the northern and the southern mission, and by the early twentieth century, Virgins in the northern mission finally outnumbered those in the south. In 1938, the apostolic vicariate of Jilin had “188 professed Virgins, six novices, and thirteen postulants: eighty-three professed Virgins residing in twenty-four parishes and the rest in their convents. Their work consisted of catechetics and of service in schools, orphanages, dispensaries, hospitals, etc.”38 In the southern mission, Virgins joined the Sisters of the Providence of Portieux and helped them in orphanages and hospices. These Virgins later moved to Shenyang with the Sisters of Providence. In 1913, MEP missionary Felice Choulet established a convent. During the chaos of the second Sino-Japanese War and the civil war in the 1930s and 1940s, the Sisters, led by Sister Qi Zhiying, first moved to Nanjing and later to Taiwan, and finally established their headquarters in Taizhong in the 1960s. About sixty sisters remained in Shenyang after 1949. Although not active, the convent survived various political movements in the following four decades. In 1989, the convent began to recruit postulants, and today has more than ninety nuns. As the Du women mentioned in their letters, the convent that Bishop Boyer wanted to establish in Santaizi was that of the Sacred Heart of Mary. The Du women refused to enter the convent because they could not accept its rules. Marie Du’s letter makes clear that the women preferred a convent that emphasized contemplation, like the Carmelite Order, rather than one that encouraged an active religious life.39 The Sacred Heart of Mary was dedicated to active mission work from the beginning. It required its Virgins to be trained before entering a period of probation, which lasted for at least six months. During the probation, the girls would receive instruction in basic theological knowledge and Catholic rituals. Then they would have the chance to enter a two-year period of novitiate. With satisfactory performance, the girls could then take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. These vows were temporary and were to be repeated annually for five to nine years until the Virgin took lifelong vows to be a Virgin of the Sacred Heart of Mary. The long process of training was very different from the practice of the Carmelite Order, which the Du women wanted to enter. Sisters of the Holy Family (les Sœurs de la Sainte-Famille)  The Sisters of the Holy Family was an indigenous community of Catholic women

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founded by MEP missionary Charles Joseph Lemaire in 1934. Lemaire had arrived in Manchuria in 1931. One year later, he was appointed assistant and then parish priest of the Cathedral of Jilin in today’s Jilin. He worked there for more than a decade until he was appointed the general superior of the MEP and returned to Paris in 1946.40 The Sisters of the Holy Family had its origins in the Virgins of the Sacred Heart of Mary, which was established by Bishop Verrolles in Xiaobajiazi in 1858. The first members of the Sisters of the Holy Family were eight Virgins of the Sacred Heart from Xiaobajiazi. They joined the newly established convent in 1934 and studied under the supervision of Lemaire until 1946. The Holy Family recruited the first group of postulants in 1935. In 1938, there were about seventy-three professed nuns.41 The convent was dissolved in 1948 during the Communist Party’s land reform. Three decades later, in 1978, ten old sisters of the Holy Family returned to the convent. In 1999, the number of professed nuns had increased to eighty-three. A letter in the archives of the MEP’s photo collection written by Guo Yaozhen, a Holy Family sister in Jilin, explains that she was one of the returned old sisters.42 Her long letter, dated in 1988, is addressed to Charles Lemaire. However, when Guo’s letter arrived in Paris in 1988, Lemaire had already lived in Hong Kong for more than two decades; he had been named the superior of Bethany House in Hong Kong in 1960. As Guo mentioned in her letter, the Sisters of the Holy Family remains an active group of Catholic nuns in Jilin today. The Sisters of the Providence of Portieux. The purpose of this congregation was to provide religious education to poor children, especially girls. Despite a decade of turmoil without active work during the French Revolution, by 1824 the nuns of Portieux had established 422 posts and recruited 945 sisters. With the Catholic revival in France in the nineteenth century, the congregation established schools in twenty-five departments or districts of the country in the 1870s, as well as in Belgium and Rome. There were about two thousand nuns working in the congregation. The Sisters of the Providence of Portieux became one of the most successful women’s congregations devoted to Catholic education in France. A group of six nuns departed for Manchuria on May 4, 1875. This was the first group of European nuns coming to work in Manchuria.43 As one of the best-known congregations for girls’ education and charity in France, the Sisters of the Providence of Portieux did significant educational and charitable work in northeast China. When

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Figure 5.7.  Orphanage established by les Soeurs de la Providence de Portieux, ca. 1880s. Source: AMEP, Photo Collection, Chine 33, Mandchourie Mér., Activités Missionnaires.

the nuns first arrived in Shenyang, they were placed in charge of an orphanage with twelve orphans run by three Chinese Christian Virgins. Under the direction of Sisters Philomène and Somitille, the number of orphans cared for soon increased, reaching two hundred in 1900. From 1875 to 1900, these nuns raised about 350 orphans. In 1878, Verrolles died in Niuzhuang. His successor, Monseigneur Constant Dubail, apparently did not support the nuns. The sisters had to move from Shenyang and Niuzhuang to Tongjiatun, where a Chinese Virgin ran an orphanage with seven girls and three boys. In 1884, the orphanage also became a hospice and began to assist the elderly who had been abandoned by their families; by 1900, this hospice accommodated about fifty elders and 365 orphans and employed fifty-two workers.44 Two other orphanages were founded, the first in Shaling in 1897, and the second in Tieling in 1899. In 1900, there were altogether five orphanages, three hospices for the elderly, seven European nuns, thirty indigenous Virgins, and 755 orphans. Each orphanage contained a school for catechumens.45 In the twenty-five years from 1875 to 1900, forty-five nuns worked in the Manchuria Mission, and forty-three of them died in Manchuria.46

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Figure 5.8.  Niuzhuang (Newchwang) hospice, established by les Soeurs de la Providence de Portieux, ca. 1920s. Source: AMEP, Photo Collection, Chine 33, Mandchourie Mér., Activités Missionnaires.

Conclusion Disseminating faith in the Manchuria Mission depended largely on effective institution building, in particular on increasing the number of missionaries, churches, parishes, and chrétientés. Institutional development resulted in an upsurge of the Catholic population in the early twentieth century. The expansion of rural Catholic communities despite social and political turmoil demonstrated the success of the MEP’s rural strategy. The growth of these grassroots communities also signaled a success in the transformation of the Catholic Church: the shift of major personnel from European missionaries to indigenous priests and catechists. Indigenization of Catholicism in the rural society of Manchuria, as a conscious effort by the MEP, was not realized until the early twentieth century. It was due to the institutionalization of the Catholic Church in the area as well as the increasing proportion of the “good faithful”—indigenous priests, catechists, and lay Christians—as defined by their involvement in evangelism. These “good Christians” became the major force in proselytism and education in local communities.

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Figure 5.9.  Orphanage of Yingkou, established by les Soeurs de la Providence de Portieux, ca. 1920s. Source: AMEP, Photo Collection, Chine 33, Mandchourie Mér., Activités Missionnaires.

The reason why the various destructive movements of the twentieth century did not eliminate Catholicism in China may lie largely in this historical transformation of the Catholic Church, which deeply affected the personnel and institutions in the rural communities of the Chinese Catholic faithful. Even more profound than this institutional change was the consequent spread of Catholic education in rural society, especially the establishment of Catholic schools and catechism education, which not only transformed the local Catholic communities but also offered the Chinese faithful a new literacy that had never before available to them.

chapter 6

Faith, Gender, and a New Female Literacy in Modern China

The widespread dissemination of Catholicism and the indigenization of church personnel fundamentally transformed Christianity in China. The three Du women experienced this transformation in the 1870s, when they became reluctant to enter a convent that was devoted to active religious work. They resorted to their priest in Paris by writing letters, an ability they acquired through local religious education. The church’s religious education not only provided a new stage on which women could speak and act, but also produced a new female literacy for rural Catholic women to articulate an awareness of self and to form/transform a new subjectivity.

The Transformation of Catholic Women’s Writing In the hundred years between the late nineteenth and late twentieth century, the church system that had made the Du women’s writing possible experienced a significant transformation. So did Catholic women’s writing. A comparison of two other sets of letters written by Chinese Catholic women in the early and late twentieth century—a letter by Chang Jiala written in 1912, and two letters by Guo Yaozhen and her sisters of the Holy Family Convent in 1988—best illustrate the historical trajectory of these changes. Chang was a Catholic woman from a Catholic village located about thirty kilometers south of Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi in northwest China.1 In her letter to Michael Chiapetta, called Father Jiang by his Chinese converts, Chang asked for help because she did 127

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not want to leave home to do mission work in Shuozhou, as required by other priests. Chang Jiala’s letter, written vertically from right to left with Chinese characters in dark ink on yellow rice paper, echoes the emotions and desperation of the Du letters. Revered Father Jiang, Hope God bless you are fine. I write to you because I do not know whether my father is well. The sinner often wants to see my father in person. However, I have no way to see you. I feel upset.… It has been four or five years since father has gone. The sinner’s soul and flesh suffer more. No one takes care of me. I do not want to go out and I cry. I beg my father to teach the sinner how to deal with it. I do hope my father could come once. I cannot speak more. Father, please pray to God for the sinner. 2

Chang Jiala wrote her letter in 1912, four decades after the Du letters. She used 158 distinct characters in a total of 343 characters. Her letter contains no homophone substitution, missing characters, incorrectly written characters, or other types of mistakes common to the Du letters. But like the Du women, who alternated between “God’s daughters” and the first-person pronoun “I,” Chang used “the sinner” and “I” interchangeably to indicate herself: “I” is used six times, while “sinner” is used fourteen times. In contrast to “God’s daughter,” which is a clearly feminine expression, “sinner” is a term with no gender connotations and is common to all Chinese Catholics. Chang’s letter is private, but her writing is not as personal as that of the Du women. Written more than seventy years after Chang Jiala’s letter, the letters written by nuns of the Holy Family Convent of northeast China demonstrate yet another world of religious literacy. These letters, which were tucked inside a photo album in the Missions Étrangères de Paris’ (MEP) photo collection, were written on two thin, fragile, almost transparent sheets of red-lined letter paper—a common style of letter paper in 1980s China. The two letters were dated 1988, more than one hundred years after the Du letters. They were the first letters written to a French missionary after the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), which banned all communications between Chinese and Westerners. Guo Yaozhen, the female author of one of the letters, opens her letter emotionally: “My dear Bishop, I haven’t seen you for more than forty years. I miss you so much!” Guo tells the story of how the convent was dismissed during the Cultural Revolution and restored in 1978. She lists the names and ages of returned old nuns,

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who are all former students of the bishop. Guo concludes her letter with an emotional sentence that calls to mind the Du women’s writing: “Please take care, Bishop! I cannot write more. We, your God’s daughters, will never forget to pray for you.… God’s daughter misses you!”3 The tone, the style, and even the feelings expressed in Guo’s letter are reminiscent of those of the Du letters and make it feel almost timeless. Written horizontally from left to right in Chinese characters in blue ink, the letter indicates that its author is a well-educated person. There are no grammatical errors and no wrongly written characters, and the handwriting is neat and tidy. Guo belongs to a later generation of faithful Chinese Catholic women than the Du women or Chang Jiala. While the Du women still wrote awkwardly, and Chang emotionally, to their missionaries to give voice to their reluctance to participate in active mission work, Guo, who suffered from and survived destructive anti-Christian political turmoil in twentiethcentury China, wrote fluently and firmly to express her faith and persistence as a member of a convent. If we compare the three sets of letters written by Chinese Catholic women in three different historical periods from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, the most distinctive change is that the women’s level of literacy, as demonstrated by the letters, has improved significantly. The Du women made numerous grammatical and writing mistakes, while Chang and Guo made no mistakes at all. The context for this improvement is the development of the church educational system from late imperial to modern China. While the Du women belonged to the first generation of Catholic women who benefited from yaoli xuefang, catechismal classrooms or Catholic schools established by the church in rural society, Chang and Guo (and especially the latter, as a teacher of novices at the convent) were apparently well educated thanks to the developed church educational system. The religious concepts used in the three sets of letters also show an implicit change in religious culture in China. The Du women used the most religious vocabulary and concepts. Besides commonly used terms such as “God” and “soul,” two of them mentioned the Trinity, and all of them talked repetitively about the Sacred Heart and about a few of the saints, such as Saint Mary, Saint Madeleine, and Saint Joseph. Some Catholic terms popular in nineteenth-century Europe, such as “pride,” “weakness,” and “indifference” also appeared over and over again in the Du letters. Similarly, when Chang wrote to

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complain about her reluctance to leave home, she used such Catholic terms as “sinner,” “soul,” and “flesh” to reflect on her own dilemma, but with a much lower degree of religiosity. In contrast to the Du letters and Chang’s writing-as-confession, Guo’s letter is much flatter. The main content of her letter is a report on the convent’s current situation. The only religious terms in Guo’s letter are “heaven,” “God,” “soul,” and “the cross.” While the religiosity of the letters became flatter between the late nineteenth and late twentieth century, the social world as reflected in the letters became increasingly centered on the church rather than on family. The Du letters mention quite a few family members, including a grandfather, a father, an aunt, and other family members outside the church. The Chang letter does not mention any family members but talks about ten people in the author’s church, including five priests (Father Jiang, Father Zhang, Father Du, Father Duan, and the bishop) and more than three other church members (Fu Yinze, Yu Hua, Gao Yana, and “others I do not know”). In Guo’s letter, the more than twenty people mentioned are all church members, including five priests and twenty-one nuns, novices, and volunteers of the Holy Family Convent. The only family member Guo mentions is her brother, a priest who had suffered twelve years in prison during the Cultural Revolution. In the more than one hundred years that lie between Chinese Christian Virgins such as the Du women and Chinese nuns such as Guo, China experienced a critical transformation of Christianity alongside its dramatic political, social, and cultural revolutions. The Catholic Church in China has been systematically established throughout Chinese society, in spite of political adversity. In the early 1950s, all foreign missionaries were expelled by the Communist government. After the 1950s, the Chinese Catholic Church was officially restructured under the umbrella of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which recognizes state-approved churches and rejects the primacy of the pontiff in Rome. The political disputes between the Vatican and the Chinese government have remained intense for decades, and the political agenda often victimizes Catholic legacies. But the effect of church education has shaped the daily life of ordinary Chinese believers and continues to do so today. This historical process, which is visible through the lens of the letters written by Chinese Catholic women in different times, reveals significant changes in religious faith in Chinese society and in religious literacy, especially among women.

table 6.1 religious concepts mentioned in the du, chang, and guo letters Concepts The Du Women (1871)

big sin

大罪

blood of Christ

圣血

grace

恩

grace

圣宠

indifference

冷淡

Jesus

耶稣

Lord of Heaven

天主

pride

骄傲

sacred heart

圣心

saint

圣人

soul

灵魂

Saint Joseph Saint Madeleine Saint Mary trinity

Chang Jiala (1912)

Guo Yaozhen (1988)

Frequency of mentions*

Chinese word

圣若瑟 圣女玛大肋纳 圣母 三位一体

weakness

软弱

flesh

肉身

Lord

主

Lord of Heaven

天主

sinner

罪人

soul

灵魂

cross

十字架

heaven

天堂

Lord of Heaven

天主

soul

灵魂



2 1 8 1 6 45 10 3 9 6 3 4 1 6 2 5 1 1 1 12 1 1 1 4 2

* Frequency in the Du letters includes all three letters. source:  Colette Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), Marie Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), and Philomene to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (May 1, 1871), AMEP 0564:565a–572a; Chang Jiala to Michael Chiapetta (June 22, 1912), Father Li Jianhua’s private collection on Michael Chiapetta; and Guo Yaozhen to Charles Joseph Lemaire (July 8, 1988), MEP Photo Collection, “Chine à classer.”

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Education and Religious Education The prolific establishment of Catholic schools at the end of the nineteenth century made a historical contribution to the development of public education in China. In Manchuria, the MEP began to establish schools in rural Catholic communities as early as the 1850s. At the end of the nineteenth century, the total number of Catholic schools in Manchuria had increased from fifty to 230, almost five times the total of two decades earlier. By the 1910s, the MEP’s Catholic schools were already widespread in local communities, with nearly three hundred schools at that time for 350 chrétientés. These schools provided the majority of the educational opportunities available to Christian children, who had been excluded from the traditional educational system since the eighteenth century due to the Rites Controversy. One of the major problems with the Rites Controversy had concerned ceremonies in honor of Confucius, which were performed by the Chinese literati class in temples and halls as well as by Chinese school students in classrooms. Pope Clement XI judged that the Confucian rituals were in conflict with Christian teaching, and Rome issued a series of condemnations of Chinese rites in 1704, 1715, and 1742.4 These decrees in effect disallowed Christian children to attend schools of traditional Chinese education, all of which featured traditional rituals of worshipping Confucius in the classroom. 5 The exclusion of Christian children from traditional Chinese schooling thus made the establishment of Christian education an urgent matter.6 Although all Christian families were required to send their children to Christian schools, the Manchuria Mission had different standards for rich and for poor families. If a family chose to send its children to a sishu, a secular private school, missionaries could waive the rule as long as the family was willing to give financial compensation to the church (Règlement de la Mission de Mandchourie, 3.2.3; henceforth RMM). This rule gave rich Christian families an alternative for their children’s education and sought to attract the local gentry to the church. In contrast to the general rule for rich families, children from poor Christian families were under more strict regulation. The mission required that the children of poor families frequent the school during the three months of slack farming season in winter, otherwise their parents would be punished (RMM 3.2.4). No financial charge was clarified in this rule, but it stated that the maintenance of these schools was the duty of Christian parents and the whole community.

