INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE AT THE FACULTY OF
MISSIOLOGY OF THE PONTIFICAL GREGORIAN UNIVERSITY ON
“CHRISTIANITY IN THE CHINESE SOCIETY: IMPACT, INTERACTION AND INCULTURATION”
[Rome, 22-23 March 2018]
INTERVENTION BY ARCHBISHOP
PAUL RICHARD GALLAGHER
SECRETARY FOR RELATIONS WITH STATES OF THE HOLY SEE*
A fruitful encounter
Christianity and China
At the international level, today more than ever, Mainland China is at the
centre of political, economic and cultural interest. China sees itself as a
crossroads of development, thanks to such important projects as the New Silk
Road (“One belt, one road”). In foreign policy, it is clearly adopting a new
approach to the existing balances in international relations and is also
consolidating its presence in developing countries. In domestic policy, China is
promoting long-term programmes aimed at giving a considerable number of citizens
the possibility of overcoming poverty. At the same time, the Chinese cultural
system is committed to a strong drive in the areas of scientific and
technological research.
It should also be noted that China is tackling the global challenge by
insisting on its own identity by means of an economic, political and cultural
model which seeks to give “Chinese characteristics” to globalization. In this
way, the Middle Kingdom seeks to regain a central position in the world, in
accordance with what was already Matteo Ricci’s way of seeing things, when he
drew a complete geographical map of all world’s countries for the Chinese. This
was the first great map of the world in the Chinese language; its sixth edition
was commissioned by the Emperor himself in 1608. In this context, and also at
the religious level, the key word which is constantly repeated and put forward
for general consideration is the term “Sinicization”.
Given that we are here in the Pontifical Gregorian University, I would like
to mention another consideration. In this place it is natural to recall, with
deep admiration, the extraordinary contribution which many Jesuits down through
the centuries made to the rediscovery of Chinese culture, thus enabling us to
move from the initial impact with a world which is so far away to an encounter
with the scientific, technical, philosophical and moral patrimony of the West.
This was an extraordinary human and ecclesial adventure, driven by a deeply
missionary spirit, which inspired many members of the Society of Jesus, as well
as other religious orders, to set out for the Asian continent and, in particular,
China.
At this point, I wish to refer to the dynamic of discernment in connection
with the task of evangelization. Discernment allows us not only to gain an ever
deeper understanding of the Word of God but also to proclaim it, while at the
same time avoiding two rather common dangers. The first is proselytism, which
measures the success of mission in terms of numbers rather than by the quality
of the choice of the one who comes into contact with Christian experience. The
second danger is that of an abstract proclamation of the faith, one which does
not take account of the complex social and cultural nature of the human contexts
to which the message of the Gospel is addressed.
Both of these attitudes merely scratch the surface of an authentic missionary
task, because they cannot grasp the spatio-temporal coordinates that make a
fruitful inculturation of the faith possible. However, it should be possible to
discern an even greater horizon in the mission “ad gentes”, namely the vertical
one of the primacy of God’s grace, which precedes human action and animates the
history of peoples from within. In China too, God is already present and active
in the culture and life of the Chinese people.
In the light of these brief considerations, it seems clear that the mission
of the Church in China today is one of being “fully Catholic and genuinely
Chinese”, making the Gospel of Jesus available to all and placing it at the
service of the common good. Furthermore, over time, relations between China and
the Catholic Church have gone through different phases, alternating between
moments of fruitful cooperation and ones of great misunderstanding and hostility,
leading, at times, to situations in which the community of the faithful
experienced great suffering.
Looking at matters carefully, however, the method which in the past made
possible a fruitful encounter between the “Christian world” and the “Chinese
world” was that of inculturation of faith through the concrete experience of
knowledge, artistic culture and friendship with the Chinese people. In this
regard, still exemplary is the undertaking of missionaries like Alessandro
Valignano, Matteo Ricci, Giuseppe Castiglione and many others, who wished to
open the way to a Catholicism with “Chinese forms”, solidly grounded in the very
heart of the Middle Kingdom in order to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ from
a fully Chinese perspective.
Thus, when considering mission and theological reflection, two expressions
or, more precisely, two principles stand out, which should interact with each
other, namely “Sinicization” and “inculturation”. I am convinced that an
important intellectual and pastoral challenge arises in an almost natural way
from the bringing together of these two terms, which indicate two real visions
of the world. From these two visions, it should be possible to work out the
coordinates of an authentic Christian presence in China, which could present the
special nature and the newness of the Gospel in a context deeply rooted in the
specific identity of the age-old Chinese culture. In his treatise on friendship,
Fr Matteo Ricci had this to say: “Before engaging in friendship, one must
observe; after engaging, one must trust”.
The universality of the Catholic Church, with its natural openness to all
peoples, can make a contribution in terms of moral and spiritual inspiration to
the great effort at dialogue between China and the contemporary world, doing so
precisely through the Chinese Catholic community, which is fully integrated into
the historical and current dynamism of the land of Confucius.
*L'Osservatore Romano,
english edition, Anno CLVIII,
n.013, 31/03/2018
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