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Our  Lady  of  China 

Marian  Devotion  and  the  Jesuits 


Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J< 


BX3701  .S88 

v.41:no.3(2009:fall) 
10/20/2009 
Current  Periodicals 


41/3     •     AUTUMN  2009 


THE  SEMINAR  ON  JESUIT  SPIRITUALITY 

The  Seminar  is  composed  of  a  number  of  Jesuits  appointed  from  their  provinces  in  the  United 
States. 

It  concerns  itself  with  topics  pertaining  to  the  spiritual  doctrine  and  practice  of  Je- 
suits, especially  United  States  Jesuits,  and  communicates  the  results  to  the  members  of  the 
provinces  through  its  publication,  Studies  in  the  Spirituality  of  Jesuits.  This  is  done  in  the 
spirit  of  Vatican  lis  recommendation  that  religious  institutes  recapture  the  original  inspiration 
of  their  founders  and  adapt  it  to  the  circumstances  of  modern  times.  The  Seminar  welcomes 
reactions  or  comments  in  regard  to  the  material  that  it  publishes. 

The  Seminar  focuses  its  direct  attention  on  the  life  and  work  of  the  Jesuits  of  the 
United  States.  The  issues  treated  may  be  common  also  to  Jesuits  of  other  regions,  to  other 
priests,  religious,  and  laity,  to  both  men  and  women.  Hence,  the  journal,  while  meant  especially 
for  American  Jesuits,  is  not  exclusively  for  them.  Others  who  may  find  it  helpful  are  cordially 
welcome  to  make  use  of  it. 

CURRENT  MEMBERS  OF  THE  SEMINAR 

R.  Bentley  Anderson,  S.J.,  teaches  history  at  St.  Louis  University,  St.  Louis,  Mo.  (2008) 

Richard  A.  Blake,  S.  J.,  is  chairman  of  the  Seminar  and  editor  of  STUDIES;  he  teaches  film  stud- 
ies at  Boston  College,  Chestnut  Hill,  Mass.  (2002) 

Mark  Bosco,  S.J.,  teaches  English  and  theology  at  Loyola  University  Chicago,  Chicago,  111. 
(2009) 

Gerald  T.  Cobb,  S.J.,  teaches  English  at  Seattle  University,  Seattle,  Wash.  (2007) 

Terrence  Dempsey,  S.J.,  teaches  art  history  and  directs  the  Museum  of  Contemporary  Reli- 
gious Art  at  St.  Louis  University,  St.  Louis,  Mo.  (2009) 

Francis  X.  McAloon,  S.J.,  teaches  theology  at  the  Jesuit  School  of  Theology  and  the  Graduate 
Theological  Union,  Berkeley,  Cal.  (2009) 

Michael  C.  McCarthy,  S.J,  teaches  theology  and  classics  at  Santa  Clara  University,  Santa  Clara, 
Cal.  (2008) 

Thomas  J.  Scirghi,  S.J.,  teaches  theology  at  Fordham  University,  Bronx,  N.Y.  (2007) 

Thomas  Worcester,  S.J.,  teaches  history  at  the  College  of  the  Holy  Cross,  Worcester,  Mass. 
(2007) 

Michael  A.  Zampelli,  S.J.,  teaches  theater  and  dance  at  Santa  Clara  University,  Santa  Clara, 
Cal.  (2007) 

The  opinions  expressed  in  Studies  are  those  of  the  individual  authors  thereof.  Paren- 
theses designate  year  of  entry  as  a  Seminar  member. 

Copyright  ©  2009  and  published  by  the  Seminar  on  Jesuit  Spirituality 


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Our  Lady  of  China 

Marian  Devotion  and  the  Jesuits 


Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J 


STUDIES  IN  THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  JESUITS 

41/3      •      AUTUMN  2009 


the  first  word  . . . 


W  hen  does  a  Jesuit  reach  a  point  in  life  when  he  can  no  longer  deny  that  he 
has  become  an  old  fuddy-duddy?  The  question  holds  both  epistemological 
and  metaphysical  implications.  What  are  the  criteria  for  knowledge,  and  what 
is  the  essence  of  fuddy-duddy-ness?  Several  years  ago  an  older  colleague  sug- 
gested what  seemed  at  the  time  a  few  helpful  points  of  reference  for  a  shifting 
horizon  of  being.  He  argued  that  once  cops  and  baseball  players  begin  to  look 
like  kids,  you  know  you've  arrived.  At  the  time,  his  thesis  seemed  objectively 
verifiable  through  the  test  of  experience. 

Now  that  I  have  firmly  established  my  own  F.  D.  credentials,  I  find  his 
analysis  less  convincing.  Even  in  our  most  grandfatherly  moments,  I  can't 
imagine  many  Jesuits  addressing  a  state  trooper  as  "Sonny,"  especially  after 
he's  just  stopped  us  for  doing  seventy  in  a  fifty-five-mile  zone  with  an  expired 
license.  Baseball  players  have  no  age  anymore,  thanks  to  a  creative  use  of 
chemicals.  In  the  old  days  several  seasons  of  outfield  sun  would  weather  their 
faces  to  the  color  and  texture  of  a  catcher's  mitt,  and  the  ever-present  manda- 
tory wad  of  chewing  tobacco  would  create  heads  hung  with  jowls  that  sweep 
away  the  morning  dew.  Those  heroes  on  our  baseball  cards  did  in  fact  look 
like  old-timers  to  us  ten-year-olds.  To  a  sixty-year-old,  they  must  have  looked 
like  kids,  and  thus  my  friend's  thesis.  Q.E.D.  Nowadays,  teenagers  arrive  in 
the  majors  muscled  like  veteran  weight-lifters,  and  graybeards  wring  one 
more  season  out  of  their  knuckle-ball  or  designated-hitter  slot,  giving  a  new 
meaning  to  the  term  "baseball  immortal." 