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Widespread Christian schools also provided the first broad-based opportunity for female education at any level. In traditional Chinese society, education was the privilege of the elite few and for the most part existed primarily to provide preparation for the civil examination that produced government officials. The system, maintained for more than a thousand of years, perpetuated generations of an educated elite class and provided ladders of social mobility.7 Although the purpose and social connotation of education was different for men and women in Chinese society, access to education was largely a class issue rather than a gender one. Many studies have argued that in elite families women received education equally with men, and women played a more active role than previously thought in the maledominated society.8 All of the women under scrutiny in these revisionist works were members of the learned elite, whose achievements contrasted sharply with the limited educational resources available to women in rural areas. Before the arrival of Christian missionaries and the establishment of Catholic schools, rural Chinese women had very limited, if any, access to public education. As a result, in many periods, Catholic schools for girls and female students in the Manchuria Mission outnumbered schools for boys and male students. The church educational system sought to provide equal opportunities to men and women, but those who benefited most from church education were males from families with low socioeconomic status and females from families with relatively higher socioeconomic status. Especially for the latter, the church educational system provided an unprecedented ladder to social mobility. This trend intensified in the early twentieth century, when many Christian schools for girls transformed into elite institutions with the goal of serving as “cradles of female talent”; many such schools survive as elite girls’ schools today.9 The institution of church education consequently became essential to promoting female social mobility in modern China, especially for women from elite families. The same church educational system served Chinese Christian males from lower-status families, but it did not provide the same ladder for upward social mobility as it did for females. Church education remained just one of many alternatives for men and had to compete with the well-established traditional Chinese educational system. In a society constructed by the cultural hegemony of Confucianism, Chinese males already had an autonomous voice of morality, leadership, and manhood.10 This male world existed for thousands of years

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before the church created a similar world for females. In this sense, although church schools provided opportunities for Chinese women in particular, what church education brought to China and developed in Chinese society was a negotiation rather than a revolution of the existing Chinese social and gender hierarchy.

Catechism Literacy The curriculum of the Catholic schools included the catechism, mission regulations, prayers, and rituals, as well as reading, writing, and grammar. According to the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission, non-Christian books were allowed in the schools only once the primary teachings of the catechism and the prayers had been conveyed to the children (RMM 3.2.3). The catechism was the most important textbook in the catechist schools, and catechism literacy was the key to learning Christian knowledge. Catechism literacy meant the ability to read, recite, and understand Christian concepts, prayers, and basic behavioral doctrines. Catechism instructors were not only missionaries but also lay Christians such as catechists, baptizers, and Christian Virgins. Unlike missionaries and indigenous priests, who received formal religious education in subjects such as theology and Latin in seminaries, many lay Christian instructors depended on the solitary study of the catechism in Chinese to learn and understand the essential Christian message. For a large number of such active lay Christians, the catechism provided a basic education not only in religious knowledge but also in literacy. Analysis of the Catechism of the Manchuria Mission demonstrates the level of literacy that was required of foreign missionaries, indigenous priests, and the involved lay Christians. For lay Christians in rural Catholic schools, the catechism provided a written textbook for literacy. Learning Chinese characters, albeit through Christian vocabulary, concepts, and doctrines, likely affected their understanding and articulation of the world and the self. The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission contains altogether 12,068 Chinese characters, including 856 unique characters. The prologue to the catechism states that “about 860 characters are the most common” in the Chinese language. This represents the level of command of Chinese that was expected of MEP missionaries in this mission.11 If literacy is defined as the acquisition of some functional level of reading and writing abilities, the Catechism of the Manchuria Mission gives its own version of

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table 6.2 literacy of the catechism of the manchuria mission Total Chinese characters

Unique characters

Articles

Catechism



12,068



856



368

Beginning level



2,534



475



87

Basic level



5,424



617



112

Advanced level



4,110



645



169

source:  Catéchisme des missions de Mandchourie, texte Chinois–Romanisation et traduction française (Moukden, China: Imprimerie de la Mission catholique, 1937).

an educational pedagogy. For foreign missionaries and catechists, the 368 articles and 856 individual Chinese characters of the catechism were a basic requirement. The instructor was expected to understand the religious vocabulary and the explanations in the catechism in Chinese, French, or both, as well as the dialogue of questions and answers as used in evangelization. The opening page of the catechism explains the two kinds of romanization for the northeast dialect that allowed this catechism to serve simultaneously as a language textbook. The promotion of literacy was thus an integral part of the process of reading and learning the catechism. For local converts, the promotion of literacy through the catechism was more implicit. According to the instructions, no matter what level of literacy a convert had, memorization of essential Christian ideas, rituals, and prayers (representing 87 out of 368 articles) was mandatory. Knowing the essential Christian concepts, remembering Christian prayers, and participating in Christian rituals were fundamental to constructing a convert’s Christian identity. Although the Catholic Church never publicly promoted literacy until the Second Vatican Council in the second half of the twentieth century, teaching such basic knowledge to local converts was a crucial task for the missionaries, priests, and other catechists. The catechism also established a strong link between the written church texts and the orality of local converts. Catechism education transformed especially the most faithful and active indigenous Catholics from ordinary converts into active evangelists who had reached a certain level of literacy. To attain a level of literacy, however, means much more than merely turning a common Catholic convert into an active evangelist.

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In East Asian civilization, the written word has always taken precedence over the spoken; traditional Chinese history is primarily an interpretation of famous documents.12 In Catholicism, ordinary converts have no access to the Holy Scripture except through the mediation of Mass and the teachings of the priest. Mass is considered more a sacred ritual than an intellectual one. Given the interplay of East Asian civilization and Catholicism, when a Chinese catechist or an active lay Catholic gained access to written textbooks such as the catechism, he or she would spontaneously gain the sacred authority bestowed by the Catholic Church as well as the intellectual superiority recognized by Chinese society. In this sense, catechism literacy appeared attractive to ordinary Chinese Catholic converts, though this was not the original intention of the church. The establishment of a large number of catechism schools further facilitated this implicit promotion of religious literacy. These schools were largely composed of lay Catholic teachers—catechists and Christian Virgins—and Catholic children and catechumens. Access to literacy in these schools provided both groups with more alternatives not only within the church but also in Chinese rural society, in which literacy was linked to social mobility.

Writing, Privacy, and Subjectivity As in many parts of the world, in China Christianity has brought not only a new set of religious discourses that introduced the notions of faith and religious literacy but also a subversive outlet that implicitly tested the boundaries of what historians of China call “the inner quarters.”13 This is especially true for Chinese Christian women in rural society. The term “inner quarters” signifies the physical walls that confine women to the home and separate them from the outside world. It also denotes the limited options that Chinese women could negotiate in imperial society. The contrast between the inner and the outer in describing Chinese women has similarities with what historians of the West call the division between the private and public spheres. But the connotations of the inner/outer dichotomy in Chinese society are different from those of the Western notion of the private versus the public sphere and must be understood in the Chinese cultural and historical context. For Western feminist historians, the delimitation of the public sphere from the private is political. It engenders an awareness of a gendered society that excludes women from

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the social and public realms. In this politicized dichotomy of public and private, gender has become an essential category to explore the different options available to men and women in Western societies.14 In late imperial Chinese society, however, gender is not necessarily the foremost analytical category in many cases. For example, as missionary reports demonstrate, family, rather than gender, played the most significant role in conversion to Christianity within local communities. So the “inner quarters” cannot be simply equated with the private sphere as used in Western feminism. The meaning of the term “inner quarters” matches the literal transition of the Chinese word neiwei, the women’s rooms in a house.15 Confinement to the “inner quarters” influenced marriage strategies and options available to women within the family in imperial Chinese society as daughters, wives, and mothers. Converting to Christianity offered these women an opportunity to free themselves of the familial bonds that confined them to the “inner quarters.” They became Catholics who were no different from their male counterparts. Ironically, however, while Chinese Christian women obtained alternatives through conversion that could provide a way to escape the boundaries of the “inner quarters,” some of them, especially Chinese Christian Virgins such as the Du women, secured “a room of their own” both in reality and in mind.16 The regulation specifying that Chinese Christian Virgins living with their families have an apartment separate from the rest of the family sought to shield them from close contact with male family members to prevent scandals. Yet this gendered rule provided these women with a “separate apartment from the rest of the family” and a sense of security and privacy protected by the church in God’s name. It is in this sense that Christianity opens up a window to investigate Chinese women as individuals, rescuing them from the roles they play in the family in a rural society dominated by kinship. The sense of privacy comes from an awareness of self and the formation of subjectivity.17 In the Du letters, this is achieved not only through the act of writing itself but also through the appropriation of alien religious languages. Converting to Christianity created “a room of their own” for Christian Virgins that was independent of the “inner quarters.” In this space of their own, Catholic women were no longer simply daughters, wives, or mothers. They became Christians, regardless of their age, family roles, or gender. But the limited space that Catholic women secured by converting to Christianity was not

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by itself enough to generate a sense of privacy. What mattered was writing, or the process of learning to express reflections on oneself, a function comparable to that of confession in Catholic ritual. No matter how awkwardly it was learned and used by Chinese Catholic women, religious literacy provided them with a tool to articulate a sense of self that was profoundly alien to traditional Chinese culture. It is this appropriation that distinguishes the Du letters from the writings of other (particularly elite) women in China.18

The New Female Literacy Understanding how Christian education and religious literacy have shaped rural Chinese women’s vision of the world and of the self also requires an examination of women’s literacy in Chinese history. In late imperial China, family background determined female access to education. As Maureen Robertson argues, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, a large number of extant collections of women’s poetry were by women of literati families.19 Surveying representative works concerning literacy and women’s education in traditional Chinese society, it is clear that Chinese women writers all came from elite families. The women in a study of “teachers in the inner chambers,” for example, belonged to the gentry class and lived during the seventeenth century in the Jiangnan region, the area of the rich Yangtze River delta. They were women of the elite, whose literacy and education were based in large part on connections to men of privilege. 20 Similarly, the eighteenth-century women poets whose works were produced during the high Qing era were all “learned women” who developed technologies of writing about their personal experiences through education. These “technologies of the self” in their poetic voices were due to their classical learning and to their elite families, because “both little boys and little girls in elite families were expected to learn to read and write … growing up learned in elite households of the High Qing period meant growing up to write.”21 By the eighteenth century, elite female literacy had become in many ways an extension of literacy in the male world. 22 And elite female education had become increasingly similar to male education and classical learning. Many elite and learned women received the same classical learning as elite men at home. 23 Some gentry women organized loose literary networks to exchange correspondence and to encourage one another’s endeavors, linking their domestic circles with

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female literati salons modeled after the male literati salon. 24 Although expressing personal voices unique to women became a theme for these women writers, the writings these elite women produced often followed the rhetoric of the “masculinized written language.”25 For many elite women, writing was a means to display sophistication and elegance, a refinement central to a long-established reputation for an elite family. Their poetry reveals that many of these learned women explicitly embraced classical morality and family attachments. The literacy of these elite women—in terms of both learning and expression—was a privilege and was largely defined by the literary world of elite males. In other words, the classic learning and literacy enjoyed by elite women was a privilege conferred primarily by class rather than by gender. 26 In contrast to elite women, literacy for most other women was highly gendered. Before the arrival of the missionaries, boys could gain the privilege of attending clan schools or private schools in local communities, but girls were expected to stay at home. No public educational system for girls existed in rural Chinese society. Even if a few rural families might have allowed their girls to read, the primers and elementary texts available to girls and women were largely malecentered. 27 The Catholic Church, therefore, provided the first public educational system for females in rural society, and, particularly in Manchuria, preceded the widespread Protestant schools established since the late nineteenth century and the indigenous public educational movement of the early twentieth century. Even more significant than this educational opportunity was the set of discourses provided by church education, which in effect offered women a completely new world that differed radically from elite female literacy. This new female literacy was first of all religious. 28 The Catholic catechism was the major source; to Chinese converts it contained a set of new concepts and ideas about Christianity and religious faith. The catechism explained Christian concepts through the Chinese language, and the Chinese language of Christian faith constructed a world of transcendence new to the rural converts. The language of faith in the catechism also conveyed a set of rhetorical, social, and moral norms different from those contained in other primers and elementary texts for women in both classical and popular learning in traditional Chinese society. In contrast to the canonical Chinese texts, which emphasized gender differences, Catholic texts emphasized the basic equality of souls

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and were a product of the Catholic Church’s honoring of God and advocacy of universalism. The deliberately adopted Christian identity overshadowed the gendered difference between men and women. In other words, the distinction between the profane and the faithful, rather than the distinction between male and female, was the foremost concern. The learning process thus embodied equality in that both men and women studied the catechism to achieve transcendence and ultimate salvation by God. In addition, this new literacy substituted church hierarchy for the traditional Chinese social hierarchy and offered new opportunities for faithful women. In Catholic schools, rural Christian women from poor families, for example, could enjoy the same learning experiences as women from elite families. Through this “de-gendered” literacy, all faithful women, regardless of family or social background, could use the universal religious discourse to express and articulate themselves. Their religious and faithful expression was logically justified by their faith. If these women participated in evangelism or other church services, their use of catechism literacy was encouraged even more. In the space created and justified by the church, these religiously literate women formed a new identity, one that was no longer defined by or confined to the male-centered secular society. Arising through religious education, the new female literacy changed the consciousness of rural Chinese women and helped them articulate an awareness of self that could give rise to a new subjectivity. In the Du letters, for example, the Catholic women’s private writings reveal a novel mixture of religious prayers and reflective meditation. Owing to conversion and religious education, the Du women’s spiritual displacement and unique writing style give clear expression to transcultural Christianity in the modern context of nineteenthcentury China: how Christian language and values, through religious literacy, shaped rural Chinese women’s writing, beliefs, and identity; how, for these women, Christianity was a vehicle of expression rather than of repression; and how they used such issues as gender relations, family conversion, and above all religiosity to articulate an awareness of self.

Conclusion The expansion of the Manchuria Mission in the nineteenth century led to the large-scale establishment of Catholic schools. The spread

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of a Catholic educational system provided educational opportunities for rural men and women who had been deprived of opportunities for education either by the Roman Catholic Church because of the historical disputes of the Chinese Rites Controversy or by the patriarchal secular society of China itself. The Catholic schools founded in local communities not only provided education for Chinese converts but also offered them a sense of community via this religious education. Especially for women, church education represented the first public educational system in rural society, and it profoundly changed the lives and identities of the rural women who participated in it. The institution of church education also facilitated later elite female education in modern China and provided those women opportunities for social mobility. In the early twentieth century, many missionary schools for girls developed into elite schools for girls from wealthy families, who sent their daughters to such schools to secure their status or to gain access to the upper classes. Boys who went to missionary schools, by contrast, did not gain a comparable chance to join the elite, for the church system for male education had to compete with the traditional Chinese educational system, which, to a large extent, determined male social mobility. Consequently, the church educational system promoted literacy in rural society especially among women, and the relatively elite nature of church education determined the emergence of a new female literacy that differed from the literacy of the urban elite women. The new female literacy derived from the religious education of the church rather than from private education in elite families. It offered a set of discourses that differed starkly from classical Chinese learning. It also created a new space in rural society in which the public (the church and the Christian community) and the domestic (women in the family) were fundamentally interconnected and the boundary between them transcended. This new space provided new opportunities for many rural Christian women who became religiously literate; some of the most devoted, such as the Christian Virgins, became indispensable evangelical leaders in local communities. Religious education and the new female literacy would also significantly change Christian women’s consciousness of the world and the self.

Epilogue: Meeting the Du Descendants

It had been five years since my first visit to Santaizi. The second time I traveled to the village, on April 30, 2012, the illegal taxi, called a “black car” by the local people, let me off at the entrance to the main street that runs through the central town of Liaozhong County. Du Huaisheng, a thirty-four-year-old man in a blue suit, was waiting for me. According to the family’s newly compiled but incomplete genealogy, he is a member of probably the fourth generation after the Du women who wrote the letters in 1871.1 Three years earlier, he had posted an advertisement on a Chinese genealogy website to look for his kin from Xidu Village in what used to be Laizhou Prefecture in Shandong, the place from which his ancestors in Santaizi originated. In the three years since he posted that notice, Huaisheng told me, I was the only person who had ever contacted him. He smiled shyly and shook my hand. He asked a friend who had a car to take us to Santaizi, about fifteen kilometers east of the county center. On the way to the village, I gave Huaisheng a copy of the Du letters. He read them carefully for a few minutes and then raised his eyes to look at me. “You know,” he said, seriously, “our Catholics are not allowed to keep genealogies. But I think that being Catholic is our family tradition, so I decided to help compile one.” This was the first time he had explained the intention behind his Internet post. The car bounced along the road that runs through the paddy fields and led us to the village. The cross atop the village church emerged on the horizon. That was the church originally built by the missionary Joseph Boyer, or Father Bao as the Du women called him, in Santaizi back in 1864. 143

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We stopped at the church, where the current parish priest, Feng Huiyou, welcomed me with fresh fruits he had just bought at the morning market. At the church, I learned that Huaisheng had been born and raised in the village. He called in several elder family members, including Du Huaixun, Du Huaichen, Du Fengjun (a woman), and Du Lianshi, whose generation name indicated that he was one generation older than the others. Reading the Du letters together, they became excited. Searching their memories, they told me one passionate and candid story after another about the family in the past hundred and more years. “Our family has always been well known for our gu nainai,” said Du Huaixun and pointed at the letters. “Grandaunt (gu nainai) is what we call these unmarried Catholic women of the Du family.” “In the past,” Huaixun continued, proudly, “women occupied an inferior position. But the only women of some standing in the village are our Du women.” When listening to the stories of the family, I suddenly realized that this visit was not only the conclusion to the archival work I had done over the past eight years; it was also the start of a new work that would bring the lively contemporary Chinese Catholics into my investigation. They are descendants in the lineage of three ordinary, real, and nameless but talented letter-writing women in rural China. Today’s Dus are proud of their female ancestors who could read and write. Their pride in family recognition is largely due to the family’s conversion to Christianity. The general picture of Christianity in northeast China that I have described in this book provides the critical yet largely neglected historical context to understand the individual fates of these unknown Chinese Catholics. The Du women and their related descendants are just a few of these Catholics who have survived various political and social movements against Christianity in the past century. These ordinary people have lived through the transformation of Christianity in Chinese society in their everyday lives. However marginalized they are in Chinese society, their Christian identity has become an inherent feature of the family, intertwined with the bonds of kinship. In contrast to many contemporary Christian converts, for whom Christianity as religious revivalism serves as “a moral discourse of modernity,”2 these “ancient” Chinese Catholics understand Christianity as a family tradition, a historical honor, a dialogue with the past and with the West, and a means to survive as the serious faithful in the highly diversified society of today’s China.

