Taipei Ricci Institute - Works

Works

At the beginning, the TRI had two goals:

• To achieve the preparation and publication of dictionaries, work started in 1950. Since the 1970’s, some middle-sized dictionaries have been published: Chinese-French, Chinese-Spanish and Chinese-Hungarian. Le Grand Ricci, the most important Dictionary, was finally published in 2002: it includes seven volumes, nine thousand pages, 13,500 words and more than 300,000 definitions. It is recognized as the most complete Chinese-foreign language dictionary in the world.
• To conduct studies of comparative spirituality, with a special interest for Chinese Taoism and Buddhism. Yves Raguin has published about twenty books on this topic (See www.riccibase.com). His works reflect an effort on dialogue with the other religions and trends of philosophical thinking, that were emphasized in Council Vatican II.

In 1996, Benoît Vermander, S.J. succeeded to Yves Raguin, taking over the running of the TRI. Accrued interaction with mainland China led to a redefinition of the tasks of the Institute, now defined as follows: to carry on dialogue and reflection towards and within the Chinese world, in order to make China become positive and active partner of globalization, thanks to a reinterpretation of its cultural resources. “Cultural diversity”, “sustainable development” and “spiritual empowerment” are the three poles of development that the TRI constructs in confronting challenges and debates present in today’s China.