But  if  the  old  F.  D.  criteria  haven't  stood  the  proverbial  test  of  time, 
what  others  can  be  invoked?  Here's  one  that  came  to  me  late  one  evening 
in  midsummer,  as  I  lay  sleepless  in  my  Spartan  cell  while  returning  alum- 
ni danced  away  the  hours  in  a  plastic  tent  pitched  under  my  window.  No,  I 
wasn't  particularly  grumpy  about  the  situation,  since  the  music  was  slated  to 
end  at  11:30,  certainly  a  reasonable  hour  for  ending  dances  any  place  in  the 
real  world.  So  with  relative  tranquility,  I  had  no  choice  but  to  listen  to  the  mu- 
sic provided  by  a  rented  deejay  and  his  two-million-amp  sound  system.  The 
thought  struck  me  that  all  the  music  sounded  the  same:  a  heavy  beat  on  the 
drums,  a  lot  of  twanging  of  guitars,  and  singers  shrieking  repetitious  mono- 
syllables with  something  approximating  a  southern  accent.  (I'm  told  this  is 

Hi 


the  influence  of  country  music,  which  similarly  all  sounds  the  same  to  my  ur- 
banized ear.)  My  thesis:  When  all  pop  music  sounds  alike,  youVe  crossed  the  R 
D.  divide.  i 

Yes,  of  course  I  realize  that  musical  taste  is  culturally  conditioned.  Here's 
a  good  example.  During  my  one  brief  experience  of  retreat  giving  in  Nige- 
ria, I  suggested  that  instead  of  playing  those  clunky  1970s  guitar  hymns  dur- 
ing meals,  the  retreatants  might  find  classical  music  more  relaxing.  Intercultur- 
al  gaffe  #873.  My  hostess  told  me  politely  but  forcefully  that  they  can't  stand 
Western  classical  n\usic.  Fair  enough.  Forcing  me  to  listen  to  African,  Indian, 
Chinese,  or  Arabic  classical  music  would  probably  be  an  effective  tool  of  what 
we  now  call  ''enhanced  interrogation."  After  ten  minutes,  I'd  tell  them  anything 
they  want  to  know,  even  where  the  minister  hides  the  keys  to  the  "extra"  house 
car  or  how  much  I  really  spent  on  my  credit  card  last  month. 

Tossing  from  one  side  to  the  other  during  the  alumni  reunion  concert,  I 
appreciated  for  the  first  time  that  the  temporal  dimension  is  every  bit  as  impor- 
tant as  the  spatial  in  intercultural  dynamics.  Yes,  I  knew  that  popular  music  ap- 
peals to  "our"  generation  while  those  a  few  years  younger  or  a  few  years  older 
find  it  an  abomination,  but  I  didn't  really  appreciate  the  fact  in  all  its  brutal 
truth  until  that  night.  Dopey  me.  For  the  past  twenty  years  or  more,  producers 
of  those  endless  fund  raisers  on  public  television  have  been  pioneering  a  whole 
new  science  of  "age  appropriate"  music.  The  theory  is  simple:  the  audience  that 
has  the  means  to  contribute  can  be  presumed  to  have  reached  their  F.  D.  years. 
(Their  children  are  paying  off  the  mortgage,  and  their  grandchildren  are  still 
paying  off  college  loans.  No  money  there.)  Recycling  songs  from  their  old  col- 
lection of  forty-five  r.p.m.  records  gives  them  a  sense  that  the  PBS  affiliate  is 
"their"  station,  and  they  have  an  obligation  to  support  it. 

Still  there  is  something  strange  seeing  performers  well  into  their  sev- 
enties strutting  their  stuff  in  sequins.  The  pop  music  of  the  fifties  and  sixties 
seems  more  suited  to  a  museum  than  contemporary  television,  but  it  lives  on 
every  time  PBS  needs  a  few  dollars.  So  do  its  vintage-age  performers,  with  the 
aid  of  cosmetic  surgery  and  properly  constructed  costumes.  Several  months 
ago  there  was  a  news  story  about  the  Rolling  Stones  having  to  cancel  a  concert 
because  one  of  its  members  fell  out  of  a  tree  and  was  injured.  Do  the  arithme- 
tic. The  band  was  big  in  the  1960s.  How  did  this  old  geezer  get  into  a  tree  in  the 
first  place?  Men  his  age  would  norraally  need  a  derrick.  The  musicians  go  on, 
and  so  do  their  fans,  many  of  whom  still  pay  exorbitant  prices  for  tickets  to  see 
these  old  guys  do  the  routines  they  have  been  doing  for  over  forty  years.  What 
we  call  the  "golden  oldies"  the  younger  generation  refers  to  as  "geriatric  rock." 