Constant

Joseph André

Louis Hyppolyte

Laurent

Dubail 1, 2

Boyer 1, 3

Raguit 1, 2

Guillon 1, 2

Siméon

Pierre

Négrerie

Charles Joseph

Berneux 1, 2

Venault

De La Brunière

Pierre Marie François Maxime-Paul Brulley

Emmanuel

Verrolles 1, 2

Lalouyer 1, 2, 3

Christian Name

Name

袁若瑟

蓝禄业

纪隆

祁类思

包若瑟

杜伯勒

方汲各

Chinese Name 29/04/1878 07/12/1887 08/03/1887 17/05/1889 07/02/1900

Bayeux Besançon Belfort Aix Poitiers Chambéry

Le Mans

23/03/1814

14/05/1814

24/01/1852

08/03/1866

Poitiers

Limoges

12/01/1884

Sartrouville

18/06/1816 02/09/1806

31/07/1846

Rennes

17/02/1923

Date of Death

Place of Birth

12/03/1850

08/11/1854

15/12/1848

18/06/1824

11/03/1838

12/04/1805

Date of Birth

(1. Bishop, 2. Vicar Apostolic, 3. Coadjutor)

mep missionaries in vicariate apostolic of manchuria, 1840–1898*

19/12/1842 15/01/1840 27/02/1846

An-sin-tai Seoul, Korea Pie-li-keou, Mongolia

10/01/1878

Moukden

05/10/1841

03/07/1872

Paien-sou-sou

16/07/1873

25/08/1854

Pa-ien-sou

North Manchuria North Manchuria

31/03/1862

Ing-tse

02/11/1830

Ing-tse

32

26

36

25

23

24

24

30

24

25

Departure for Age at China Departure

Place of Death

a ppendi x: m ep missiona r ies a nd indigenous pr iests

席礼耶

August Louis

Isidore

Auguste Joachim

Louis Marie Madelain

Mallet

Métayer

Chevalier

Bisson

Noirjean

Simon

Delaborde

Gillié

施若亚

Jean Baptiste

Franclet

Victor François 贝颂

诺依而然

希孟

Philibert Louis André

Joseph

德禄

Ludger

梅依西

马类思

林貌理

郭

黄清天

Chinese Name

Pourquié

Pierre Alexandre

Christian Name

Charles Emile Dominique Maurice

Colin

Mesnard

Name

24/07/1844

05/05/1843

23/08/1842

26/03/1838

10/09/1838

09/12/1833

23/12/1827

24/02/1826

20/10/1822

28/01/1812

12/05/1812

15/05/1813

Date of Birth

12/12/1874 10/10/1897 17/06/1890

Metz Nancy Sées

10/06/1878

Langres Poitiers

29/03/1867

02/06/1887

27/02/1886

Nantes

Rouen

Sées

06/07/1869

15/04/1868

Montbeton France Yang-kouan

15/04/1868

15/08/1865

Siao-heichan Ing-tse

18/08/1862

27/08/1857

23/01/1856

19/04/1853

09/08/1848

21/10/1846

21/10/1846

San-tai-tse

Siao-hei-chan

Lien-chan

An-sin-tai

04/08/1907 25/02/1871

Reims Le Mans Laval

Paris, France Falaise, France

09/05/1871

Toulouse

Tcha-keou

27/02/1846

Song-choutsouei-tse

23/05/1854

27/04/1867

Piotiers

Departure for China

Place of Death

Nancy St-Dié

Date of Death

Place of Birth

mep missionaries in vicariate apostolic of manchuria, 1840–1898*, continued

















25

25

26

27

24

24

29

27

26

34



34

33



Age at Departure

146 appendix

伊味多

Flamand Victor Fleur

Jean Baptiste

Ange Marie

Théodore

Jean Auguste

Charles Justin Aimé

Louis Marie

Hinard

Riffard

Lamandé

Card

Faure

Collas

Bruguiére 卜类思

樊若望

葛德

郎

李

艾莫鋖

Noël Marie

Emonet

贡罗思

Louis Dominique

牛及治

Conraux

Louis Rémi

雷

Aristide Gustave Marie

Letort

Neunkirche

何辣尼

Philippe Joseph

Aulagne

Chinese Name

Christian Name

Name

07/03/1856

19/09/1851

23/10/1852

03/11/1851

12/01/1852

01/01/1851

26/05/1850

20/04/1849

25/01/1852

25/01/1848

15/02/1844

19/09/1844

Date of Birth

Rodez

Besançon

Gap

Besançon

St-Brieuc

Le Puy

Coutances

Chambéry

Strasbourg

Metz

Rennes

Le Puy

Place of Birth

N/A

06/07/1916

07/02/1895

22/10/1908

07/04/1880

24/05/1887

15/03/1917

07/02/1900

26/04/1905

18/06/1877

13/08/1904

10/08/1895

Date of Death

mep missionaries in vicariate apostolic of manchuria, 1840–1898*, continued

10/01/1878

N/A

[Sichuan?]

24 23

26/11/1879

26

27

25

24

25

26

22

26

28

26

Age at Departure

16/12/1875

30/10/1878

19/04/1877 Anchenoncourt, France Cha-ling

30/06/1875 Siao-pa-kiatse.

30/06/1875

27/01/1875

16/12/1874

15/07/1874

31/01/1872

15/02/1870

Departure for China

Pa-ien-sou-sou

Paris, France

Moukden

Hong-kong

Se-kia-tse

Hai-tcheng

Se-kia-tse

Place of Death

appendix 147

Léopold Lucien Désiré

Eugène Clément Auguste

Delecourt

Litou

Camille

Jules

Sandrin

Samoy

Joseph Jules

Jean Baptistin

Maviel

Cubizolles

Aimé

Bareth

Régis Jean François

01/06/1856

Jean Christophe

Monnier

Souvignet

01/05/1855

Marie Félix

古若瑟

沙如理

桑

马若翰

巴来德

舒

利笃

孟若望

苏斐理

Le Puy

26/12/1863

16/10/1935

27/09/1913

23/05/1938

Besançon Belfort Bruges

08/01/1923

14/12/1919

30/06/1900

24/02/1939

09/05/1885

24/05/1910

31/07/1923

Rodez

St-Dié

Le Puy

Angers

Tournai

Le Puy

Chambéry

23/06/1890

18/07/1897

Lausanne Et Genève St-Claude

Date of Death

Place of Birth

06/11/1861

15/11/1862

24/01/1861

29/06/1860

21/10/1854

30/01/1856

04/12/1854

15/10/1852

Choulet

傅加略

Charles Gustave

01/09/1855

Date of Birth

Pouillard

鲍若瑟

Chinese Name

Joseph Gustave

Christian Name

Bongard

Name

mep missionaries in vicariate apostolic of manchuria, 1840–1898*, continued

15/12/1886

15/12/1886 Jilin

04/11/1885

Jilin

05/11/1884

21/11/1883

22/11/1882

22/11/1882

10/11/1880

10/11/1880

01/09/1880

31/03/1880

26/11/1879

Departure for China

Siao-pa-kiatse

Shanghai

Shaling

Hou-lan

Cizay-la-Madeleine, France

Chou-kaitouo

Harbine

New-tchoang

Siao-pa-kiatse

Siao-pa-kiatse, Jilin

Place of Death

23

25

22

23

23

28

26

25

24

26

28

24

Age at Departure

148 appendix

卫若望

芳庭

Jean Antoine

Joseph François Alexandre

Armand Joseph

Jean François

Jean Marie

Frédéric Henri Auguste

Jean François

Jean Louis Michel 宝

Paul Antoine

Paul Xavier Henri 梁恒立

André Henri Joseph 路平

Laveissière

Vuillemot

Déan

Corbel

Viaud

Flandin

Georjon

Beaulieu

Perreau

Lamasse

Roubin

06/11/1862

21/12/1863

Date of Birth

栢

荣宝亭

郭若望

德安

吴洛莫

14/02/1871

25/04/1869

11/08/1868

14/02/1870

03/08/1869

30/07/1860

05/06/1864

16/11/1865

14/12/1866

07/05/1865

郎稳协肋 28/03/1863

林若翰

Jean Baptiste

Herin

Chinese Name

Louis Marie Joseph 彭类思

Christian Name

Bourgeois

Name

16/08/1935

19/07/1952

Strasbourg Nancy Le Puy

17/08/1899

12/01/1946

19/07/1900

20/11/1900

17/11/1900

26/12/1920

11/01/1899

06/03/1912

21/08/1924

08/06/1944

15/07/1900

Date of Death

Chambéry

Rennes

Lyon

Grenoble

Nantes

St-Brieuc

Rennes

St-Claude

St-Flour

Aoste

Besançon

Place of Birth

mep missionaries in vicariate apostolic of manchuria, 1840–1898*, continued

Tong-Kew

Béthanie

Fa-kou-men

15/08/1895

15/08/1894

13/09/1893

13/09/1893

31/08/1892

Pei-lin-tse, Heilongjiang Moukden

31/08/1892

02/09/1891

Ing-tse

Ya-tse-tchang

10/12/1890

10/12/1890

Leao Yang

23/12/1889

Feung-houasien

07/08/1889

12/12/1888

12/12/1888

Departure for China

Moukden

Changchun

Moukden

Tai-ta-koou

Place of Death

24

25

25

23

23

32

25

25

24

24

26

26

25

Age at Departure

appendix 149

Paul Antoine

Frédéric Auguste

Perreau

Etellin

Jean Marie Joseph

Moulin

慕志新

14/11/1874

30/08/1873 Lyon

24/06/1900

29/12/1922

胡栋材

27/01/1911

Rodez Poitiers App. Luçon

17/03/1872

戴治达

07/11/1900

Cambrai Lille

N/A

17/08/1899

30/06/1940

7/5/1956

Date of Death

Maurienne

Chambéry

Coutances

Aveyron

Place of Birth

27/09/1874

27/10/1870

11/08/1868

01/03/1872

29/12/1871

Date of Birth

安民惠

叶

栢

高

袁安

Chinese Name

11/05/1898 11/05/1898

Nieou-tchoang

28/07/1897

28/07/1897

29/07/1896

Leao-yang

Hou-lan

Ia-tse-tchang

N/A

13/09/1893

08/04/1896

Manche, France Fa-kou-men

15/8/1895

Departure for China

Montbeton

Place of Death

24

25

25

23

26

25

24

24

Age at Departure

* sources:   “Noms Chinois des Missionnaires de Mandchourie, 1840–98,” AMEP 0563:67–69; and Gérard Moussay and Brigitte Appavou eds., Répertoire des membres de la Société des missions étrangères: 1659–2004 (Paris: Archives des Missions Etrangères, 2004). The name list follows the original order of the document.

Julien Jean Baptiste Pierre

Huchet

Delpal

Edouard Eugène Joseph Baptiste Elie Edouard Jean- François

Joseph Marie

Caubriére

Agnius

Pierre

Christian Name

Villeneuve

Name

mep missionaries in vicariate apostolic of manchuria, 1840–1898*, continued

150 appendix

appendix

151

indigenous priests in vicariate apostolic of manchuria, 1840–1898* Chinese Names

Christian Name (Latin)

Age

Ordained Year

陈

1878

孔

1878

Ordained by

夏云彰

Bartolomaeus

1878

Verrolles

白文柄

Jacobus

1878

Verrolles

钱

Petrus

1878

Verrolles

夏云彤

Dionysius

32

张据德

Petrus

30

1886

Boyer

丁安太

Andreas

50

1886

Raguit

任宝恒

Auyustinus

33

1887

Rutjes

夏云凌

Alexander

51

1887

Rutjes

白玉阶

Leo

34

1893

Guillon

黄锦堂

Carolus

35

1893

Guillon

李学林

Mauritius

34

1894

Guillon

田九畴

Joseph

33

1895

Guillon

赵殿臣

Thaddoeus

31

1896

Guillon

夏相唐

Laurentius

30

1896

Guillon

李万珍

Joannes

29

1896

Guillon

王九卿

Joseph

30

1897

Guillon

邢

Tudiaconus

Ridel

* “Noms des Prêtres Chinois de Mandchourie, 1840–98,” AMEP 0563:70.

Ridel

glossa ry

Bajiatai 八家台, village in Liaoning Bajiazi 八家子, village in Jilin, literally “eight households” baojuan 宝卷, precious records Bayansusu 巴彦苏苏, village in Heilongjiang Changchun 长春, capital city of Jilin Changxian 常仙, various popular gods related to the snake Chaoyang 朝阳, county in Liaoning cifu 慈父, merciful father cuobiezi 错别字, wrong character dao 道, path dao 到, to arrive diao 吊, a string of cash dixian 地仙, earthly animal gods Du Fengjun 杜凤君 Du Guanxian 杜冠贤 Du Hai 杜海 Du Huaichen 杜怀忱 Du Huaisheng 杜怀胜 Du Ping 杜平 Du Shoushan 杜寿山 Du Xiaodazi 杜小大子, name meaning “the eldest of the Du family” Du Xiao’erniu 杜小二妞, name meaning “the second daughter of the Du family” Du Xiaoshiyi 杜小十一, name meaning “the eleventh of the Du family” Du Yintang 杜荫堂 enfu 恩父, gracious father fu 父, father

154

glossary

Fuyu 扶余, village in Jilin ganqin 干亲, nominal kinship guanxian 冠贤, the given name of Du guanxian, meaning “the most worthy” gu nainai 姑奶奶, grandaunt Haibei 海北, county in Jilin Haicheng 海城, county in Liaoning Hebei 河北, a northern province Heilongjiang 黑龙江, a northeastern province Heishan 黑山, village in Liaoning Hezhe 赫哲, a Tungusic people living in Manchuria Huangxian 黄仙, various popular gods related to the weasel huizhang 会长, administrator of a Catholic community Hulan 呼兰, county in Heilongjiang huxian 狐仙, various popular gods related to the fox Jiangnan 江南, a geographic area in the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River jiao’an 教案, religious cases Jilin 吉林, a northeastern province Jinzhou 锦州, county in Liaoning jiujiu 舅舅, maternal uncle judou 句读, periods and commas Kaiyuan 开原, county in Liaoning Kalima 卡力马, village in Liaoning Kaoshantun 靠山屯, village in Liaoning Ki-jen 旗人, bannerman koubing 叩禀, kowtow to submit Kuanchengzi 宽城子, today’s Changchun, capital city of Jilin liang 两, tael Laizhou 莱州, a prefecture in Shandong Lianshan 连山, village in Liaoning Liaodong 辽东, eastern part of Liaoning Liaoning 辽宁, a northeastern province Liaozhong 辽中, county in Liaoning Lin Maoli 林貌理, Chinese name of Dominique Maurice Pourquié Lüshun 旅顺, city in Liaoning mangxian 蟒仙, various popular gods related to the boa ming 名, given name Moukden 沈阳, capital city of Liaoning Nansantaizi 南三台子, village in Liaoning,

glossary

155

neiwei 内闱, inner quarters Niuzhuang 牛庄, village in Liaoning Nong’an 农安, county in Jilin Nulu’erhu shan 努鲁儿虎山, mountain in western Liaoning Qiqihar 齐齐哈尔, city in Jilin Qiren 旗人, bannerman Qi Zhiying 祁志英 Santaizi 三台子, village in Liaoning Shaling 沙岭, village in Liaoning Shandong 山东, a province in east China Shangdi 上帝, God shenfu 神父, priest shengren 圣人, saint shennü 神女, God’s daughter Shenyang 沈阳, capital city of Liaoning Shilitai 十里台, village in Liaoning Shouzhennü 守贞女, women who keep virginity shui 谁, who Sichuan 四川, a province in southwest China Sijiazi 四家子, village in Liaoning Siping 四平, county in Jilin sishu 私塾, private school, home school Songling 松岭, village in Jilin Songshuzuizi 松树嘴子, village in Jilin sui 随, to follow Sujiawopeng 苏家窝棚, village in Jilin taiqian anhao 台前安好, a respectful way of greeting in Chinese epistolary writing, literally “being safe and good in front of the master’s desk” tian 天, heaven Tieling 铁岭, county in Liaonig Tong Guoqi 佟国器 Tongjiafangzi 佟家房子, village in Liaoning Tongzhen xiugui 童贞修规, regulations on Chinese Christian Virgins tongzhennü 童贞女, little virgin Wang Fengyi 王凤仪 Xiaobajiazi 小八家子, village in Liaoning Xiaoheishan 小黑山, village in Liaoning xiaonü 小女, little girl xiao shennü 小神女, God’s little daughter

156

zaixi 在西, in the West Xifeng 西丰, county in Liaoning Xinmintun 新民屯, village in Liaoning Xiwanzi 西湾子, village in today’s inner Mongolia Yangguan 阳关, village in Liaoning yaoli xuefang 要理学房, catechismal classroom Yilan 依兰, county in Heilongjiang Yingkou 营口, city in Liaoning Yiwulü shan 医巫闾山, mountain in western Liaoning Yixingpuzi 义兴堡子, village in Liaoning yixue 义学, Voluntary Schooling Movement Yingzi 营子, village in Liaoning Yizhou 义州, county in Liaoning Yupi 鱼皮, fish skin Zhao Oufu 赵欧福 zhennü 贞女, virgin Zhili 直隶, a historical northern province in China Zhujiafangzi 朱家房子, village in Liaoning

glossary

notes

preface 1. Colette Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), Archives des Missions Étrangères de Paris (AMEP), AMEP 0564:565a. 2. Philomene Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (May 1, 1781), AMEP 0564:572a. 3. Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy, 140. 4. Anthropologist Jean Michaud has emphasized the importance of examining missionary writings as sources for ethnography in his book Incidental Ethnographers.

chapter 1 1. Latin is the universal language of the Catholic Church, but French was the most commonly used language in the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris after its foundation in the seventeenth century, which reflected the power shift within the Roman Catholic Church, particularly the decline of Portugal and the rise of France. 2. Verrolles, Extrait du discours, 5–6. 3. For an overall study of Catholicism in nineteenth-century China, especially the institutionalized foreign privilege of the French Religious Protectorate on the Catholic Church, see Young, Ecclesiastical Colony. 4. Launay, La Mission de Mandchourie, 47. “Jiangnan” refers to the area to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, which had been visited by European missionaries since the seventeenth century. 5. On the historical transformation of the geographic region of Manchuria and the origin of Manchuria as a place-name, see Elliott, “Limits of Tartary,” 604–7. 6. Ferdinand Verbiest, “Two Journeys into Tartary,” in Ellesmere, History of the Two Tartar Conquerors, 103–31. 7. Elliott, “Limits of Tartary,” 603. 8. Elliott, Manchu Way, 8–13.

