Roman Catholicism in China - Republic of China

Republic of China

Main article: Pope Pius XII and the Church in China See also: Republic of China – Holy See relations

For centuries, access to the people of China was difficult for the Catholic Church, because as a Church, it did not recognize local Confucian customs of honouring deceased family members. To the Chinese, this was an ancient ritual, to the Vatican, it was a religious exercise, which conflicted with Catholic dogma. As a result, the Church made little progress in China. Within months of his election, Pope Pius XII issued a dramatic change in policies. On December 8, 1939, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith issued — at the request of Pope Pius — a new instruction, by which Chinese customs were no longer considered superstitious, but instead an honourable way of esteeming one's relatives and therefore permitted by the Catholic Church. The government of the Republic of China established diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 1943, within a short interval. The Papal decree changed the ecclesiastical situation in China in an almost revolutionary way. As the Church began to flourish, Pope Pius established a local ecclesiastical hierarchy and elevated the Archbishop of Peking, Thomas Tien Ken-sin, SVD, to the Sacred College of Cardinals. After WWII, about four million Chinese were members of the Roman Catholic Church. This was less than one percent of the population but numbers increased dramatically. In 1949, there existed:

• 20 archdioceses,
• 85 dioceses
• 39 apostolic prefectures
• 3080 missionaries
• 2557 Chinese priests.

Catholic scholar John Witek, SJ appraises the situation of Western missionization in the development of Catholicism in China and its impact on Chinese Christians in later eras:

"Today there are villages in China that are very Christian. How and why is it that these people have rooted themselves despite the Cultural Revolution?" says Witek. Such endurance is evidence that Chinese Christians identified strongly with the teachings of Jesuit and other missionaries, and as such were not just passive subjects of Westernization.