Of  course,  it's  all  in  the  ear  of  the  beholder.  For  a  while  I  had  the  illusion 
that  some  popular  music  was  exempt  from  the  aging  process:  Gershwin,  Cole 
Porter,  Irving  Berlin,  Harold  Arlen,  and  maybe  even  Rogers  and  Hart.  I've  often 

iv 


suspected  that  Fve  been  such  a  Woody  Allen  fan  over  the  years  simply  because 
he  uses  these  old  standards  as  background  music  for  his  sound  tracks.  (We  are 
both  Brooklyn  boys  of  the  same  age.)  It  came  as  a  shock  when  I  realized  that 
not  everybody  held  these  old  standards  in  awe.  Several  years  ago,  during  a  tour 
of  duty  in  a  scholasticate,  I  sat  alone  in  the  community's  sole  television  room. 
After  channel  surfing  for  a  few  minutes,  I  settled  on  a  PBS  concert — possibly  a 
fund-raiser — of  vintage  American  songs  performed  in  what  appeared  to  be  a 
cocktail-lounge  setting.  (Cole  Porter  and  champagne  always  belong  in  the  same 
sentence.)  One  of  my  pre-ordained  brethren  thumped  his  way  to  a  chair  the 
back  of  the  room,  and  since  he  voiced  no  preference  for  a  different  channel,  I  let 
the  program  continue.  After  a  few  minutes,  he  got  up  and  left  with  the  parting 
shot:  "How  can  you  listen  to  this  stuff?"'  So  much  for  the  universal  appeal  of  the 
timeless  classics. 

Music  may  be  one  of  the  more  obvious  examples  of  the  way  we  define 
cultural  norms  on  the  basis  of  our  own  experience  and  find  the  norms  of  peo- 
ple from  other  places  or  age  brackets  difficult  to  appreciate.  Religion,  of  course, 
fits  into  this  pattern.  We  Jesuits  of  the  Vatican  II  generation  remember  the  style 
of  the  old  days,  with  nostalgia,  perhaps,  but  just  as  much  with  embarrassment 
and  perhaps  even  with  a  twinge  of  anger.  WeVe  made  a  literary  genre  of  remi- 
niscences of  litanies,  birettas,  fiddle-back  vestments,  and  soupy  hymns  from 
the  St.  Gregory  Hymnal.  The  theme  boils  down  to  a  line  from  ''Amazing  Grace": 
"I  was  lost,  but  now  I'm  found."  Our  younger  companions  have  been  patient 
with  us,  but  if  the  truth  be  told,  they  find  the  topic  exceedingly  tedious  by  this 
time.  One  can  imagine  a  day  when  we  Vatican  II  commandoes  have  retired  to 
the  province  infirmaries.  In  all  probability  we  will  find  equally  mixed  emotions 
about  our  scented  candles,  paisley  vestments,  and  the  tattered  copy  of  The  Vel- 
veteen Rabbit  sharing  the  ambo  with  the  Lectionary.  Our  religious  practice  to- 
day seems  perfectly  natural  and  balanced,  but  wait  until  the  next  generation  of 
memoirs  begins  to  appear  in,  say,  forty  years. 

Geography  has  also  played  a  part  in  our  cultural  expression  of  Catholi- 
cism. Few  would  question  that  the  American  church  has  been  transformed  over 
the  past  several  decades  by  the  rapid  growth  of  the  Latino  population.  My  de- 
cidedly unscientific  recollections  indicate  that  being  an  American  Catholic  is  a 
very  different  experience  today  than  it  was  forty  years  ago.  Not  too  long  ago, 
we  were  a  beachhead  community,  seeking  a  place  in  the  American  dream.  We — 
the  Irish,  Italian,  German,  and  Polish  churches — took  care  of  our  own  with  our 
schools  and  labor  unions.  When  the  wave  of  Hispanics  came  ashore,  we  met 
them  with  denial  and  perhaps  even  hostility,  then  with  condescension,  and  fi- 
nally with  acceptance.  We've  come  a  long  way  from  allowing  a  Spanish-lan- 
guage Mass  in  the  church  basement  once  a  month.  And  just  who  has  profited 
more  by  this  meeting  of  Catholic  cultures?  Isn't  it  fair  to  say  the  infusion  of  new 
blood  has  transformed  and  revitalized  the  American  churches  more  than  any 


set  of  new  documents  and  directives?  The  Latino  presence  has  sensitized  us  to 
the  needs  of  recent  immigrants  struggling  in  the  cities  and  farms,  to  harsh  legal 
restrictions,  to  the  struggle  for  justice  in  other  parts  of  our  hemisphere.  We've 
become  more  aware  of  the  needs  of  God's  people,  not  only  in  Latin  America  but 
throughout  the  world.  Being  a  Catholic  today  means  keeping  the  door  open  to 
the  outside  world  that  exists  beyond  the  church  vestibule  or  the  parish  bound- 
aries. Not  too  long  ago,  concern  for  social  justice  issues  for  ''minorities''  would 
be  suspect  in  some  quarters;  now  it  is  at  the  core  of  our  religious  identity  as 
Catholics.  It's  a  remarkable  development. 

How  generations  and  cultures  interact  and  enrich  one  another  over  time 
holds  the  key  to  our  Catholic  understanding  of  Christianity.  In  this  issue  Jeremy 
Clarke  has  provided  a  laboratory  case  history  of  one  such  development.  Most 
of  us  would  have  no  trouble  explaining  the  place  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary 
in  the  Catholic  tradition.  Yet  it  is  clear  that  her  role  has  evolved  over  the  centu- 
ries and  in  different  cultures.  Jeremy  takes  us  to  China  to  show  how  the  image 
of  Mary  developed  through  the  meeting  of  European  influences  in  a  mission- 
ary church  and  the  cultural  sensibilities  of  Chinese  artists.  He  spells  out  the  in- 
evitable tensions  between  a  host  society  and  the  images  brought  to  it  from  the 
outside.  The  story  is  fascinating  in  itself,  but  as  we  reflect  on  it,  we  can  see  the 
ways  our  own  religious  beliefs  and  practices  have  changed  according  to  time 
and  place.  We  Catholics  have  become  more  catholic,  and  that's  all  to  the  good. 


A  few  second  words  . . . 