158

Notes to Chapter 1

9. In 1840, the population of Dongbei was more than three million, representing an eightfold increase over the previous century. In 1910, the population had grown to eighteen million. By 1949, the population was close to forty million. Zhang Shanyu, Zhongguo renkou dili, 432. 10. Launay, La Mission de Mandchourie, 37. 11. Ellesmere, History of the Two Tartar Conquerors, 116–17. 12. Geng, 16–20 shiji ruhua tianzhujiao, 285–86. 13. “Fengtian jiangjun da’ertang’e, Fengtian fu fuyin Su Chang zoubao zunzhi chaban xijiao minren Zhang Baxiang deng shi zhe” (Memorial to the throne from general of Fengtian Da’erdang’e and prefectural magistrate of Fengtian Su Chang about the investigation of Christian Han convert Zhang Baxiang and other affairs), in Qing zhongqianqi xiyang tianzhujiao zaihua huodong dang’an shiliao (hereafter CADC), 1:136–37. The six counties are Chengde, Haicheng, Gaiping, Kaiyuan, Yongji, and Ningyuan. 14. Nong’an xianzhi, 640–41. 15. Heilongjiang shengzhi, 25:197. 16. d’Elia, The Catholic Missions in China, 57. 17. Hoang, “Zhengjiao feng bao,” 283. 18. Heilongjiang shengzhi, 25:197. 19. Zheng, Yesu hui zhongguo shujian ji, 1:238–89. 20. When Verrolles arrived in Manchuria around 1840, he reported that there were about 1,949 Christians in Liaodong and 1,670 in Bajiazi and des Pins (Songshuzuizi), but most of them had lost their fervor. “Les Contemporains: Mgr Verrolles (1805–1878),” Missions Etrangères de Paris, Annales, March 27, 1904, 1–16. Local Chinese gazetteers also record that Yexingpu, a small village in today’s Liaozhong County, established its first Catholic church in 1823, at which time there were about 119 Christians in the town; Liaozhong xianzhi, 770. 21. “Carte pour la division définitive des Vicariats de Mongolie et Mandchourie, offerte à la S. C. de la Propaganda par l’Ev. de Colomby, Nov. 1849,” AMEP 0562:7071–72. 22. For the rise of the French protectorate in China, see Cole, “Origins of the French Protectorate,” and Young, Ecclesiastical Colony, chap. 1, “Emergence of the French Religious Protectorate.” 23. Guennou, Missions étrangères de Paris, 73–76. 24. Missions Étrangères de Paris, Les missions étrangères, 3–4. 25. In the early modern period, there were three components of European political and religious influence on the Catholic mission in China: the patronage system of political powers, specifically the Portuguese Padroado; Catholic orders and congregations; and the Propaganda Fide and the pope. Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:286–94. The Portuguese Padroado was the privilege, granted by the popes to the Crown of Portugal, of designating candidates for the sees and ecclesiastical benefices in the vast domains acquired through the expeditions of its navigators and captains in Africa and the East Indies. According to the concession, the king of Portugal should send missionaries to the newly conquered territories and establish dioceses, parishes, and religious establishments in those areas. Through

Notes to Chapter 1

159

Padroado, Portugal provided generous support for the spread of Christianity, but in the course of time, this patronage became the source of highly unpleasant annoyances to the Holy See and one of the chief obstacles to the progress of the missions. The main cause of this conflict was the disagreement between Portugal and the Holy See regarding the extent of the patronage. 26. “Apostolic vicariate” was a name created in the seventeenth century to denote the domains of the New World newly occupied by the evangelical missions of the Roman Catholic Church in order to overcome the impediments of particular religious orders, congregations, and national monarchies. The bishop of the apostolic vicariate is called the “apostolic vicar,” one of the two new categories of prelate created after the Propaganda Fide was founded in 1622 (the other is “apostolic prefect”). Both the apostolic vicar and the apostolic prefect performed ecclesiastical functions on behalf of the pope in non-Christian and non-Catholic areas, free from patronage or concordat agreements. In other words, they were not subject to nomination by secular kings but directly responsible to the Vatican. In 1856, in order to eliminate the Portuguese Padroado in mainland China, Pope Pius IX abolished the Beijing and Nanjing dioceses and demoted them to apostolic vicariates, over which the Portuguese kings had no nomination rights. Portugal National Archives of Torre do Tombo, 1113/C0605–056/ CX.01.R, 03/0265. See also Liu and Zhang, eds., Qingdai aomen zhongwen dang’an congbian, 2:526. 27. Guennou, Missions étrangères de Paris, 220. 28. Ibid., 83 and 237. See also Goyau, Les prêtres des missions étrangères, 267–78, for further discussion of the relationship between the MEP and the French government. 29. The second half of the nineteenth century, when the Catholic missionary movement became French after the Napoleonic era, witnessed a boom in the number of French missionaries who were ardent to work abroad. In Lyon, for example, about seventy missionaries were ordained to the mission of evangelization in 1877. In 1862 and 1902, ninety-two and seventy-one missionaries were sent out for evangelization, respectively. From 1858 to 1912, there were altogether about 550 Lyon missionaries committed to evangelization in the world Catholic mission. The number of missionaries ordained to work abroad was almost as high as the number of priests ordained to work in France. See Essertel, L’aventure missionnaire lyonnaise, 98. 30. Daughton, Empire Divided, 33–38. 31. Other such towns include Lyon, Nancy, Le Havre, and Rennes. See Launay, Histoire générale de la Société, 2:508; and Daughton, Empire Divided, 35. 32. Bourgeois, Manuel historique de politique étrangère, 3:575. 33. Association of the Holy Childhood was one of the most successful and popular fundraising organizations in France supporting missionary work in China in the nineteenth century. It encouraged French children to donate money to rescue Chinese babies from infanticide. Harrison, “Penny for the Little Chinese,” 72–92.

160

Notes to Chapter 1

34. In addition to the new Chinese missions, the MEP also founded four missions in other parts of Asia in the nineteenth century: Japan and Korea (1831), Burma (1855), and Laos (1899). 35. Statistics show the MEP expanded rapidly in the Far East from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth century. In 1822 the MEP was in charge of five missions composed of six bishops, twenty-seven missionaries, 135 indigenous priests, nine seminaries with 250 students, and about 300,000 Christians. In 1921 thirty-six missions had been established, with forty-one bishops and 1,139 French priests. There were also 1,109 indigenous priests and 3,449 catechists; fifty seminaries, sixty colleges, 5,085 primary schools, twenty-five agricultural schools, and twenty-eight industrial schools, with a total of 192,354 students; and 429 orphanages and workshops and 528 hospitals. The Catholic population had grown to 1,676,216. See Missions Etrangères de Paris, Les missions étrangères, 9. 36. These treaties included the Treaty of Whampoa (1844), the Treaty of Tianjin (1858), the Convention of Beijing (1860), and the Berthemy Convention (1865). 37. The Treaty of Tianjin between China and France was signed on June 26, 1858. See T. Wang, Zhongwai jiuyuezhang huibian, 106–7. 38. Young, Ecclesiastical Colony, 1. 39. Goody, Logic of Writing, chap. 1, “Word of God.” 40. See Overmyer, Precious Volumes and Folk Buddhist Religion. 41. Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy, 141. 42. For analysis of the strategy of “apostolate through books” in late Ming and early Qing China, see Standaert, “Notes on the Spread of Jesuit Writings,” 22–32. See also Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:600. 43. Ibid., 1:601–2. 44. In the early Qing, the number of Christian writings confiscated was sometimes more than three thousand, such as in the case of Wenba and Wenliu (CADC, 3:1266–68). See X. Zhang, Shiliao yu shijie, 83–141. All of these confiscated Christian writings were printed in Chinese, and most of their owners were common Catholic converts in provinces such as Shanxi, Shannxi, Hunan, Sichuan, Jiangxi, and Guangdong. Zhang argues that many of these Christian writings originated from Catholic churches in major cities, such as Beijing. In addition, Western missionaries who worked in those provinces distributed a considerable number of texts to Christian families. See X. Zhang, Shiliao yu shijie, 121. 45. CADC, 2:841. 46. As early as the seventeenth century, the Propaganda Fide stipulated that the learning of the indigenous language was a fundamental task of the missionary, together with building a church, converting the unfaithful, and learning the institutions and customs of the country. Olichon, Aux origines du clergé chinois, 66. 47. Vie et travaux de Mgr Verrolles, 38. 48. Briand, Philibert Simon, missionnaire en Mandchourie, 182.

Notes to Chapters 1 and 2

161

49. Chow, “Writing for Success,” 120–57. Cynthia Brokaw also argues, therefore, that “possession of—or at least access to—books was essential to respectable success in Chinese society.” See Brokaw, “On the History of the Book in China,” in Brokaw and Chow, Printing and Book Culture, 3. For a discussion of the spread of Christian writings in late Ming and early Qing, see Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:600–604. For literacy and education as gateways to social mobility, see Ho, Ladder of Success in Imperial China; and Elman, Cultural History of Civil Examinations.  50. Stauffer, Zhonghua guizhu, 517. 51. Shao, Zhongguo huidaomen, 306. 52. Detailed accounts of the girls’ schools established by Wang Fengyi in these villages can be found in F. Wang, Wang Fengyi yanxinglu, 119–20, 124, 126–28, and 150–51. 53. See also Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity, 113 and 131–62. 54. On Jiangxi, see Sweeten, Christianity in Rural China. On Fujian, see Menegon, Ancestors, Virgins, and Friars; X. Zhang, Guanfu, zongzu yu tianzhujiao; and Dunch, Fuzhou Protestants. On Guangdong, see J. Lee, Bible and the Gun. On Hubei, see Kang, Shangzhu de putaoyuan. On Sichuan, see Entenmann, “Catholics and Society in Eighteenth-Century Sichuan”; and Qin Heping, Jidujiao zai Sichuan chuanbo shigao. On Jiangnan, see Mungello, Forgotten Christians of Hangzhou. On Shanxi, see Harrison, Missionary’s Curse. On Shandong, see Mungello, Spirit and the Flesh in Shandong. On Mongolia, see Taveirne, Han-Mongol Encounters and Missionary Endeavors; and on Tibet, see Pomplun, Jesuit on the Roof of the World. 55. So far we only have a few works on Catholic and Protestant Manchuria written by missionaries, journalists, and Church scholars since the nineteenth century. See, for example, Launay, Monseigneur Verrolles and La Mission de Mandchourie; Fulton, Through Earthquake, Wind, and Fire; F. O’Neill, Call of the East; and M. O’Neill, Frederick William Scott O’Neill.

chapter 2 1. Marie Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), AMEP 0564:569a, lines 2–3. 2. Philomene Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (May 1, 1871), AMEP 0564:572a, lines 1–2. 3. Ibid., line 39. 4. Pourquié’s full name in Chinese is Lin Maoli. AMEP 0563:34. 5. Patricia Ebrey’s study on Chinese women’s lives within the family in the Song dynasty (960–1279) has initiated the scholarly focus on the “inner quarters” of Chinese women in the traditional Chinese society dominated by Confucian ideas, attitudes, and practices. By “inner quarters,” or neiwei, Ebrey refers to the domestic sphere, or family, within which Chinese women in imperial society were confined. See Ebrey, Inner Quarters. 6. “Kowtow to submit” is a literal translation of the Chinese word koubing. All three letters begin with this Chinese word, which represents an

162

Notes to Chapter 2

archaic manner of younger and lower-rank people greeting those who are elder and of higher rank. It is a way to show respect and politeness. Marie Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), AMEP 0564:569a–571a. 7. “I hope you are well” is a translation of the classic Chinese epistolary greeting taiqian anhao, which literally means “being safe and good in front of the master’s desk.” 8. The first “Father Xi” mentioned in this letter was an MEP missionary named Louis Marie Madelain Gillié (1838–1867), who joined the Manchuria Mission in 1862. He first worked in Shenyang and later was dispatched to Santaizi, the village of the Du women. Gillié died in Santaizi in 1867. “Missionnarie Mandchourie,” AMEP 0563:34. 9. The second and subsequent mentions of “Father Xi” all refer to another MEP missionary named Philibert Simon, who was born in 1842 in Messé. He joined the Manchuria Mission in 1868 and moved to Shenyang to help establish a seminary in 1870. In 1871, flooding of the Liao River damaged the village of Santaizi, so he went to the village to assist with disaster relief. Simon died in Yingzi in 1874. The Chinese surname of Simon, coincidentally, is pronounced the same as that of Gillié. 10. In the letter, the character that indicates the surname of the priest is purposely covered with dark ink. However, reading through the back of the letter indicates that this character is Bao, and “Father Bao” refers to an MEP missionary named Joseph André Boyer who joined the Manchuria Mission in 1854 and died in Manchuria in 1887. 11. The Carmelite Order, or the Order of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, was originally established by an Italian named Bertold in Mount Carmel in about the mid-twelfth century. It was reformed in the sixteenth century by Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) and essentially devoted to personal and collective prayer. It emphasizes silence, solitude, work, and relaxation, as well as the austerity of life. The Carmel of Lisieux, or the Carmelite Order of Lisieux, was founded in 1838 and recruited religious women from very different classes and backgrounds. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897), the most influential female saint of the nineteenth century, entered the Carmelite Order in 1888. The Carmelite Order arrived in China in 1869. In 1874 it established a convent in Shanghai. 12. All three letters are written without any punctuation marks beyond a number of dots placed at the end of each sentence or clause. This is a classic Chinese punctuation system called judou: a Chinese comma is put at the end of each sentence to clarify its meaning. I have divided the letter into several paragraphs for easier reading. I have translated the letters literally as far as possible to preserve the letters’ original clumsy writing style. 13. AMEP 0564:557–60. 14. For the study of the Institute of Chinese Christian Virgins in Sichuan, see Entenmann, “Christian Virgins in Eighteenth-Century Sichuan,” in Bays, Christianity in China, 180–93. 15. For a study of Chinese Catholic women as Christian Virgins and the early history of Roman Catholic communities of women in northeast China, see Li, “God’s Little Daughters.”

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16. Wolf, Studies in Chinese Society, 148. 17. Ikels, “Parental Perspectives,” 253. 18. Qing zhongqianqi xiyang tianzhujiao zaihua huodong dang’an shiliao, 1:83. 19. X. Zhang, “Zhenjie gushi,” 354. 20. Entenmann, “Christian Virgins,” 182–83. 21. Qin, “Guanyu qingdai chuanqian,” 112. 22. R. Watson, “Named and the Nameless,” 619. 23. Ibid. 24. Covering thirteen Catholic villages in today’s western Liaoning, the register recorded altogether 804 Chinese Catholics who belonged to 170 individual households and shared only eighty-four surnames. Jean Franclet, “Relevé,” AMEP 0563:629–44. 25. Marie is the name of the Virgin. Colette is originally a diminutive form of the medieval name Colle. Saint Colette was a fifteen-century French nun. Philomene is a variation of Philomène or Philomena, which was the name of an obscure early saint and martyr. The name Philomena came to public attention in the nineteenth century after a tomb seemingly marked with the name Filumena was found in Rome, supposedly belonging to another martyr named Philomena. Study of Franclet’s 1854 register demonstrates that the ten most popular female Christian names in these villages were all common ones in Christian Europe. 26. The two letters are discussed in full detail in chapter 6. 27. The exact time of the family’s relocation to Manchuria remains unknown. Based on my fieldwork and many discussions I had with the Du family descendants who still live in the village, I speculate that the family moved to Santaizi in the early nineteenth century. 28. According to Wu Peijun, Santaizi is one of the top five Catholic villages in northeast China. The other four are Haibei County in Heilongjiang, Xiaobajiazi Village in Jilin, Sujiawopeng Village of Fuyu County in Jilin, and Songshuzuizi Village in Jinzhou, Liaoning. See P. Wu, “20 shiji shangbanye dongbei,” 33. 29. Colette Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), AMEP 0564:565a, lines 25–27. 30. Robinson, History of Christian Missions, 213. 31. AMEP 225:153. 32. Liaozhong xianzhi, 770. 33. AMEP 0563:2094. 34. AMEP 0563:2096. 35. Briand, Philibert Simon, 208. 36. Dongbei yihetuan dang’an shiliao, 189. 37. AMEP, bio-bibliographiques 1871:20. 38. The three other missionaries were Pierre Négrerie, Pierre Alexandre Mesnard, and Colin. Négrerie and Mesnard left France together on February 27, 1846, about eight months earlier than Pourquié and Colin; see Launay, Monseigneur Verrolles, 206. 39. Dominique Maurice Pourquié to Jean Félix Elie Besson (August 1, 1858), AMEP 0562:1373.

