The spread of Christianity in China can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty, and in the course of more than 1,000 years of history, the knowledge and controversy brought about by this religion have had a profound impact on Chinese society, especially in the cultural exchange between China and the West, and the Western learning has spread to the East, allowing China to understand the knowledge of Western medicine, astronomy, geography and science and technology, thus broadening Chinese's horizons and promoting the development of Chinese society. On the other hand, Chinese culture has also spread to Western countries through the use of missionaries to China, deepening mutual knowledge and understanding, and spreading Chinese culture. However, cultural exchanges were also controversial, with liturgical disputes and many lesson plans, which led to the government at the time banning the spread of Christianity in China, which became an important event in the history of religion.
Lesson plans refer to cases of conflicts between Christians and their missionaries in China during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The main reason for the lesson plan is that there is a contradiction and conflict between Catholic doctrine and traditional Chinese culture, and the Chinese ruling class believes that it will attack China's inherent ethics and morals and undermine the ruling order. Some missionaries one-sidedly pursued the number of believers, and also attracted the people to believe in religion by interfering in civil and religious lawsuits, deepening the estrangement and resentment between the believers and the officials and gentlemen, and triggering the teaching case. At that time, there were many rumors slandering Westerners, such as that foreigners used special instruments to suck out children's eyes to make drugs, and priests used special instruments to suck boys' yang essence. There were more than 1,000 teaching plans in the later period, among which the Tianjin teaching plan and the Boxer Rebellion incident had a great impact.
The Chinese liturgical controversy was one of the major events in the history of Chinese Catholicism. The controversy reflects the question of whether Catholic doctrine contradicts traditional Chinese liturgical practices. After the death of Matteo Ricci in the 38th year of Wanli (1610), there were two opinions within the Jesuits for and against Matteo Ricci's rules. The main differences were: First, on the issue of translating the names of Heaven, God, God, etc. One faction argues that these three names can be used together, while the opposition argues that heaven cannot represent the creator of all things, and advocates the transliteration of Deus to represent the lord of heaven and earth. Second, do Chinese rituals such as ancestor worship and worship of Confucius have religious implications? Is it in accordance with the canons? One school believes that Confucianism is only a moral and ethical doctrine, so rituals such as ancestor worship and worship of Confucius have no religious connotation, and believers can participate. One school of thought believes that Chinese rituals such as ancestor worship and worship of Confucius should be forbidden, just like the idolatry of Buddhism and Taoism.
Statue of Confucius
In the first year of Chongzhen's reign (1628), the missionaries in China met in Jiading, Jiangsu, to discuss Chinese etiquette and the translation of the names "God" and "God", and decided to follow the Matteo Ricci style. Beginning in 1632, Dominican and Franciscan missionaries to Fujian objected to Matteo Ricci's accommodating Chinese liturgy, arguing that it must be forbidden. On September 12, 1645, Pope Innocent X issued an encyclical prohibiting Chinese believers from participating in the ritual of worshiping Confucius and ancestors. In 1650, the Jesuits sent Wei Kuangguo to Rome to plead his case. In 1656, Pope Alexander VII ruled that the Jesuits would be allowed to do as they were. In 1665 the provincial missionaries were interned in Canton, where they met to discuss Chinese etiquette and resolved to unconditionally obey Alexander VII's encyclical of 1656. For the two contradictory encyclicals of 1645 and 1656, the Dominicans sent Bao Lang Gao to the Holy See to ask for an explanation. Pope Clement IX replied on 20 November 1669 that both encyclicals were valid and must be carried out absolutely. In this way, the two factions seized on the self-favorable aspects of the encyclical and went their own way.
Matteo Ricci was a Western missionary with a greater respect for Chinese culture
In 1693, Yan Jue, a missionary of the Paris Society of Foreign Missions who served as the Apostolic Vicar of Fujian, opposed Matteo Ricci's missionary method and issued a seven-point directive to the followers in his vicariate, strictly prohibiting Chinese believers from worshipping their ancestors and Confucius. During this period, the Jesuits in China submitted the question of "whether ancestor worship will be of a religious nature" to the Kangxi Emperor, and the Jesuits' views were approved by the emperor. On November 20, 1704, Pope Clement XI issued a ban on worshipping his ancestors, and the following year he sent Doro as a special envoy to China, revealing that he was forbidden to visit China to worship his ancestors. The Kangxi Emperor believed that this was an internal affair of China, and insisted that missionaries on the issue of ancestor worship must abide by Matteo Ricci's rules, and receive a stamp from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to allow them to proselytize and reside legally in China, otherwise they would be expelled. Doro issued an official letter demanding that the Chinese Church unconditionally enforce the 1704 ban or face excommunication.
On 25 September 1710, Clement XI issued an encyclical reaffirming the 1704 ban and the decision of Doro's letter. On March 19, 1715, the Pope issued an encyclical "From the Day of His Accession to the Throne", reaffirming the 1704 ban. After that, with the exception of a few who served in the court and did not engage in missionary work, the missionaries in China lost their legal residency and left China. In 1720, Pope Clement XI sent Jia Le as a special envoy to China in an attempt to persuade Emperor Kangxi to agree to the papal ban and continue to allow Western missionaries to preach in China. Emperor Kangxi severely refuted the papal ban as "very contrary to Chinese doctrine" and decided to ban Catholic missionaries in China. Jiale left Beijing in 1721 and proposed a compromise of "eight permissions" in an attempt to ease the missionary dispute over ceremonies. In 1742, Pope Benedict XIV issued an encyclical repealing the "Eight Permissions" and reiterating Clement XI's ban, while the Qing court responded by strictly prohibiting proselytizing until 1842. The liturgical controversy in China caused certain losses to the Catholic missionary cause in China. It was only in 1939 that the Holy See rescinded the ban, declaring that the 1742 order of Benedict XIV "has now ceased to be completely binding".