The  Seminar  on  Jesuit  Spirituality,  like  every  other  social  organization, 
participates  in  the  relentless  march  of  generations.  The  fall  issue  of  Studies  tra- 
ditionally includes  a  mention  of  transitions,  and  this  issue  is  no  exception. 

On  behalf  of  the  Seminar,  and  with  a  bit  of  presumption  on  my  part, 
on  behalf  of  the  entire  U.  S.  Assistancy,  I  want  to  express  our  gratitude  for  the 
four  members  who  have  ended  their  three-year  membership  in  the  Seminar. 
Jim  Bretzke  will  take  up  a  new  assignment  as  professor  at  the  Boston  College 
School  of  Theology  and  Ministry.  There  he  will  join  his  fellow  retired  Seminar 
member,  Tom  Massaro,  now  a  veteran  of  the  faculty  there.  As  rector  of  the  Jesu- 
it Community  at  Seattle  University,  Pat  Howell  will  have  enough  to  occupy  his 
time  and  energies  without  the  activities  of  the  Seminar.  After  a  year  at  Boston 
College,  Mark  Massa  will  return  to  Fordham  as  director  of  the  American  Catho- 
lic Studies  program.  Thanks  for  your  conversation  and  companionship.  We'll 
miss  your  presence  at  our  meetings. 

Some  of  our  old  hands  will  be  with  us  for  a  few  more  months,  but  with 
a  change  of  portfolio.  Tom  Scirghi  has  moved  his  theological  library  from  Je- 
suit School  of  Theology  in  Berkeley  to  Fordham.  Bentley  Andersen  remains  on 

vi 


the  faculty  of  St.  Louis  University,  but  will  take  a  year  as  a  visiting  professor  at 
Fordham. 

Now  for  the  new  generation:  Mark  Bosco,  of  the  Missouri  Province, 
holds  a  joint  position  in  English  and  Theology  at  Loyola  University  Chicago, 
where  he  directs  the  Catholic  Studies  Program.  He  specializes  in  theological 
aesthetics  and  the  Catholic  literary  tradition.  His  written  works  include  Graham 
Greene's  Catholic  Imagination  (2005)  and  a  volume  of  essays  he  edited  entitled 
Finding  God  in  All  Things:  Celebrating  Bernard  Lonergan,  John  Courtney  Murray  and 
Karl  Rahner  (2007).  Terry  Dempsey,  also  of  the  Missouri  Province,  is  the  May 
O'Rourke  Jay  Professor  of  Art  History  and  Religion  at  St.  Louis  University.  He 
also  serves  as  director  of  the  Museum  of  Contemporary  Religious  Art,  where 
he  has  curated  thirty-five  exhibits  over  the  last  twenty  years.  Frank  McAloon, 
of  the  Maryland  Province,  teaches  spirituality  at  the  Jesuit  School  of  Theology 
in  Berkeley  and  the  Graduate  Theological  Union.  With  a  special  interest  in  the 
poetry  of  Gerard  Manley  Hopkins,  he  works  in  the  areas  of  religious  aesthetics, 
hermeneutics,  and  Ignatian  spirituality.  His  most  recent  book  is  40-Day  Journey 
with  Gerard  Manley  Hopkins  (2009).  If  s  a  remarkable  roster.  Many  thanks  to  each 
of  them  for  their  generosity  in  accepting  the  invitation  to  join  us  for  the  next 
three  years. 

Richard  A.  Blake,  S.J. 
Editor 


vtt 


This  is  a  cropped  version  of  the  ordination  card  for  Charles  D.  Si- 
n\ons,  S.J.,  ordained  on  June  10, 1933,  at  St.  Ignatius  Church,  Zika- 
wei,  Shanghai.  The  caption  read  Our  Lady  of  China,  in  English 
and  Chinese  characters.  (From  the  archives  of  the  California  Prov- 
ince of  the  Society  of  Jesus;  gratefully  used  with  permission.) 


Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J.,  a  member  of  the  Australian  Province,  is  presently 
a  post-doctoral  fellow  at  Boston  College  and  visiting  fellow  in  the  Re- 
search School  of  Pacific  and  Asian  Studies,  the  College  of  Asia  and  the 
Pacific  at  the  Australian  National  University,  Canberra.  Long  a  stu- 
dent of  the  history  of  Jesuits  in  China,  he  completed  his  doctoral  stud- 
ies at  the  Australian  National  University.  He  is  currently  preparing 
a  historical  guidebook  to  the  Catholic  Church  in  Shanghai,  focusing  on 
the  role  of  the  Tushanwan  Orphanage  in  developing  modern  Chinese 
art.  He  is  also  involved  in  projects  relating  to  the  four-hundredth  an- 
niversary of  the  death  ofMatteo  Ricci,  which  falls  in  2010. 


IX 


CONTENTS 


I.  Introduction 


11.   Historical  Background 2 

The  Pre-Suppression  Period  5 

Sodalities  Become  the  Cornerstone  6 

Early  Images  of  Mary  7 

The  Nineteenth  Century  12 

III.  Pilgrimages,  Shrines,  and  Paintings 16 

Marian  Devotion  at  Donglu  19 

The  Donglu  Portrait  of  Mary  26 

The  Tushanwan  Orphanage  27 

IV.  From  Donglu  to  Our  Lady  of  China 30 

The  Shanghai  Plenary  Council  of  1924  35 

Consecrating  China  to  Mary  38 

A  New  Image  for  a  New  Title  40 

V.   Conclusion 46 


IX 


Our  Lady  of  China 

Marian  Devotion  and  the  Jesuits 


Marian  devotion  rests  at  the  heart  of  Chinese  Catholicism 
and  developed  from  an  adaptation  of  Western  practice  to 
local  cultures.  By  sponsoring  Marian  sodalities  and  pil- 
grimages, Jesuits  contributed  significantly  to  the  Chinese 
church.  Jesuit  artists  helped  shape  representations  of  Mary 
prevalent  in  China  today. 