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40. The Catechism of the Manchuria Mission is discussed in chapter 3. 41. Phan, Mission and Catechesis, 41. 42. On this matter of narrative and self-construction among Christian converts, see Peel, “For Who Hath Despised the Day?” 581–607. 43. Philomene Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), AMEP 0564:572a, lines 12–19. 44. The best-known example of a symbolic shepherd in the Bible is the Son of God, Jesus. In John 10:11, Jesus says of himself, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” 45. Brun, “Politics and Spirituality,” 38–39. 46. Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 7. 47. Thanks to the revived Catholic mission in the nineteenth century, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was popular all over the world. In northern China, the same devotion appealed to the neighboring Mongol Catholics as well. Patrick Taveirne describes a similar process of introducing the devotion of the Sacred Heart in Mongolia as an exchange of “local religious traditions (superstitions) for popular Roman Catholic devotion.” The Scheut missionaries in Mongolia “introduced the cordial devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Holy Family, the Guardian Angel and Saints, which had been nurtured in the sodalities of their rural towns and minor seminaries at home.” Taveirne, Han-Mongol Encounters, 305. 48. In Europe, epistolary writing developed into a genre that particularly appealed to women since the Middle Ages. See Altman, Epistolarity; and Gilroy and Verhoeven, Epistolary Histories. Scholars have also paid particular attention to the relationship between letter writing and women’s voice and identity. See Earle, Epistolary Selves; Cherewatuk and Wiethaus, Dear Sister; Goldsmith, Writing the Female Voice; and Goodman, “Letter Writing.” 49. An exploration of the expression of self in Chinese literature can be found in Richter, Letters and Epistolary Culture; and Hegel and Hessney, Expressions of Self. Richter focuses on the earliest period (ca. 3rd–6th century CE), with a sizeable body of surviving correspondence, and considers the status of letters as a literary genre. Hegel and Hessney’s collection studies expression of self in Chinese poetry, criticism, drama, and fiction; however, it does not include epistolary literature. One of the few studies of the history of Chinese epistolary writing is Shugong Zhao’s History of Chinese Epistolary Literature. In this study, Zhao argues that Chinese epistolary literature appeared in the Warring States Period (475–221 BCE) and developed into a popular genre after the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE). Most contemporary epistolary literature, however, has focused on discussion of politics, morality, and ethics. According to Zhao, in the history of Chinese epistolary literature, there are two blank fields: love letters and female correspondence. Communication with the foreign is also a vacuum. See S. Zhao, Zhongguo chidu wenxueshi, 41–61. 50. Examining writings by Chinese women before the twentieth century according to the writers’ kinship and social background, we find two main

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categories: writings by elite women, who usually received a good private education in reading, and writing, and writings by courtesans. The relationship between literacy and women has been well explored in Chinese history, especially during the recent two decades, as scholars have rethought the roles of women. Studies of high-cultural aspects of elite women’s and courtesans’ writing in China include Widmer, “Epistolary World of Female Talent”; Robertson, “Voicing the Feminine”; Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers; Mann, “Learned Women in the Eighteenth Century”; Mann, Precious Records; Mann, Talented Women of the Zhang Family; and Widmer and Chang, Writing Women in Late Imperial China. For educated elite women, writing is a means of displaying refinement that is central to the long-established reputation of an elite Chinese family. For the literate courtesan, writing becomes a means of showing sophistication and elegance, often helping her to attract men. 51. Règlement de la mission de Mandchourie, article 3.2.1. 52. Philomene Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (May 1, 1871), AMEP 0564:572a, line 13. 53. Marie Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), AMEP 0564:569a, lines 17–18. 54. Colette Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), AMEP 0564:565a, line 3. 55. Dominique Maurice Pourquié to Jean Félix Elie Besson (August 1, 1858), AMEP 0562:1375. 56. Marie Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), AMEP 0564:569a, line 15. 57. Philomene Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (May 1, 1871), AMEP 0564:572a, line 5. 58. Colette Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), AMEP 0564:565a, line 14. 59. O’Connor, Thérèse of Lisieux. 60. Dominique Maurice Pourquié to Jean Félix Elie Besson (August 1, 1858), AMEP 0562:1373. 61. Philibert Simon to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (June 2, 1871), AMEP 0564:557. 62. Alan Westin delineates four basic states of individual privacy: anonymity, reserve, solitude, and intimacy. See Westin, Privacy and Freedom. Since the 1970s, there emerged an extensive literature exploring the relationship between privacy and intimacy. A representative work is Ariès and Duby’s multivolume History of Private Life. 63. The other two are the Christian Virgins (Vierges Chrétiennes), founded by Jean-Martin Moÿe (1730–1793), and the Sisters of the Holy Family (Sœurs de la Sainte-Famille), founded by Auguste Gaspais (1884–1952). 64. Marie Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), AMEP 0564:569a, line 22, and Colette Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (1871), AMEP 0564:565a, line 21. 65. Philomene Du to Dominique Maurice Pourquié (May 1, 1871), AMEP 0564:572a, line 28.

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chapter 3 1. For a comprehensive study on the Council of Trent, see Jedin, History of the Council of Trent. 2. The council entrusted to the Pope the implementation of its work, and, as a result, Pope Pius V issued in 1566 the Roman Catechism, in 1588 a revised Roman Breviary, and in 1570 a revised Roman Missal. 3. According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, the Roman Catechism “differs from other summaries of Christian doctrine for the instruction of the people in two points: it is primarily intended for priests having care of souls (ad parochos), and it enjoys an authority equaled by no other catechism. The need of a popular authoritative manual arose from a lack of systematic knowledge among pre-Reformation clergy and the concomitant neglect of religious instruction among the faithful.” Wilhelm, “Roman Catechism,” Catholic Encyclopedia, available at www.newadvent.org/cathen/13120c. htm. 4. Popular Catholic catechisms include, for example, various editions of the Baltimore Catechism, a standard Catholic school text in America between 1885 and the late 1960s; the Dutch Catechism, published in 1966, the first post–Vatican II Catholic catechism; the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults; and the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, the first complete rewrite since the Council of Trent in 1566. 5. Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:608–31. 6. Qing zhongqianqi xiyang tianzhujiao, 2:841. 7. X. Zhang, Shiliao yu shijie, 83–141. 8. Most catechisms were published by either the Shanghai Tushanwan publishing house or the Imprimerie de Nazareth in Hong Kong. 9. Catéchisme des missions de Mandchourie: Texte chinois—Romanisation et traduction française (henceforth CMM), 1170. 10. Catéchisme des missions de Mandchourie, “Avant –Propos,” I. 11. Bodde, “State and Empire of Ch’in,” 1:56–58 5. 12. For a discussion of the romanization of the catechism as a revolutionary force in Vietnamese language and culture, see Phan, Mission and Catechesis. 13. Here and throughout, the number following “CMM” refers to the number of the article cited in the Catechism of the Manchuria Mission. For example, CMM 1 refers to the first article in the catechism. 14. Stapleton, “Ten Commandments,” Catholic Encyclopedia, available at www.newadvent.org/cathen/04153a.htm. 15. Lodwick, Crusaders Against Opium, 17–19. 16. Scannell, “Catechumen,” Catholic Encyclopedia available at www. newadvent.org/cathen/03430b.htm. 17. Siméon Berneux, parish report of 1850–51, AMEP 0563:495–96. 18. Jean Delumeau’s studies on Catholicism and confession include Le péché et la peur, Rassurer et proteger; and L’aveu et le pardon. 19. Hanna, “The Sacrament of Penance,” Catholic Encyclopedia, available at www.newadvent.org/cathen/11618c.htm.

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20. The so-called Chinese Rites Controversy refers to a series of disputes among Roman Catholic missionaries over the religiosity of Confucianism and Chinese rituals during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There were three sets of problems at the heart of the controversy. The first concerned the Chinese translations of essential Christian terms, such as “God,” “angels,” “the soul,” etc. The second concerned Christians’ participation in community activities, especially those in honor of non-Christian divinities. The third, which was most relevant to education, concerned ceremonies in honor of Confucius and ancestors. For an overview of the Chinese Rites Controversy, see Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:680–5; Mungello, Chinese Rites Controversy; and Li, Zhongguo liyi zhi zheng. 21. The MEP was involved in the controversy from the beginning, and MEP missionary Charles Maigrot (1652–1730) played an important role in the debate. In 1693, Maigrot issued his famous mandate, which Nicolas Charmot (1645–1714) submitted to Rome in 1697, thus starting the controversy anew; Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:345. For background on Maigrot’s mandate, see Y. Huang, Liangtoushe, 393–94. 22. Richard Madsen, for example, suggests a functionalist approach that casts Catholicism as a Chinese folk religion: “Catholicism in China, especially in the rural areas where the vast majority of Chinese Catholics live, is as much folk religion as world religion.” Although Madsen clarifies that he “would not advocate abandoning a top-down view of Chinese Catholicism as part of a world religion and a universal Church,” he argues that “this view should be complemented by one that sees Chinese Catholicism as a localized folk religion.” Madsen, “Beyond Orthodox,” 234. Madsen’s argument is echoed by other scholars. Zhang Xianqing, for example, in a recent article on the indigenization of Christianity in China in the mid-Qing, argues that there is no big difference between Catholic ritual practice and the practice of Chinese popular religions. X. Zhang, “Qingzhongye tianzhujiao zaihua de bentuhua wenti,” 33–43. 23. Harrison, Missionary’s Curse, 34. 24. According to Evelyn Rawski, traditional China had no concept of mass literacy. Literacy was a privilege acquired by the educated, largely the monopoly of a small group of males or a limited number of women from elite families. Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy, 18.

chapter 4 1. This view was originally put forward by early Jesuit missionaries. See Thiberge, Lettre de messieurs des missions. 2. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society, 3. 3.Ibid., 25. 4. Qing zhongqianqi xiyang tianzhujiao zaihua huodong dang’an shiliao (hereafter CADC), 3:1162; and CADC, 3:1145. 5. CADC, 3:1261. 6. X. Zhang, “Qing zhongye tianzhujiao,” 33–43.

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7. Chrétienté often refers to the basic Christian community set up by Catholic missionaries in China. Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:536–72. 8. AMEP 0563:132. 9. These missionaries include Siméon Berneux, Charles Émile Colin, Jean Baptiste Franclet, August Louis Mallet, Dominique Maurice Pourquié, Pierre Alexandre Mesnard, Isidore Métayer, Auguste Joachim Chevalièr, Charles Joseph Venault, and Joseph André Boyer. 10. For the period between 1865 and 1873, unfortunately, no annual reports are preserved in the AMEP Manchuria section. 11. This widely accepted estimate of the number of missionaries and other Christians killed during the Boxer Rebellion comes from the historian Wang Zhixin, who, based on various church records, calculated that the victims of the rebellion included five Catholic bishops, forty-eight Catholic missionaries, and eighteen thousand Catholics, as well as 188 Protestant missionaries and five thousand Protestants. See Z. Wang, Zhongguo jidujiao shigang, 221. On violence involving Catholics in the Boxer Rebellion, see also Tiedemann, “The Church Militant,”17–41. 12. The missionary Mesnard was the only one to use paresseux, “lazy,” instead of tiédes, “tepid,” as an explanatory rubric. 13. “Compte-Rendu de M. Mesnard 1853–1854,” AMEP 0563:601–2. 14. Ibid. 15. “Compte-Rendu de la Mission 1850–1851 par M. Berneux,” AMEP 0563:495–96. 16. Ibid. 17. “Compte-Rendu de M. Venault sur l’Administration de Son District,” AMEP 0563:550–51. 18. “Compte-Rendu de la Mission 1850–1851 par M. Berneux,” AMEP 0563:495–96. 19. “Les Monts Amba” means “the Big Mountains” (amba is a Manchu word for “big”) and refers to the area along the mountains of Nulu’erhu, Songling, Heishan, and Yiwulü in today’s western Liaoning. 20. Jean Franclet, “Relevé: Géographique, Statistique, Enumératif, Historique & Magnifique du District des Monts Amba,” AMEP 0563:629–44. 21. Robinson, History of Christian Missions, 213. 22. We can find many examples of such assessments in the MEP parish reports of the Manchuria Mission in AMEP 0562. 23. Parish report of 1853–54, AMEP 0563:602. 24. Parish report of 1865, AMEP 0563:2094. 25. AMEP 0562:1378, lines 1–4. 26. Parish report of 1853–54, AMEP 0563:602. 27. Chen, “Where Urban Migrants Met Rural Settlers,” 1–31 28. Verrolles recorded the community name as “Chum-heu-so” according to his French romanization. I have not managed to locate the place in today’s northeast China. AMEP 0563:132. 29. In the Qing dynasty, the Manchus set up the “Eight Banners system,” basically a military institution, to provide a structure with which

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the Manchu “bannermen” were meant to identify. The bannermen, however, were not necessarily ethnic Manchus. See Elliott, Manchu Way, 13–15. “Chum-heu-so,” as Verrolles called it, is the first and only record I can find of a Catholic community of bannermen in the early history of the Manchuria Mission. Because of the limited source material, little attention has so far been paid to early Christians in Manchuria, except for a few cases of individual Manchu Catholics who were either elite bannermen or relatives of the Qing court. One example is Tong Guoqi (d. 1690), who was the first Manchu to convert to Christianity. Tong, however, was raised in Wuchang, Nanjing, and Ningbo and served as governor of Fujian, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang. All of these places had been covered by Catholic missions since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Tong received baptism in 1672 as a court official, yellow bannerman, and maternal uncle (jiujiu) of the emperor. For discussion of Tong and several other early Manchu Catholics, see Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:444–57. 30. Annual report of 1852, AMEP 0563:551. 31. See Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity, chap. 2, “Manchukuo: A Historical Overview.” 32. Liu, “Dongbei diqu dixian xinyang de renleixue yanjiu,” 15–20. 33. Overmyer, “From ‘Feudal Superstition’ to ‘Popular Beliefs,’” 104. 34. Teiser, “Popular Religion,” 379. 35. Lin and Peng, Fujian minjian xinyang, 16–17. 36. Liu, “Dongbei diqu dixian xinyang de renleixue yanjiu,” 18. 37. See Needham, Belief, Language, and Experience, 108. 38. This is one of several hundred legal cases concerning Christian communities during the prohibition recorded in the CADC. CADC, 3:1086. 39. CADC, 3:1177–80. 40. CADC, 3:1261 describes a legal case concerning a Western missionary with the Chinese name Dong Wenxue, who resided in a local Catholic’s cottage. The cottage had been a chapel, and had been ruined by the local magistrate in 1812. In 1840, when Dong used this cottage to preach, he renamed it Guanyin Hall in imitation of a popular Buddhist temple to avoid suspicion. 41. Overmyer, “From ‘Feudal Superstition’ to ‘Popular Beliefs,’” 104.

chapter 5 1. For a study of the MEP’s rural strategy in eighteenth-century Sichuan, see L. Guo, Qingdai zhongye bali waifang. 2. Jean Franclet, “Relevé: Géographique, Statistique, Enumératif, Historique & Magnifique du District des Monts Amba,” AMEP 0563:629–44. 3. Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:538–43. 4. See Manzhou gongjiao yuekan, 4 (1938):143–44. 5. Ibid. 6. The subject of China’s Catholic population remains controversial. The Handbook of Christianity in China gives estimates for the Chinese Christian population from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth

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century. Due to the variable and incomplete source material, the population estimates vary sharply (Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:380–86). According to Johannes Beckmann, the total Chinese Christian population in 1815 was 217,000. See Beckmann, “Die Lage der Katholischen Missionen um 1815,” 2:221. In contemporary China, for various political reasons, estimates of the Chinese Christian population are even more controversial. In its 2010 annual report on the Christian population in China, the government enumerated about twenty-three million Christians in China, including both Roman Catholics and Protestants. See Jin and Qiu, Zhongguo zongjiao baogao. This is a conservative estimate, as it leaves out all youth and children under the age of eighteen who are still, officially, discouraged from joining a church. The large number of family churches and underground Christian organizations, such as the China Inland Mission, has led to the high estimates of more than 100 million Christians in today’s China. Independent estimates range from 40 million to 100 or 130 million Christians. David Aikman, for example, believes that “Christian believers in China, both Catholic and Protestant, may be closer to 80 million.” Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 7. The estimates in academic writings tend to be relatively conservative, such as the estimate of “at least twenty to thirty million Chinese Christians” made by Daniel Bays in his preface to Christianity in China, ix. 7. The Sisters of the Providence of Portieux was founded in 1762 by JeanMartin Moÿe, the priest of the diocese of Metz. The purpose of the congregation was to educate poor children, especially religiously ignorant girls. 8. Anshan shizhi, 153. 9. The Songhua River experienced severe floods in 1846, 1856, 1896, 1899, 1910–11, and 1914–15. See C. Luo, Zhongguo da hongshui, 45–54. 10. Dehergne, “Les chrétientés de Chine,” 1–136. According to Dehergne, the term chrétienté often appears as christianitas in the Latin sources. For further discussion of Dehergne’s definition of chrétienté, see Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:536–72. 11. In his encyclical Ad Extremas (1893), Pope Leo XIII made it clear that “it is necessary to realize that the number of missionaries abroad is far from adequate to serve the existing Christian communities. This deficiency is plainly evident from the mission statistics.” 12. This situation was not unique to the Manchuria Mission. Other places in China and in neighboring countries such as Korea had the same problem: the number of indigenous priests did not increase significantly until the early twentieth century. In other words, it is the first half of the twentieth century that witnessed the most significant and fastest development of the Chinese Catholic Church. Finch, “A Necessary and Fruitful Labor,” 280–91. 13. AMEP 0563:34. 14. Chen, Campbell, and Lee, “Categorical Inequality and Gender Difference,” 393–438. 15. Kircher, China Illustrata, 114. See also Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:470–71. 16. Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 1:471.

