China, American Catholicism, and the Missionary

An exploration of the interaction between American Catholic missionaries and the mainland Chinese, this book challenges many old and new assumptions. The impact on both sides was not always as desired or expected - nor as perceived from the United States. Despite many good works, mainly in education and medicine, the missionaries had to learn to live with the perennial hostility of the majority of Chinese. From early in the 19th century until midway through the 20th, the chief link between the world's most populous nation, China, and the young nation that became the world's strongest, the United States, was the missionary. Until World War I most of the American missionaries to China were Protestants, but as European Catholics deserted their mission stations to fight in the global war, the Vatican insisted that American Catholics go to China. While some volunteered, many went under duress. American Catholic missionaries operated hundreds of schools and scores of dispensaries, clinics, and hospitals, teaching tens of thousands of Chinese to read and write and giving medical care to hundreds of thousands. Although some Chinese good will resulted from this benevolence, most Chinese resented the relatively affluent lifestyle of the missions and the willingness of the missionaries to summon foreign gunboats to protect their safety and authority. Unintentionally the missionaries often contributed to revolutionary impulses.Both the Nationalists and the Communists in China endeavored to destroy all foreign missions - a pattern of destruction continued by Japan and, ironically, the U.S. Air Force. When Red China clashed with Americans in Korea, the few remaining American Catholic missionaries were expelled, ending four decades of mission activity in bitterness and sorrow. The legacy of this experience is mixed for all concerned; yet the People's Republic of China has invited French Jesuit professors of medicine to return and conceivably might extend this invitation to American Catholics.