I.  Introduction 

A  well-educated  Shanghainese  friend  of  mine — a  graduate  from 
Harvard's  Business  School,  no  less — once  asked  me  whether  or 
not  it  was  true  that  "Christians  believe  in  Jesus,  whereas  Catho- 
lics believe  in  Mary/'  Leaving  aside  the  false  dichotomy  between  Chris- 
tianity and  Catholicism — one  that  has  been  made  often  in  China  since 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  resulting  in  both  traditions  be- 
ing recognized  as  distinct  legal  religions  in  the  People's  Republic  of 
China — my  friend  does  in  fact  have  a  point.  Or  at  least,  when  one  sur- 
veys the  daily  life  and  faith  practices  of  the  Catholic  church  in  China,  it 
is  easy  to  see  why  she  thinks  this  is  the  case/ 

Throughout  the  country  almost  every  church  will  have  a  Marian 
statue  or  shrine  on  its  property,  oftentimes  built  in  the  form  of  an 
elaborate  grotto.  There  are,  or  have  been,  pilgrimages  to  churches  or 
shrines  dedicated  to  all  manner  of  Marian  devotions  including,  among 


^Full-color  reproductions  of  images  mentioned  in  this  essay  can  be  ac- 
cessed at  www2.bc.edu/~frclarke 

1 


Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 


^^s^j^g^^^g^^^^a^^^^^^^ae^^^^^a;^^^^^^^^ 


others.  Our  Lady  Help  of  Christians,  Our  Lady  of  Liesse  (from  the  small 
town  of  Aisne,  north  of  Paris),  and  Our  Lady  of  the  Miraculous  Medal. 
Recitations  of  the  rosary  occur  both  before  and  after  Mass,  during  the 
Stations  of  the  Cross,  in  open  fields,  and  in  private  homes.  Church 
calendars  often  bear  a  Marian  image  on  their  front  page,  and  church 
devotional  shops  sell  everything  from  prayer  cards  bearing  the  image  of 
Our  Lady  of  Medjugorje  to  rosary  beads  made  out  of  cloisonne.  Various 
Marian  images  are  found  on  convent  walls,  in  church  porches,  and  in 
people's  bedrooms.  My  friend,  therefore,  was  partly  right:  in  China 
Mary  is  indeed  central  to  Catholic  belief. 

In  this  paper  I  explore  how  such  a  situation  evolved.  In  the  process 
of  showing  how  Marian  devotion  came  to  be  a  key  feature  of  the  Chinese 
Catholic  church,  I  also  outline  the  Jesuit  involvement  in  the  process.  Thus, 
at  one  level  the  essay  is  about  the  development  of  a  particular  aspect  of 
Chinese  Catholic  piety,  and  because  of  the  Society  of  Jesus'  sustained  en- 
gagement with  China,  I  hope  that  this  of  itself  will  be  of  interest  to  a  gen- 
eral reader.  More  importantly,  however,  given  the  way  that  this  strong 
Marian  identity  not  only  enabled  Chinese  Catholics  to  define  themselves 
within  Chinese  society  at  large  but  also  created  one  means  by  which  they 
survived  periods  of  external  pressure  and  control,  the  history  of  a  piety 
becomes,  metonymously,  the  story  of  a  conununity. 

The  early  Catholics  not  only  sought  to  portray  themselves  as  be- 
longing within  Chinese  society  but  also  as  being  separate  from  other 
elements  of  the  society.  That  is,  they  endeavored  to  create  a  legitimate 
space  for  themselves  within  the  Chinese  body  politic  and  yet  distin- 
guish themselves  from,  for  instance,  Buddhist  and  Daoist  communities. 
The  utilization  of  Marian  devotions  was  one  tactic  employed  by  the  ear- 
ly Chinese  converts  and  Catholic  missionaries  in  their  pursuit  of  this 
goal.  In  the  early  sections  of  the  essay,  I  explore  the  way  in  which  this 
took  place.  In  the  latter  parts  I  discuss  the  implications  of  the  identity 
that  had  been  formed  by  these  devotions. 


T 


11.  Historical  Background 

he  Society's  engagement  with  China,  ever  since  the  arrival  of 
Michele  Ruggieri  and  Francesco  Pasio  in  Zhaoqing  in  southern 
China  in  the  late-sixteenth  century,  has  already  been  studied  ex- 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^ 


tensively.^  Articles,  books,  and  conferences  have  analyzed  subjects  as 
distinct  as  the  Jesuits'  controversial  use  of  Chinese  terms  for  Christian 
concepts  to  their  position  as  cross-cultural  conduits  of  everything  from 
"Jesuit  bark''  (quinine)  to  Confucianism.  This  trend  will  presumably 
continue,  especially  given  that  the  year  2010  marks  the  four-hundredth 
anniversary  of  the  death  of  Matteo  Ricci  in  Beijing.  Thus  I  will  not  repeat 
that  story  here,  except  by  way  of  providing  background.  Rather,  I  ex- 
plore the  sometimes  neglected       _.«^^^_^^^^^^^^«..«.^^_^^ 

development  of  the  Chinese  —,  .  ,     .      ,      . 

r-  i-u  1-  J  i-i^  •  i-u  •  This  paper  seeks  to  chart  a  course 
Catholic  identity  m  the  nine-  ^  ^    .  .    ,  .       , 

.1  J  1    i.       i.-  i-u  between  overstatement  ana 

teenth     and     early-twentieth  ,  .  .     .     t  .    ,  ,. 