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17. For a discussion of Catholic virgins in general, see McNamara, Sisters in Arms. For Chinese Christian Virgins in Fujian, see Menegon, Ancestors, Virgins, and Friars, 301–56. For the Institute of Christian Virgins in Sichuan, see Entenmann, “Christian Virgins,” 180–93. For Virgins and Catholic religious orders in China up to modern times, see Leung and Wittberg, “Catholic Religious Orders of Women in China,” 67–82. 18. Menegon, “Child Bodies, Blessed Bodies,” 177–240. 19. The Chinese Christian Virgins were organized after Emperor Yongzheng’s prohibition of Catholic missions in 1724. In the ensuing difficult years of the Catholic mission in China, individual Catholic women were assigned to teach girls, to train catechumens for baptism, and to baptize dying infants. For a brief history of Chinese Christian Virgins, see Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, 394. 20. Entenmann, “Christian Virgins,” 184–89. Moÿe, the founder of les Sœurs de la Providence de Portieux in France in 1772, was experienced in organizing women’s teaching, for les Sœurs was one of the most successful women’s congregations devoted to Catholic education at that time. 21. The Chinese version of Tongzhen xiugui quoted in this chapter was published by Chongqing Shengjia Shuju in 1921. It includes Martiliat’s original twenty-five rules for Chinese Christian Virgins as well as supplementary rules that were added later. Qin, “Guanyu qingdai deng di tianzhujiao tongzhennü,” 110–19. 22. Leung and Wittberg, “Catholic Religious Orders of Women in China,” 69. 23. These seven rules were as follows: (1) No catechetical method is universally applicable. (2) Two approaches are counterproductive in Vietnam. One begins with an attack on the Vietnamese religious beliefs and practices. But it should not be undertaken as the preliminary step before one teaches the truth of Christianity. It should be done after one has spoken of the existence of God, creation, the fall, the flood, and the tower of Babel. (3) Ordering of Christian doctrines. Exposition of the Trinitarian mystery is done at the beginning of catechesis. (4) Start with truths knowable by the light of natural reason. (5) The most difficult to teach is that of the incarnation, passion, and death of the Son of God. A triple strategy: highlighting the cosmic wonders associated with Christ’s passion and with his resurrection. (6) Religious language. Pay attention to the different philosophical and religious contexts of the language that seem equivalent to Christian concepts. (7) Necessary to link doctrine with praxis instruction and with worship. Phan, Mission and Catechesis, 129–30. 24. Qin, “Guanyu qingdai deng di tianzhujiao tongzhennü,” 110–19. 25. Entenmann, “Christian Virgins,” 191. 26. This comparison does not include a further six schools with 417 female students run by the French nuns of the Sisters of the Providence of Portieux. Launay, Histoire générale, 576. 27. The focus on Christian Virgins and women’s education in Manchuria in the late nineteenth century contrasted with the situation in Sichuan, where boys’ schools and male students were predominant. According to Launay, in

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1892 there were altogether 268 Catholic boys’ schools, with 4,685 students, and 231 Catholic girls’ schools, with 2,945 students, in east and west Sichuan, a pattern that had been maintained since the late eighteenth century. Launay, Histoire générale, 576. 28. According to Launay, by 1892 there were 1,060 Christian Virgins in Sichuan and altogether 434 Virgins in other areas under the supervision of the MEP, namely, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong, Tibet, and Manchuria. The number of Virgins in Manchuria represents more than half of the total for areas outside Sichuan. See Launay, Histoire générale, 557, 576, and 588. 29. The number of schools for boys, for example, increased from seventeen in 1873 to 131 in 1919, and that of schools for girls increased from seventeen to 119. The importance of Catholic catechism schools is evident in both the MEP parish reports and local Chinese gazetteers. In local gazetteers at various administrative levels—province, city, and county—whenever Catholicism and foreign missionaries are mentioned, catechism schools are mentioned as well. According to one local gazetteer, in 1874 two churches were built in Bayansusu, the center of the Catholic mission in north Manchuria. Immediately after the churches were built, two catechism schools were founded inside the churches. At that time, there were about eight hundred Christians and twelve missionaries in Bayansusu (Heilongjiang shengzhi, 197). 30. Three hundred diao equaled about one hundred liang of silver in 1881, when the Regulations of the Manchuria Mission were approved. According to Peng Xinwei, in the 1870s to the 1900s, one shi of rice (sixty kilograms) cost one liang of silver; so three hundred diao would have bought six thousand kilograms of rice. See Peng, Zhongguo huobi shi, 588. Also, according to a legal case recorded in the local archives of Shuangcheng, a county in northern Manchuria (in today’s Heilongjiang), one thatched cottage in Shuangcheng was worth fifteen diao in 1873. Three hundred diao was thus the worth of twenty thatched cottages in Shuangcheng. See Shuangchengpu zongguan yamen dang’an (Shuangcheng area commanderin-chief government archives), vol. 179 (1873), no. 4, document no. 20. As the cost of housing was largely determined by location, acreage, and the condition of the unit, and because Shuangcheng was in the backcountry, the value of three hundred diao may have varied in other places in Manchuria. I thank Ren Yuxue and Chen Shuang for bringing this piece of evidence to my attention. 31. Martiliat’s fifth rule, “Persuasion of work,” says, “In the West, despite heavy religious practice, all virgins work in their spare time. For us, besides all the required religious lessons, everyone should do women’s ordinary work such as spinning, cooking, and the like. You cannot stay idle.” Qin, “Guanyu qingdai chuanqian,” 112. 32. Based on the estimates for Liaoning, few women remained unmarried at the age of twenty-five. Women from well-off families may have married slightly later or in lower numbers. Chen, Campbell, and Lee, “Categorical Inequality and Gender Difference,” 410–12. 33. Entenmann, “Christian Virgins,” 191.

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34. The Oblates of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus was developed with the assistance of the Swiss Bethlehem Mission Immensee, which dispatched three priests, named Hugentobler, Imhof, and Schenetzler, to Qiqiha’er in 1924. In 1928, Father Imhof established a community of Chinese Virgins. A year later, the community was named the Oblates of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus and was dedicated to training Chinese Catholic Virgins to assist with evangelism, education, and medical care. 35. The Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary was established in Siping, Jilin, in 1940, and was supervised by the Society of the Foreign Missions of Québec. 36. A brief introduction to these orders can be found in Tiedemann, Reference Guide, 47–108. 37. Ibid., 96. 38. Ibid. 39. The Carmelite Order is also called the Order of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in English, or Ordo fratrum Beatae Mariae de monte Carmelo in Latin. It was established by an Italian named Bertold on Mount Carmel in about the mid-twelfth century. The Carmelite Order entered China in 1869 and mainly worked in Shanghai, Chongqing, Hong Kong, and Kuming (Tiedemann, Reference Guide, 54). In 1874, the order established a convent in Shanghai. The Carmelite Order had no convents in Manchuria in the 1870s. The Du women might have heard about this order from Pourquié or from other priests. Unlike the sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary, who were trained to do active mission work, the nuns of the Carmelite Order were devoted to a life of prayer and contemplation. It seems that the contemplative life is what Pourquié introduced to the Du women. Philomene mentioned in her letter that Pourquié had wanted to establish a convent before he left Manchuria. Although the women did not mention the name of this convent, their letters suggest that the convent proposed by Pourquié would have been similar to those of the Carmelites and would have been devoted to contemplative religious life. 40. AMEP, Fiche Biographique 3410. 41. Unpublished documents of the Holy Family Convent provided by the Holy Family Convent in Shenyang to the author. 42. Guo Yaozhen to Charles Joseph Lemaire (July 8, 1988), preserved in the MEP Photo Collection, “Chine à classer.” 43. The connection between Verrolles and the congregation developed three decades before the first group of sisters went to Manchuria. In fact, it may go back to as early as the eighteenth century. The founder of the congregation, Jean-Martin Moÿe, went to China in 1771 and worked in Sichuan for about eleven years. Verrolles was one of Moÿe’s followers in China. When Verrolles returned to France and gave his impassioned speech in Metz in February 1846 (discussed in chapter 1), some nuns of Portieux were probably among the audience and were moved by his speech. At that time, Verrolles had already come to appreciate their simplicity and commitment, and expressed his willingness to have the nuns work with him in Manchuria. He first mentioned this to Monseigneur Caverot, Bishop of Saint-Dié

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and superieur of the congregation. Being reluctant to send his nuns so far away to work in such a difficult situation, Caverot immediately refused Verrolles’s request. Verrolles, however, insisted on the request and finally gained approval. 44. Cinquante ans d’apostolat, 27. 45. Ibid., 41. 46. Ibid., 111–12.

chapter 6 1. For a study of this village, which has been Catholic since the seventeenth century, see Harrison, Missionary’s Curse. 2. Chang Jiala to Michael Chiapetta (June 22, 1912). archive of Father Li Jianhua, Taiyuan, China. I thank Henrietta Harrison for her generosity in sharing with me a transcription of Chang Jiala’s letter, which she collected during her fieldwork in Shanxi. An original copy of the letter was later provided by Father Li Jianhua from his private collection on Michael Chiapetta. 3. Guo Yaozhen to Charles Joseph Lemaire (July 8, 1988), preserved in the MEP Photo Collection, “Chine à classer.” 4. In 1704, Pope Clement XI issued the Cum Deus optimus decree to forbid the use of the terms tian, heaven, and shangdi, emperor of heaven, and to forbid Christians to take part in sacrifices to Confucius or to ancestors. In 1715, Clement XI further issued the papal bull Ex illa die, which officially condemned the Chinese rites. In 1742, Pope Benedict XIV reiterated in his papal bull Ex quo singulari Clement XI’s decree and demanded that missionaries in China take an oath not to discuss the issue again. 5. Fang, Zhongxi Jiaotong Shi, 2:1009. 6. Outside Manchuria, the MEP began to establish Catholic schools as early as the eighteenth century, especially in Sichuan. A description of the early efforts to establish Catholic schools in Sichuan can be found in Entenmann, “Christian Virgins,” 188–89. According to Qin Heping, in 1795 fifteen catechist schools had been established in Sichuan, and the number increased to sixty-three in 1803, 107 in 1801, 128 in 1830, and 169 in 1840. See Qin, Jidujiao zai Sichuan chuanbo shigao. 7. For the discussion on civil examination system and ladder of social mobility in imperial China, see Ho, Ladder of Success, 92–125. 8. See, for example, Widmer, “Epistolary World of Female Talent”; Robertson, “Voicing the Feminine”; Ebrey, Inner Quarters; Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers; Mann, “Learned Women in the Eighteenth Century”; Mann, Precious Records; Mann, Talented Women of the Zhang Family; and Widmer and Chang, Writing Women in Late Imperial China. 9. One example is the Shanghai Number Three Girls’ School. It was originally founded as the McTyeire School for Girls by Southern Methodist missionaries in 1892 to provide a liberal education to young Chinese women of “the well-to-do classes.” Sixty years later McTyeire was consolidated with St. Mary’s School for Girls, and renamed the Shanghai Number Three Girls’ School. In 1982 it was designated an advanced school for classroom-based

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research in female adolescent development and became China’s only allfemale municipal key secondary school. See Ross, “Cradle of Female Talent,” 208. Similarly, St. Hilda’s School for Girls in Wuchang, Hubei, started as a common missionary school for girls and developed in the 1910s into an elite female school that attracted girls from wealthy non-Christian families in the Wuhan area. For these families, St. Hilda’s as a missionary boarding school became a shelter for elite girls, because students at St. Hilda’s would be the children of missionaries and/or the fiancées of the boys at the adjoining Boone School, central China’s training school for Episcopalian ministers. 10. Mann, “AHR Forum,” 1600–14. 11. According to modern standards, however, this is not a high level of Chinese literacy. In her study of modern Chinese literacy, Vilma Seeberg lists the number of characters whose mastery was required by various mass literacy movements. “James Yen or Yan Yangchu’s MAM and other peasant literacy mass movements prior to 1949 taught 1,000 most frequently and commonly used characters. Hawkins … estimated the number of characters taught in informal reading classes … somewhere between 450 and 750 characters.… In 1950, the People’s Congress … declared that knowledge of 1,000 characters was the objective of literacy courses and proof of literacy, whereas knowledge of 300 or fewer characters was indicative of total illiteracy.… In 1953, workers and cadres must master 3,000, and peasants 1,000. In 1956, the number was reduced to 2,000 and 1,500.” Seeberg, Literacy in China, 20. 12. Schipper, “Written Memorial in Taoist Ceremonies,” 324. 13. The historian Patricia Ebrey’s comprehensive study of Chinese women’s lives within the family in the Song dynasty (960–1279) initiated a scholarly focus on the “inner and outer” lives of Chinese women in traditional Chinese society dominated by Confucian ideas, attitudes, and practices. By “inner quarters,” Ebrey refers to the domestic sphere, or family, within which Chinese women in imperial society were confined. Ebrey, Inner Quarters. 14. For theoretical discussion of the public sphere, see Habermas, Structural Transformation. For discussion of the employment of the public/private spheres theory, see Calhoun, Habermas and the Public Sphere; and Landes, Feminism. Most historical studies focus on women in Europe and America; see, for example, Chartier, History of Private Life; Eger et al., Women, Writing, and the Public Sphere; Scott and Keates, Going Public; and Goodman, “Public Sphere and Private Life.” In contrast to the abundant studies on women and public/private spheres in Europe and America, there are few studies about China beyond those focusing on Chinese women’s participation in various social and political movements in the early twentieth century, which arguably equate the public sphere with the emerging nationstate. One reason for the limited usage of the public/private dichotomy in studies on China is that the public sphere in current scholarship implies an emerging modern civil society, whose existence in China is still the subject of controversy. 15. For discussion of the “inner and outer” in the traditional architecture of Chinese houses, see Ebrey, Inner Quarters, 23–27. For a comprehensive

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discussion on the transformation of “inner chambers,” see also X. Li, Women’s Poetry in Late Imperial China. 16. I borrowed the concept of “a room of one’s own” from Virginia Woolf’s famous essay of the same name. Woolf, A Room of One’s Own. 17. For a study of this subject in the case of letter-writing women in eighteenth-century France, see Goodman, “Letter Writing,” 937. 18. For example, in her study of literate women in seventeenth-century China, Dorothy Ko criticizes the fallacies inherent in the application of theories of modernity and individualism developed in the European context to similar phenomena in contemporary China. Some elite Chinese women’s writings cannot be interpreted in terms of the birth of privatized individuals. Ko emphasized the uniqueness of Chinese history and culture and proposed an interpretation embedded in the Chinese context. Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers,” 126. 19. M. Robertson, “Voicing the Feminine,” 79. 20. See, for example, Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers, 126.” 21. Mann, Precious Records, 17. 22. The scholarship on elite women writers in traditional Chinese society has thrived in recent years. This scholarship focuses on exploring “female voices” in the male literati-dominated world of written language, as Maureen Robertson argues in her classic article on women writers of Chinese lyric poetry: “The discourse that enabled an exclusive form of traditional literary history was authorized by a patriarchal proprietorship of written language. The allocation of language/writing to men guaranteed the perpetuation of systems of representation conforming to gender arrangements as defined by the dominant (primarily Confucian) ideology” (M. Robertson, “Voicing the Feminine,” 66). Robertson discusses “how women writers have constructed feminine voices in the process of entering into a masculinized written language and a tradition of lyric verse in which images of women and feminine voices have been authoritatively constructed by men” (ibid., 67). The women poets in Robertson’s study had their own voices, but their means of voicing, through the “masculinized written language,” were similarly extended from the world of the male literati. 23. Although primers and elementary texts for girls and women, such as Liu Xiang’s Biographies of Exemplary Women, also existed, the texts were written by male literati and demonstrated the latter’s images of ideal women within the dominant ideology. T. Lee, Education in Traditional China, 469. 24. Widmer, “Epistolary World of Female Talent,” 143. 25. M. Robertson, “Voicing the Feminine,” 67. 26. For example, elite women enjoyed much greater access to the privilege of classic learning and literacy than did men from the nonelite and lower classes. Access to literacy for lower-class men often meant access to social mobility; while for these elite women, literacy not only empowered them and gave them a voice similar to that of men but also assured them of a good reputation and admiration from the social world determined by men. 27. Popular primers and elementary texts for literacy education in imperial China included Qianzi wen (Thousand-character essay), Bai jia xing

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(Hundred surnames), and Sanzijing (The three-character classic). These works were intended for both boys and girls, but the contents were often male-centered. There were also primers and elementary texts particularly for girls and women, including Lienü zhuan (Biographies of exemplary women), Nü jing (Precepts for women), and Nü shu (Lessons for women), but their content and morality connotations were still defined by elite males. T. Lee, Education in Traditional China, 439–77. 28. The role of religion in women’s writings was not new in Chinese history. In her study about writing and religion in Chinese history, Suzanne Cahill examines the tenth-century biography of the Queen Mother of the West and cites some poems about Queen Mothers by Tang women whose writing served as a religious practice toward transcendence and divine passion. See Cahill, Transcendence and Divine Passion, in particular, 21442.

epilogue 1. In the newly edited genealogy of the Du family, I found the name of Du Guanxian, the only fully named family member in the Du letters. Du Guanxian was the eldest son of Du Yutai, who was the patriarch of the Dus living in Zhongjie, or “Middle Street,” one of the five clans descending from Du Hai in Santaizi. Unfortunately, no women are recorded in Du Guanxian’s generation. However, according to the generation names of the Dus, if the Du women belonged to the same generation as Du Guanxian, they were great-great-great-aunts of Du Huaisheng. Dushi jiapu (Genealogy of the Du family), unpublished document provided to the author in April 2012. 2. Cao, Constructing China’s Jerusalem, 163.

bibl iogr a ph y

Manuscript and Archival Sources Archives des Missions Étrangères de Paris (AMEP). Paris, France. mandchourie 0562 Mandchourie 1840–60 0563 Mandchourie (lettres) 1824–65 0564 Mandchourie (lettres) 1865–80 0565 Mandchourie (lettres) 1881–98 0566 Mandchourie/Mandchourie Méridionale 1838–98/1899–1905 0567 Mandchourie Septentrionale 1899–1905 0567A Mandchourie/Mandchourie Méridionale 1906–20 0567B Mandchourie Septentrionale 1906–20 0567M Mandchourie Septentrionale 1906–20

séminarie 0130 Mémoire relatif aux Missions Orient

voyages 0183 Propagation de la Foi 1822–60 0185 Documents diplomatiques-Chine, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères 1899–1900

chine (lettres) 0448 Chine (lettres) 07, 1786–1804 0449 Chine (lettres) 08, 1805–35

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index

Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations or charts. abstinence on holy days as precept of the Church, 51 Agnius, Edouard Eugène Joseph: biographical data, 150 Alacoque, Marguerite-Marie, 35–36 Alexander VIII, Pope, 8 ancestor veneration, 76 animal gods in Manchuria, 94–95 Antonian Sisters of Mary Queen of the Clergy, 121 apostolic vicar (term), 4, 11, 66, 101, 115, 117, 159n26 apostolic vicariate (term), 8, 12, 101, 122, 159n26 Association of the Holy Childhood, 12, 159n33 Augustine, Saint: Questions of Exodus, 50 Aulagne, Philippe Joseph: biographical data, 147 Aussourd, François, 13 avarice as transgression, 91–92 Ave Maria, 47, 52, 53, 58 Bajiatai, Liaoning province, 91 Bajiazi, Jilin province: Catholic church erected in, 7; Catholic migrants to, 7; early Christians in, 158n20; Pourquié’s work in, 30 Bao, Father. See Boyer, Joseph (Father Bao) baojuan, 14 baptism: catechists’ help in preparation for, 112, 113; of children, 59–60, 72, 82–83, 88; fourteenth rule of, 58–59; political unrest and, 103; requirements for, 57–60, 72, 80; as sacrament of the Church, 52; statistics on, Santaizi, 80, 82, 82–83, 88 Bareth, Aimé: biographical data, 148

Bayansusu, Heilongjiang province, 172n29 Beaulieu, Jean Louis Michel: biographical data, 149 belief-practice association in Catholicism, 95–96 Benedict XIV, Pope, 174n4 Berneux, Siméon: biographical data, 145; comments in parish reports, 60, 90, 168n8; earlier postings, 104; family background, 105 Berthemy Convention (1865), 160n36 bigamy as transgression, 92 Biguanbao, Liaoning province, 7 Bisson, Victor François: biographical data, 146 Blois, Jean-Marie, 106 Bongard, Joseph Gustave: biographical data, 148 Bourgeois, Louis Marie Joseph: biographical data, 149 Boxer Rebellion, viii, 29–30, 85, 103, 108, 168n11 Boyer, Joseph (Father Bao): biographical data, 145; church established by, 29, 105, 143–44; comments in parish reports, 91, 168n8; convent established by, 41–42, 122; Du women’s disagreement with, 23, 24–25, 162n10; indigenous priests ordained by, 151; parish report for Santaizi, 80 Bruguiére, Louis Marie: biographical data, 147 Buddhism in China: education of girls in, 17; mention in Catechism of the Manchuria Mission, 51; sacred texts, 14 Burns, William Chalmers, 16–17 Card, Théodore: biographical data, 147

210 Carmelite Order, 24, 42, 122, 162n11, 173n39 Carmelite Order of Lisieux, 162n11 catechism: as basic curriculum in Catholic schools, 17–18, 45, 95, 117, 129, 134–36, 172n29; confirmation in, 83; as confirmation of Christianity’s distinctiveness, 71; Council of Trent’s development of, 45, 83; equality of souls emphasized in, 139–40; indigenous teachers for, 112, 113, 116–18, 125, 140; literacy and, 17–18, 33–34, 47–48, 56, 59, 96, 139–40; memorization of definitions, 49; minimum knowledge requirements before baptism, 58, 72, 98; popular editions, 166n4; publications in China, 46; question-and-answer format in, 70; Roman, 166nn2–3; of Saint Pius X, 45–46, 47; writings developed for China, 4, 46, 51. See also Catechism of the Manchuria Mission Catechism of the Manchuria Mission, 46–54, 69–70; advanced level of knowledge, 53–54, 117, 135; basic level of knowledge, 53, 135; beginning level of knowledge, 53, 135; behavioral codes and moral guidance, 50–52; brevity, 47; classification and degree of faith, 53–54; content, 48–52; division of commandments in, 50–51; format, 47–48; four precepts of the Church in, 51–52; fundamental truths in, 48–50; knowledge on holy days, 52; language features and romanizations used, 15–16, 47–48, 135; literacy level for, 134–36; parts, 46–47; pedagogy of, 33; prayers in, 52; purpose, 47, 72; sacraments of the Church in, 52 catechists and lay Christians, indigenous, 109; duties of, 108–9, 111–13; female, 113–14; increase in, 99, 108, 109, 114, 125; literacy of, 134 catechumens: examination of before baptism, 57–59, 112, 171n19; Franclet’s tally of, 100; as missionaries’ assistants, 59; pedagogy for, 15, 53, 72, 111–12, 124, 136; regulations for, 4; as term, 52 Catholicism in France: missionary movement in, 10–14, 45, 159n29;

Index nineteenth-century revival, 6, 11–12 Caubriére, Joseph Marie: biographical data, 150 Caverot, Monseigneur, 173–74n43 celibacy as viewed in China, 25–26, 62–63, 111, 120, 172n32 Chang Jiala, 127–28, 129–30; religious vocabulary of, 131 changxian (snake gods), 95 Chapdelaine, Auguste, 67 charity: concept of, 58, 116; manifestations of, 39–40, 79 Chevalier, Auguste Joachim: biographical data, 146; comments in parish reports, 168n8 Chiapetta, Michael (Father Jiang), 127–28 China, Christianity’s prohibition in, 7–8, 11, 14–15; non-orthodox practices during, 69, 76, 96–97; underground spread of Catholic materials, 46, 160n44 China, Christian missionaries in: annual parish reports compiled by, 55–56, 77–98; biographical data, 145–50; catechisms for, 46–54; changing role of, 42; dress code for, 60–63; hostility toward, 61, 67; interactions with women, 63–65, 119, 120; Jesuits, 8, 14, 35, 46, 60, 61, 97, 100, 111–12; nineteenth-century introduction of French, 4–6, 8–9, 12–14, 18–19, 30, 159n29; paucity of, 59, 74, 83, 170nn11–12; Portuguese, 7, 101, 158–59nn25–26; Protestant, 16–17, 37; reassertion of orthodoxy after revival, 69–71, 74–75, 96–97, 98; regulations for, 54–69; religious texts’ importance in, 14–19, 46 China Inland Mission, 170n6 Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, 130 Chinese Christians’ local ritual practices, 74–75, 76, 93–96 Chinese Christian Virgins, 114–20, 165n63; admission ceremony, 119; admission conditions, 119–20, 172n30; Chinese terms for, 114; dress code for, 62–63, 119; expulsion of, 119; family life continued by, 25–26, 114, 119, 137–38; increase in, 113, 118–19, 122; missionaries’ contact with, 64, 119, 120; monetary payment, 119–20, 172n30; morality and,

Index 62–63; number calculated in annual reports, 77; numbers throughout China, 172n28; organization of, 171n19; orphanage run by, 124; privacy and security issues, 18, 64; recruitment of, 59; regulations on, 64–65, 115–20, 171n21; responsibilities of, 116–18; as teachers, 63, 117–18, 140 Chinese descent and kinship system, 25–26, 69, 91, 95–96, 99, 111 Chinese language, missionaries’ acquisition of, 15, 47–48, 160n46 Chinese non-Christian rituals, 76 Chinese Rites Controversy, 60, 132, 141, 167nn20–21 Choulet, Marie Félix: biographical data, 148; convent established by, 122 chrétientés (Catholic communities), 76–77, 168n7; amount of, early twentieth century, 99; in Manchuria, 105, 108, 125; meanings of, 108; rural focus, 100; Santaizi as, 79–80, 87–88; schools in, 132–34 cifu (merciful father), 39, 39, 41 Clement XI, Pope, 132, 174n4 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, 11 Colin, Charles Émile: biographical data, 146; comments in parish reports, 91, 168n9; posting to China, 30, 105, 163n38 Collas, Charles Justin Aimé: biographical data, 147 communion (Eucharist): Eucharist for the sick, 61–62; instruction in, 72; as precept of the Church, 51–52, 58; proper dress for, 61–62; statistics on, Santaizi, 86–88, 87; swallowing of, 67–69, 70, 73 comptes-rendus (parish reports), 77. See also Manchuria Mission annual parish reports confession: changing zeal for, 85; children’s exclusion from, 85–86; instruction in, 72; obligation of annual, 65; as precept of the Church, 51–52, 58; privacy and, 56, 63, 64, 65–67; proper dress for, 62; self-awareness and, 38; statistics on, Santaizi, 84–86, 85, 88 confirmation: difficulty posed by lack of priests, 83–84; instruction in, 72; statistics on, Santaizi, 83–84, 88 Confucianism, 132, 133–34, 174n4; Chinese Rites Controversy and, 167nn20–21; early Catholic

211 writings’ engagement with, 46; education of girls in, 17; sacred texts, 14 Conraux, Louis Dominique: biographical data, 147 Convention of Beijing (1860), 160n36 conversion: baptism and, 52, 82; children and, 59–60, 88; Christianity’s appeal to marginal populations, 72, 100; family relationships’ importance to, 96, 137; rituals and, 76; understanding of catechism as precondition for, 50, 57–60, 72, 98 Corbel, Jean François: biographical data, 149 Council of Trent, 45, 50, 65, 71, 83, 94–95 “Creation” concept in catechism, 49 Credo, 52, 58 Cubizolles, Joseph Jules: biographical data, 148 Cultural Revolution, viii, 128 cuobiezi (wrong Chinese characters), 31 Da’erdang’e, 7 Danish Missionary Society (DMS), 17 Daoism: education of girls in, 17; sacred texts, 14 Daughters of Mary and Joseph, 121 Daughters of the Holy Ghost, 121 Déan, Armand Joseph: biographical data, 149 Dehergne, Joseph, 108 Delaborde, Ludger: biographical data, 146 de La Brunière, Maxime-Paul Brulley, 6; biographical data, 145; expedition to north, 102; family background, 105; as Verrolles’s assistant, 104 Delecourt, Léopold Lucien Désiré: biographical data, 148 D’Elia, Pasquale, 8 Delpal, Jean-François: biographical data, 150 Delumeau, Jean, 65–66 de St. Martin, Jean-Didier, 117 dixian (animal gods), 94–95 domestiques des pères (servants of the fathers), 55 Dongbei (term), 6, 158n9 dress code: for Chinese Christian Virgins, 62–63, 119; for missionaries, 60–63 drinking as transgression, 92 Du, Colette: Christian name, 27, 163n25; family mentioned by, 28;

212 handwriting and literacy level, 31, 32–33, 33; lack of Chinese given name, 26; letter to Pourquié, 20, 21; religious expression and devotion, 36; self-expression of, 38, 40, 43–44; terms of address to Pourquié, 41 Du, Marie: Christian name, 27, 163n25; convent as viewed by, 24, 122; family mentioned by, 28; handwriting and literacy level, 33; lack of Chinese given name, 26; letter to Pourquié, 20, 22, 22–24; religious expression and devotion, 36; self-expression of, 38, 43–44 Du, Philomene: Christian name, 27, 163n25; handwriting and literacy level, 33; lack of Chinese given name, 26; letter to Pourquié, 20, 22, 23, 173n39; reference to gender by, 41; religious expression and devotion, 34–36; self-expression of, 38, 40, 43–44; terms of address to Pourquié, 41; use of xiao nü, 42 Du family: background, 28–29; descendants, 143–44, 177n1; as immigrants to Manchuria, 7, 28 Du sisters’ letters: analysis of, 31–37; author’s discovery of, vii; characters, spelling, and writing mistakes, 31–34, 33, 128; Chinese characters used in, 22; content of, 22–25; convent controversy in, 23–25, 41–42, 122, 127, 173n39; current generation’s reading of, 144; date of, vii; emotionality in, 36–37, 41–42, 43–44, 129; epistolary style, 43–44; as evidence of Chinese women’s literacy, 117; family members mentioned in, 130; handwriting in, 21–22; interplay of third-person nouns, 38–39, 39; preservation of, 20; religious vocabulary and new devotion, 34–37, 43, 129–30, 131; selfexpression in, 17, 20–21, 37–42, 140; self-identification of “God’s little daughters,” 27–28, 42 Du Yintang, 29–30 Dubail, Constant, 54, 55; biographical data, 145; nuns not supported by, 124 education in China: Catholic schools, 14–19, 37–42, 56, 57–60, 72, 112, 113, 116–17, 124, 125–26, 129, 132–36, 140–41, 172n29;

Index importance of, 59; non-Catholic girls’ schools, 17,174–75n9; Protestant schools, 37; selfawareness and agency and, 18–19, 37–42, 43, 56, 70–71, 127; traditional secular, 133. See also literacy in China egoism, 92 Emonet, Noël Marie: biographical data, 147 enfu (gracious father), 39, 39, 41 English Presbyterian Mission, 17 epistolary writing in Europe, 164n48 Etellin, Frédéric Auguste: biographical data, 150 Eucharist. See communion (Eucharist) faith, Christian: assessment of local, 77–80, 89–92, 97–98; China’s absence of, 74, 76, 85–86; classification and degree of, 53–54; concept of, 49, 51, 52, 71, 76, 116; defining, 56–60, 72–73, 75; gender and 127–41; interaction with religious behavior, 75–76, 95; manifestations of, 79; personalization of 31–37, 43; societal context, 93–96 “father” (Chinese terms for), 39, 39, 40–42 Faure, Jean Auguste: biographical data, 147 Flandin, Frédéric Henri Auguste: biographical data, 149 France, imperial interests of, 11, 12–14 Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, 121 Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Egypt, 121 Franciscan order, 8 Franclet, Jean Baptiste: biographical data, 146; comments in parish reports, 168n9; register of Catholic families, 27, 85–86, 91, 100 Fujian, Chinese Christian Virgins in, 144 Fushun, Liaoning province, 121 gambling as transgression, 92 Gaspais, Auguste, 165n63 Georjon, Jean François: biographical data, 149 Gillié, Louis Marie Madelain, 162n8; biographical data, 146 “God” concept in catechism, 49, 129 Gregory XVI, Pope, 8, 101 Guangdong province: apostolic vicariate of, 12; Catholic population

Index proportion, 1897, 104; Chinese Christian Virgins in, 172n28 Guangxi province: apostolic vicariate of, 12; Catholic population proportion, 1897, 104 Guanyin Hall, 75, 97 Guillon, Laurent: biographical data, 145; indigenous priests ordained by, 151 Guizhou province: Catholic population proportion, 1897, 104; Chinese Christian Virgins in, 172n28 Guo Yaozhen, 123, 127, 128–30, 130; religious vocabulary of, 131 Haibei County, Heilongjiang province, 163n28 Hainan, apostolic vicariate of, 12 Heilongjiang province, 6; Christians exiled to, 8; as part of northern Manchuria Mission, 79, 108. See also specific locations Herin, Jean Baptiste: biographical data, 149 Hezhe (Nanai) people, 102 Hinard, Flamand Victor Fleur: biographical data, 147 Holy Family Convent (Jilin), 27–28, 127, 128–29 “Holy Spirit” concept in catechism, 49 homophone substitution mistakes in Chinese, 32, 128 “hope,” concept of, 58, 116 huangxian (weasel gods), 95 Huchet, Julien Jean Baptiste Pierre: biographical data, 150 huizhangs (indigenous administrators), 55, 112, 113 Hulan county, Heilongjiang province, 121 huxian (fox gods), 95 incense, collecting money for, 75, 97 indifference, 92 “inner quarters” (neiwei), 136–39, 161n5, 175n13 Innocent XII, Pope, 101 Institute of Christian Virgins, 25, 26, 114–15, 117, 119, 171n17 Jansenists, 35 Japan, Christianity’s prohibition in, 11 Jesuit order: in China, 8, 14, 46, 61, 75, 100, 111–12; Chinese dress and, 60; MEP missionaries’ disagreements with, 69, 75, 97, 100; Sacred Heart of Jesus devotion promoted by, 35