1  . 1     T      M.  /     1  historical  amnesia  hy  recorain^^ 

centuries,  and  the  Jesuits  role  .,         ,      ^.,     x       ...  .  .. 

.    .  1    ,  J      1  .  the  role  of  the  Jesuits  in  assistini^ 

m  that  development.  .    ,,      ,    -^ ,      ^      .     ^.r     ^r  . 

^  in  the  development  of  the  Chinese 

It  would  be  historically  Catholic  identity,  especially  as 

inaccurate,  as  well  as  an  act  of  regards  Marian  devotion, 

hubris,  to  suggest  that  the  role  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
of  the  Jesuits  in  the  modern 

period  was  as  significant  or  pervasive  as  it  was  in  the  period  prior  to 
our  Suppression  (1772).  This  is  especially  so,  given  the  role  of  not  only 
other  foreign  congregations,  such  as  the  Vincentians  (Lazarists),  the 
Paris  Foreign  Mission  Society  (La  Societe  des  Missions  Etrangeres  de 
Paris),  and  the  Helpers  of  the  Holy  Souls  (Les  Auxiliatrices  des  Ames 
du  Purgatoire),  among  others,  but  also  given  the  lived  experiences  of 
the  Chinese  Catholic  communities  themselves.^  Nevertheless,  neither 
can  the  Jesuit  contribution  to  the  development  of  a  Chinese  Marian 
spirituality  be  ignored  altogether.  The  following  example  suffices  to  il- 
lustrate this. 


^See,  for  instance,  Liam  Brockey's  prize-winning  book  journey  to  the  East: 
The  Jesuit  Mission  to  China,  1579-1724  (Cambridge,  Mass.:  Harvard  University 
Press,  2007);  Nicholas  Standaert,  ed.,  A  Handbook  of  Christianity  in  China,  635- 
1800  (Leiden;  Boston:  Brill,  2001);  Gauvin  Alexander  Bailey,  Art  on  the  Jesuit  Mis- 
sions in  Asia  and  Latin  America,  1542-1773  (Toronto;  Buffalo:  University  of  Toron- 
to Press,  1999);  and  David  Mungello,  ed..  The  Chinese  Rites  Controversy:  Its  History 
and  Meaning  (Nettetal:  Steyler  Verlag,  1994). 

^The  crucial  role  of  the  Chinese  Catholics  themselves  is  a  point  well  made 
by  David  Mungello  in  his  article  "The  Return  of  the  Jesuits  to  China  in  1841  and 
the  Chinese  Christian  backlash,"  The  Sino-Western  Cultural  Relations  Journal  27 
(2005):  9-46.  Peter  Ward  Fay's  article  "The  French  Catholic  Mission  in  China  dur- 
ing the  Opium  War"  {Modern  Asian  Studies  4,  no.  2  [1970]:  115-28)  also  recounts 
the  understandably  essential  role  of  the  Chinese  Christians. 


^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S  J. 

One  of  the  most  significant  public  acts  of  worship  for  the  Chinese 
Catholic  church  is  the  Marian  pilgrimage  to  Sheshan,  on  the  outskirts  of 
Shanghai.  A  French  Jesuit,  Father  Desjacques,  initiated  this  pilgrimage 
in  1868.  Two  years  later,  in  1870,  there  was  a  widespread  Christian  per- 
secution in  China.  The  then  superior  of  the  mission  of  Jiangnan  (the  area 
south  of  the  Yangtze  River,  the  Chang  Jiang),  an  Italian  Jesuit  Father,  An- 
gelo  della  Corte  by  name,  promised  to  build  a  large  church  dedicated  to 
Our  Lady  Help  of  Christians  if  Mary  protected  her  people  in  their  time 
of  need.  The  dangers  were  averted,  the  church  was  built,  and  the  tradi- 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^_       tion  of  making  a  pilgrimage  to 

Sheshan,  especially  on  May  24 
Not  only  did  [sodalities]  increase  (^^e  Feast  of  Our  Lady  Help  of 

the  popularity  of  a  particular  Christians),  was  begun. 

devotion,  hut  they  also  provided 

an  organizational  structure  within  The  Chinese  Catho- 

church  communities,  which  were  lies  believe  that  at  numerous 

often  chronically  short  of  priests  times    throughout    their   his- 

or  brothers  to  serve  them,  tory  they  have  been  saved  by 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  just  such  a  beneficent  interven- 
tion by  Mary.  Not  only  is  this  a 
sense  of  having  been  saved  from  immediate  danger  (be  this  marauding 
Taiping  or  Boxer  troops,  militant  atheists,  or  rampant  Red  Guards)  but 
also  a  sense  of  being  brought  into  the  salvific  presence  of  Jesus  through 
the  intercession  of  Mary.  They  consider  that  the  aversion  of  calamity, 
or  at  least  being  given  the  graces  to  endure  whatever  wave  of  hardship 
breaks  upon  them,  is  a  foretaste  of  their  eternal  salvation. 