213 Jiang, Father. See Chiapetta, Michael (Father Jiang) Jiangnan, China, 6, 104, 138, 157n4, 161n54 jiao’an, 14, 46 Jiaqing, Emperor of China, 15, 93 Jilin province, 6; Chinese Christian Virgins in, 122; convents in, 121, 123; as part of northern Manchuria Mission, 78–79, 108; Venault’s establishment of Catholic community in, 102. See also specific locations Jinzhou county, Liaoning province, 30, 91 judou (Chinese punctuation system), 162n12 Kaiyuan, Liaoning province, 7 Kalima, Liaoning province, 60, 90 Kangxi, Emperor of China, 7, 69 Kaoshantun, 90 Kircher, Athanasius: China Illustrata, 111–12 koubing, 161–62n6 Lalouyer, Pierre Marie François: biographical data, 145 Lamandé, Ange Marie: biographical data, 147 Lamasse, Paul Xavier Henri: biographical data, 149 Laozi, mention in Catechism of the Manchuria Mission, 51 Latin language, knowledge of, 110–11 Laveissière, Jean Antoine: biographical data, 149 Lazarist order, 8, 12 laziness as transgression, 91 Lemaire, Charles Joseph: convent founded by, 123 Leo XIII, Pope, 170n11 Letort, Aristide Gustave Marie: biographical data, 147 Lianshan, Liaoning province, 30, 78, 89–90 Liaodong, early Christians in, 158n20 Liaoning province, 6, 78, 121. See also specific locations Lin, Father. See Pourquié, Dominique Maurice (Father Lin) literacy in China: catechism and, 4, 17–18, 33–34, 47–48, 56, 59, 117, 139–40; Chinese converts’ writings, 16, 127–31; Christian texts, 14–15; as class rather than gender issue, 133–34, 138–39,

214 176n26; in Du women’s letters, 31–37; importance of, 136, 161n49; as key to evangelization, 14, 16, 70; mass female learning movement in Manchuria, 17; primers, 176– 77n27; rural women, vii, 16, 17, 18, 31, 117, 133–34, 138–40, 141; social status and, 16, 72, 164– 65n50; women’s improvements in, 127–30 Litou, Eugène Clément Auguste: biographical data, 148 Liu Sikun, 96–97 Louis XIV, King of France, 11 Maggi, Luigi, 115 Maigrot, Charles, 167n21 Mallet, August Louis: biographical data, 146; comments in parish reports, 168n8 Manchu people, 6–7, 168–69n29; Venault’s negative assessment of, 92, 93 Manchuria: Catholic Christian names in, 27; Catholic locations in, 10; Catholic migrants in, 7–8, 28–29; Catholic population increase in, 99, 102–4; Catholic population proportion, 1897, 104, 104; Catholic schools in, 16, 112, 113, 132–34; community demographic information, 77–78; convents in, 120–24; early Christians in, 7–8, 158n20, 168–69nn28–29; ethnic groups in, 93–94; girls’ schools in, 17, 38, 117–18, 133, 139, 171n26–27; Han Chinese in, 93–94; history of Christianity in, 4–9, 29–30; immigration policies of Qing government, 6–7, 9; location, territory, and provinces of, 6; mass female learning movement, 17; popular local religions in, 94–95; Protestant missionaries in, 16–17; religious societies and secular activities for local Christians, 55; religious tensions, early twentieth century, 84–85; separation from Beijing diocese, 101; Songhua River floods, 108, 170n9; as term, 6. See also Manchuria Mission; specific locations, people, and topics Manchuria, apostolic vicariate of (establishment), 12. See also Manchuria Mission Manchuria Mission: catechism of, 46–54, 58–59, 69–70, 134–36,

Index 140–41; catechists’ proselytizing for, 112, 113, 125, 135, 140; chrétientés in, 99, 105, 108, 125; churches in, 105, 106–7, 125; conversion of children emphasized by, 82–83; division into northern and southern, 78–79, 101–2, 122; dress code for, 60–63; effectiveness of, 99; efforts to regulate before publication of Regulations, 55–56, 76–77; establishment of, 8; ethnicity issues, 93–94; financial status and schools, 132–33; geographical extent of, 101–2; indigenous catechists and lay Christians, 99, 108–9, 109, 111–13, 125, 127; indigenous priests, 99, 108–11, 109, 151; institutional development, 101–8, 125–26; laziness as descriptor in, 91; missionaries in, 1840–1848, 104–5, 145–50; missionaries in, by early twentieth century, 99, 105; missionaries’ participation in Synod of Shaling, 54; parishes in, 105, 108, 125; Regulations for Virgins, 118–20; Regulations of, 38, 51, 54–69, 70, 72–73, 80, 109–10, 112–13; rural focus, 99–100, 126 Manchuria Mission annual parish reports, 4, 55–56; first period (1843–1865), 77–78; missionaries’ personal assessments in, 77–78, 97–98; population growth indicated in, 102–3, 103; religiosity assessed in, 71–72, 77–89; for Santaizi, 79–86; second period (1873–1898), 78; standardization of, 79, 97; third period (1898– 1920), 78–79; types of information compiled in, 77–79; varying early formats of, 55 Manchuria-Mongolia, apostolic vicariate of, 8, 9, 101 mangxian (boa gods), 95 marriage, blessing a, 62 marriages, illicit, 92 Martiliat, Joachim Enjobert de, 26, 114–15, 171n21, 172n31 Mass attendance as precept of the Church, 51 Maviel, Jean Baptistin: biographical data, 148 Mesnard, Pierre Alexandre: biographical data, 146; comments in parish reports, 89–90, 91,168n9; posting to China, 105, 163n38

Index Métayer, Isidore: biographical data, 146; comments in parish reports, 168n9 Metz, France, 4, 12, 170n7, 173n43 missionary movement in France, 10–14. See also China, Christian missionaries in; specific names and locations Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, 121 Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP), 3; accountability to pope, 11; approach contrasted with Jesuits, 69, 75, 97, 100; catechism for Manchuria Mission issued by, 46; Chinese-language acquisition, 15, 101, 160n46; contrasted with Catholic orders, 10; Du letters addressed to, 20; establishment of, 10; expansion of Asian missions, 160n35; French government and, 11; French-language requirement, 10; group of missionaries pictured, 13; Manchuria Mission entrusted to, 8–9; missionaries posted to Manchuria, 99; nineteenth-century financial sources, 11; other Asian missions, 160n34; preaching strategy to female converts, 40; pre-revolutionary financial sources, 11; prohibition on opium, 51; rural focus, 99–100, 126; schools established by, 16; seminary in Paris, 11 Mongolia, Catholic missionaries in, 8, 164n47 Monnier, Jean Christophe: biographical data, 148 Moulin, Jean Marie Joseph: biographical data, 150 Moÿe, Jean-Martin, 115, 116–17, 165n63, 171n20, 173n43 Nanai (Hezhe) people, 102 Needham, Rodney, 96 Négrerie, Pierre: biographical data, 145; posting to China, 105, 163n38 Neunkirche, Louis Rémi: biographical data, 147 Niuzhuang, Liaoning province, 105, 124; hospice in, 125 Noël, François, 8 Noirjean, Joseph: biographical data, 146 Oblates of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, 121, 173n34

215 Olivetan Benedictine Sisters, 121 opium smoking as transgression, 51, 92 Opium Wars, 13, 51, 67 Padroado, 10–11, 158–59n25 Pallu, François, 11 Parrenin, Dominique, 8 Pater Noster, 52, 58 pays de mission (term), 11–12 penance: privacy and, 65–67; statistics on, Santaizi, 84–86 Perreau, Paul Antoine: biographical data, 150 Pius V, Pope, 166n2 Pius IX, Pope, 159n26 Pius X, Saint, 45–46, 47 Polish Union of Ursulines, 121 Portuguese Catholicism: conflict with Rome, 10–11,159n26; missionaries in China, 7, 101, 158–59nn25–26 Pouillard, Charles Gustave: biographical data, 148 Pourquié, Dominique Maurice (Father Lin): biographical data, 146; biography, 30; comments in parish reports, 168n8; death of, 20; Du letters addressed to, vii–viii, 20, 22–26, 35–36, 83, 173n39; Du women’s emotional attachment to, 41; instruction on emulating saints, 39–40; knowledge of Chinese language, 40–41; letters of, 30–31, 39; negative Chinese characteristics as noted by, 92; posting to China, 105; in Santaizi, 29; terms used for by Du women, 39 prayer, as sacrament of the Church, 52 Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI), 17 priests, Chinese indigenous, 99, 108–11, 109, 125, 151 privacy: for Chinese Christian Virgins, 26; for Chinese female converts, 18, 136–39, 175n13; confessions and, 56, 64, 65–67; missionaries’ interactions and, 63–65; rule change on, 65–67 Propaganda Fide, 11, 54–55, 120, 158– 59nn25–26, 160n46 Protestant missionaries in China, 16–17, 37 Qianlong, Emperor of China, 7 Qing dynasty, 6; Manchuria during, 93, 168–69n29 Qing government: Manchuria under, 6–7; prohibition on Christianity, 1724–1847, 7–8, 14–15, 46, 69, 75,

216 160n44; treaties with France over missionaries’ presence, 12–14 Qiqihar, Jilin province, 121 Qi Zhiying, 122 Raguit, Louis Hyppolyte: biographical data, 145; indigenous priest ordained by, 151 realism, 92 Regulations of the Manchuria Mission, 4, 38, 51, 54–69, 72–73; boundaries set up by, 69, 70; complicating factors, 56–57; contents, 55; date of issuance and publication, 54; dress code, 60–63; for indigenous catechists, 112–13; indigenous priests’ behavior, 110; indigenous priests’ duties, 109–10; requirements for baptism, 57–60, 80; rule for sacraments in, 55; rules for administration, 55; rules for church personnel, 55; secular activities for local Christians, 55 religiosity assessments of Chinese Christians: in annual parish reports, 71–72, 77–89; assumptions on, 76–77; baptism and, 80, 82–83, 88; belief-practice association and, 95–96; communion and, 86–88; confession and, 84–86, 88; confirmation and, 83–84, 88; families and, 90–91, 96–97, 137, 143–44; gender and, 90; objective criteria for, 75–77; sacraments’ importance in, 97; transgressions and, 89–90, 91–92, 98 Religious Order of the Sacred Heart of Mary, 121 Resende, Carlos de, 7 Rhodes, Alexandre de, 116 Ricci, Matteo, 60 Ridel (priest), 151 Riffard, Jean Baptiste: biographical data, 147 Robinson, Charles, 28–29, 91 Roubin, André Henri Joseph: biographical data, 149 Rutjes (priest), 151 “Sacred Heart of Jesus” concept, 35–37, 129, 164n47 “saint” (Chinese terms for), 38–40, 39 Saint-Esprit, seminary of, 12 Salvetti, Gioacchino, 101 Samoy, Jules: biographical data, 148 Sandrin, Camille: biographical data, 148

Index Santaizi, Liaoning province, vii; baptism in, 80, 82–83, 88; Catholic church, 81, 105, 143–44; Catholic migrants to, 7; Catholic ritual practice in, 79–86; communion in, 86–88; confession in, 84–86, 88; confirmation in, 83–84, 88; convent in, 23, 25; Du family in, 20, 22–25, 28–29, 143–44; Du family’s migration to, 7; fervent vs. indifferent Catholics in, 85–86, 88; Gillié in, 162n8; history of, 29–30; importance to Catholics, 29, 79–86, 87, 100, 163n28; sacraments observed in, 88, 89; Simon in, 162n9 Schall von Bell, Johann Adam, 8 Second Vatican Council, 135 self-awareness and agency: in Chinese literature, 164n49; privacy and, 67, 137–38, 175n13; religious education and, 18–19, 37–42, 43, 56, 70–71, 127; swallowing of the Eucharist and, 69, 70, 73 Shaling, Liaoning province, 28; Chinese Christian women in, 90; as missionary residence, 100; orphanage in, 124; Pourquié’s work in, 30 shamanism in Manchuria, 94 Shanxi province, 96, 101, 127 Shan Ying, 30 shenfu (holy father), 39, 39, 41 shengren (saint), 39, 39–40 shennü (God’s daughter), 27–28, 39, 42 Shenyang, Liaoning province: as center of southern Manchuria Mission, 29, 78, 100, 101–2, 162nn8–9; Sisters of the Providence of Portieux in, 124; Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary in, 121–22 shouzhennü (female virgin), 114 Shunzhi, Emperor of China, 8 Sichuan province: boys’ schools in, 171– 72n27, 174n6; Catholic population proportion, 1897, 104; Chinese Christian Virgins in, 114–15, 172n28 Sijiazi, Liaoning province, 91 Simon, Philibert Louis André: biographical data, 146; on Chinese-language acquisition for missionaries, 15; letter to Pourquié, 24–25, 40, 42; in Santaizi, 29, 162n9 Simon, Philibert Louis André (Father Xi), 23, 24

Index Sino-Japanese War, 122 sishu (secular private school), 132 Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross, 121 Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary, 121, 173n35 Sisters of the Holy Family, 27–28, 121, 122–23, 127, 165n63 Sisters of the Providence of Portieux, 105, 121, 122, 123–24, 170n7, 171n20, 171n26, 173–74n43; orphanages run by, 124, 125–26 Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary, 121–22 Sisters of the Visitation, 121 Smogulecki, Johannes Nikolaus, 8 Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris archives (AMEP), vii, viii Society for the Propagation of the Faith, 12 Songshuzuizi, Jilin province, 30, 92, 158n20, 163n28 “soul” concept in catechism, 49, 129 Souvignet, Régis Jean François: biographical data, 148 Su Chang, 7 Sujiawopeng, Jilin province, 163n28 swallowing of Eucharist, 67–69, 70, 73 Swiss Bethlehem Mission Immensee, 173n34 Synod of Beijing, 66 Synod of Shaling, 54 tableaux d’administration (administrative charts), 77. See also Manchuria Mission annual parish reports Tartary (term), 6. see also Manchuria Ten Commandments: division of in Catechism of the Manchuria Mission, 50–51; knowledge of before baptism, 57–58 Teresa of Avila, 162n11 Thérèse of Lisieux, Saint, 40, 162n11 Tianjin, Treaty of (1858), 13, 16 Tibet: apostolic vicariate of, 12; Catholic population proportion, 1897, 104; Chinese Christian Virgins in, 172n28 Tieling county, Liaoning province: orphanage in, 124 Tong Guoqi, 169n29 Tongjiatun, Liaoning province: orphanage and hospice in, 124 tongzhennü (little virgin), 114 Tongzhen xiugui (regulations on Chinese Christian Virgins), 64–65, 115–16, 119, 171n21

217 transgressions, assessments of, 89–90, 91–92, 98, 129 Treaty of Tianjin (1858), 160n36 Treaty of Whampoa (1844), 160n36 “Trinity” concept in catechism, 49, 129 unction: administering, 62; privacy and, 63–64 United Free Church of Scotland (UFS), 17 Venault, Charles Joseph: biographical data, 145; comments in parish reports, 90, 92, 93, 168n9; expedition to north, 102; family background, 105; posting to China, 104 Verbiest, Ferdinand, 6, 7 Verrolles, Emmanuel-Jean-François, 5, 9, 168–69nn28–29; annual reports by, 77–78; as apostolic vicar of Manchuria, 101, 104; in Bajiazi, 7; biographical data, 145; on Catholics in Santaizi, 29; on Chinese-language acquisition for missionaries, 15; on Christians in Manchuria before his arrival, 158n20; convent established by, 121, 123, 173–74n43; death of, 124; discovery of old Christian communities, 8; ethnicities noted in first report, 93; indigenous priests ordained by, 151; knowledge of Chinese, 101; La Brunière as assistant to, 6; Metz speech, 4–6; Nuizhuang church established by, 105; Virgins of the Sacred Heart of Saint Mary order founded by, 25; Xiaobajiazi church established by, 105 Viaud, Jean Marie: biographical data, 149 Vietnam, Christian missionaries in, 116, 171n23 Villeneuve, Pierre: biographical data, 150 Virgins of the Sacred Heart of Saint Mary, 25, 121, 123, 173n39 Voluntary Schooling Movement (yixue), 17 Vuillemot, Joseph François Alexandre: biographical data, 149 Wang Fengyi, 17 Whampoa, Treaty of (1844), 12 women in China: enthusiasm for Christianity, 43–44; foot-binding of, 64; gender boundaries tested by

Index

218 Catholic education, 18; gendered assessments of religiosity, 90; group of Christians pictured, 115; institutionalized religious life, 25–26, 41–42, 120–24; interactions with missionaries, 63–65, 119, 120; literacy among elite, 138–40, 164–65n50, 176n26; literacy among rural, vii, 16, 17, 18, 31, 117, 133–34, 138–40, 141; literacy improvements of, 127–30, 174–75n9, 175n11; mass female learning movement in Manchuria, 17; personal names and, 26–27; privacy issues, 18, 136–39, 161n5, 175n13, 176n18; rules for Catholic, 115–20; unmarried, 25–26. See also Chinese Christian Virgins Xi, Father. See Simon, Philibert Louis André (Father Xi) Xiaobajiazi, Liaoning province, 105, 163n28; convent in, 25, 121, 123; as missionary residence, 100 Xiaoheishan, Jilin province, 7, 30, 100, 101; Catholic church, 106

xiao nü (little daughter), 39, 42 xiao shennü (God’s little daughter), viii, 27–28, 39, 42 Xifeng county, Liaoning province: Catholic church, 107 Xinmintun, Liaoning province, 90 Xin Zhu, 26 Xiwanzi, Mongolia, 8 Yangguan, Liaoning province, 30, 101 Yexingpu, early Christians in, 158n20 Yingkou, Liaoning province, 16–17; orphanage in, 126 Yixingpuzi, Liaoning province, 91 Yizhou county, Liaoning province, 91 Yongzheng, Emperor of China, 7–8, 171n19 Yunnan province: Catholic population proportion, 1897, 104; Chinese Christian Virgins in, 172n28 Yupi Tartars, 102 zhennü (virgin), 114 Zhouzhengpu, Haicheng province, 17 Zhujiafangzi, Liaozhong province, 17