Through  times  of  war  and  periods  of  persecution,  this  pilgrimage 
has  continued,  even  until  today.  On  rare  occasions,  however,  formal  pil- 
grimages have  been  banned  and  actively  prevented,  as  happened  dur- 
ing the  Cultural  Revolution.^  The  success  of  the  Sheshan  pilgrimage, 
and  the  central  place  it  played  in  the  life  of  the  Chinese  Catholics,  was 
recognized  in  1924  at  the  conclusion  of  a  plenary  council  that  took  place 
in  Shanghai.  The  Chinese  Catholic  Church  was  entrusted  to  Mary's  pro- 
tection, and  the  council  fathers  formally  recognized  the  devotion  to 
Our  Heavenly  Queen  of  China  (also  known  as  Our  Lady  of  China). ^ 
A  Chinese  Jesuit  brother  working  in  Shanghai  at  the  famous  art  work- 


*  A  recent  example  of  this  was  during  the  lead-up  to  the  2008  Olympics,  when 
visitors  reported  official  harassment.  See,  for  instance,  AsiaNews,  05/28/2008,  http:/  / 
www.asianews.it /index.php?l=en&art=12371&size=A 

^  Pius  XI  gave  official  recognition  to  this  devotion  in  1928. 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^ 


shop  at  the  Jesuit-run  orphanage  at  Tushanwan  (also  known  as  Tou-se- 
we)  painted  the  image  for  this  new  devotion.  A  French  Jesuit  wrote  the 
prayer  of  dedication,  in  Latin  and  Chinese. 

This  paper  seeks  to  chart  a  course  between  overstatement  and  his- 
torical amnesia  by  recording  the  role  of  the  Jesuits  in  assisting  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  Chinese  Catholic  identity,  especially  as  regards  Mari- 
an devotion.  Although  the  Church  in  China  continues  to  face  challenges 
from  within  and  without,  a  greater  understanding  of  how  it  came  to 
possess  the  unique  characteristics  that  it  does  will,  I  hope,  go  some  way 
to  assist  in  the  alleviation  of  such  difficulties.  At  the  very  least,  Jesu- 
its and  those  who  are  enlivened  by  Ignatian  spirituality  may  be  em- 
boldened to  take  up  Benedict  XVFs  call  during  Pentecost  2007  to  join 
with  the  Chinese  Catholic  church  and,  on  the  feast  of  Our  Lady  Help  of 
Christians,  stand  in  prayerful  solidarity  with  them.^ 

The  Pre-Suppression  Period 

Two  factors  came  together  to  promote  Marian  devotions  in  China 
during  the  pre-Suppression  period.  There  was  the  rich  vein  of  Marian 
spirituality  that  permeated  the  work  of  the  early  Society,  and  then  there 
was  the  already  well-developed  tradition  of  Marian  piety  and  cross-cul- 
tural exchange  that  had  taken  place  in  China  since  the  late-thirteenth 
century,  especially  in  the  field  of  visual  culture.  Both  of  these  factors 
have  been  discussed  elsewhere,  so  it  is  enough  to  summarize  the  essen- 
tial elements.^ 

As  is  well  known,  Mary  has  held  a  central  place  in  Ignatian  spiri- 
tuality from  the  earliest  days  of  the  Society.  Among  other  things,  this  is 
revealed  by  famous  incidents  in  Ignatius' s  own  life  journey — from  his 
all-night  vigil  before  Our  Lady  of  Montserrat  to  his  desire  to  defend  the 
good  name  of  Mary  when  a  fellow  traveller,  a  Moor,  refers  to  her  dis- 
paragingly along  the  road  {Autobiography,  13, 15).  The  Spiritual  Exercises 
encourage  the  frequent  use  of  Marian  intercessory  prayers,  and  numer- 


^See  Benedict  XVI's  "Letter  to  the  Bishops,  Priests,  Consecrated  Per- 
sons and  Lay  Faithful  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  People's  Republic  of  Chi- 
na" (May  27,  2007),  no.  19  (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi 
/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070527_china_en.html  ). 

^See  for  instance,  Nicholas  Standaert,  An  Illustrated  Life  of  Christ  Presented 
to  the  Chinese  Emperor:  The  History  ofjincheng  Shuxiang  (Sankt  Augustin:  Institute 
Monumenta  Serica,  2007). 


^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S  J, 


ous  meditations  have  distinctly  Marian  themes  (as,  for  instance,  the  first 
contemplation  of  the  Second  Week,  where  the  particular  subject  of  the 
composition  of  place  is  to  imagine  Mary  in  her  rooms  in  Nazareth  as  she 
is  visited  by  the  angel  Gabriel). 

Visually  too,  as  shown  by  Thomas  Lucas,  S.J.,  in  an  earlier  edi- 
tion of  Studies,  images  of  Mary  were  used  for  evangelizing  purposes  on 
the  far-flung  missions  of  the  early  Society,  including  notably  in  China.^ 
Marian  feast  days  played  a  symbolic  and  practical  role  in  the  liturgi- 
cal life  of  our  communities  and  the  significant  role  of  sodalities,  Marian 
ones  in  particular  (what  came  to  be  known  in  some  provinces  as  ''Teams 
of  Our  Lady'O/  has  been  remarked  upon  elsewhere.^ 

Sodalities  Become  the  Cornerstones 

The  sodalities  played  an  especially  important  role  in  China.  Not 
only  did  they  increase  the  popularity  of  a  particular  devotion,  but  they 
also  provided  an  organizational  structure  within  church  communities, 
which  were  often  chronically  short  of  priests  or  brothers  to  serve  them. 
In  this  way  they  promoted  a  vibrant  prayer  life  among  the  lay  faithful, 
while  at  the  same  time  offering  sound  catechetical  education.  Matteo 
Ricci  seems  to  have  started  the  earliest  Marian  sodality  in  Beijing  in 
1609.^°  Other  missionaries  around  the  country  soon  did  likewise.  In 
1610  Joao  da  Rocha  began  a  congregation  in  Nanjing,  Lazzaro  Catta- 
neo  established  one  in  Shanghai  in  the  same  year,  and  other  mission- 
aries followed  suit  at  different  stages  throughout  the  empire."  Written 
documents  were  also  produced  to  assist  in  the  ongoing  formation  of  the 
members  of  the  sodalities.  Some  of  these  were  specifically  Marian  in  fo- 
cus, for  instance,  Joao  da  Rocha's  illustrated  work  Method  for  Praying  the 
Rosary,  which  was  published  in  1619.^^ 


^Thomas  M.  Lucas,  SJ.,  "Virtual  Vessels,  Mystical  Signs:  Contemplating 
Mary's  Images  in  the  Jesuit  Tradition,"  Studies  in  the  Spirituality  of  Jesuits  35,  no. 
5  (November  2003). 

^See,  especially,  Brockey,  Journey  to  the  East,  and  Standaert,  Handbook. 

^°See  Albert  Chan,  Chinese  Books  and  Documents  in  the  Jesuit  Archives  in 
Rome:  A  Descriptive  Catalogue,  Japonica-Sinica  I-IV  (Armonk,  N.Y.:  M.  E.  Sharpe, 
2002),  459;  Brockey,  Journey  to  the  East,  331,  argues,  contra  Chan,  that  a  group  had 
been  encouraged  to  form  in  Zhaoqing  much  earlier  than  this. 

"See  Chan,  Chinese  Books,  460,  and  Standaert,  Handbook,  456-60. 

^^Also  known  by  its  Chinese  title,  Songnianzhu  Guicheng,  this  work 
is  particularly  important  in  any  study  of  the  way  that  religious  themes  are 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^^ 

By  1664,  at  the  time  of  the  anti-Christian  persecution  led  by 
Yang  Guangxian,  ''the  congregations  numbered  about  400  and  the 
number  of  members  in  each  congregation  about  100/'"  In  this  year  in 
Shanghai  alone,  for  instance,  there  were  six  different  types  of  sodalities 
or  lay  congregations.  The  largest  of  these,  one  exclusively  for  women, 
reportedly  had  144  smaller  confraternities  or  groups  and  was  dedicated 
to  our  Lady/^ 

Early  Images  of  Mary 

The  success  of  the  Marian  sodalities  can  also  be  linked  to  the 
popularity  of  Marian  images  in  general/^  Extensive  academic  research 
on  various  aspects  of  visual  culture  in  the  late  Ming  (1368-1644)  and 
early  Qing  dynasties  (1644-1911)  has  revealed  that  there  existed  strong 
links  between  images  of  the  Madonna  and  Guanyin,  the  Buddhist  bo- 
dhisattva  of  compassion/^  At  the  risk  of  retelling  a  well-known  story, 
it  is  acknowledged  that  during  their  work  in  China  during  the  Yuan 

transmitted  through  the  use  of  visual  imagery,  because  the  illustrations  contained 
within  it  are  noticeably  Chinese  in  style.  Albert  Chan  and  Gianni  Criveller  argue 
that  da  Rocha's  work  was  published  in  1619;  see  Chan,  Chinese  Books,  70-71,  con- 
cerning the  difficulty  of  dating  this  work,  and  Gianni  Criveller,  Preaching  Christ 
in  Late  Ming  China:  The  Jesuits'  Presentation  of  Christ  from  Matteo  Ricci  to  Guilio 
Aleni  (Taipei:  Ricci  Institute  for  Chinese  Studies,  1997),  237.  On  the  other  hand, 
Bailey  puts  the  date  at  1608  {Art  on  the  Jesuit  Missions,  102). 

^^Chan,  Chinese  Books,  460. 

^"^Henri  Havret,  La  Mission  du  Kiang-nan:  Son  histoire,  ses  oeuvres  (Paris:  J. 
Mersch  Imprimeur,  1900),  12. 

^^As  shown  by  Lucas,  "Virtual  Vessels,''  and  Bailey,  Art  on  the  Jesuit 
Missions. 

^^ Scholars  like  Derek  Gillman,  Timothy  Brook,  and  Yii  Chun-Fang,  as  well 
as  Sepp  Schiiller  before  them,  have  shown  the  process  of  mutual  borrowing  that 
occurred  between  the  producers  of  these  different  images.  Sepp  Schiiller,  in  his 
La  Vierge  Marie  a  Travers  les  Missions  (Paris:  Braun  and  Cie,  1936),  makes  argu- 
ments similar  to  those  of  the  later  scholars  mentioned  here;  but  it  seems  his 
work  was  unknown  to  at  least  Gillman  and  Yii.  Derek  Gillman's  work,  however, 
"Ming  and  Qing  Ivories:  Figure  Carving,"  in  Chinese  Ivories  from  the  Shang  to  the 
Qing,  ed.  W.  Watson  (London:  British  Museum  Publications  Ltd,  1984),  35-52,  is 
cited  by  Yii,  Kuan-yin.  Timothy  Brook,  The  Confusions  of  Pleasure:  Commerce  and 
Culture  in  Ming  China  (Berkeley:  University  of  CaUfornia  Press,  1998),  121-29, 
also  mentions  these  connections.  Other  scholars  have  drawn  on  the  latter  work 
by  Yii  Chiin-fang,  Kuan-yin:  The  Chinese  Transformation  of  Avalokitesvara  (New 
York:  Columbia  University  Press,  2001),  such  that  the  earlier  works  have  largely 
faded  from  the  public  arena.  See,  for  instance,  "Guadalupe  and  Guanyin:  Images 


8        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 


dynasty  (1271-1368),  Franciscan  missionaries  utilized  Marian  images, 
prominent  among  which  were  paintings  or  drawings  of  the  type  that 
came  to  be  known  as  the  Madonna  of  Humility,  where  Mary  is  paint- 
ed holding  Jesus  on  her  lap.^^  These  images  were  then  appropriated  by 
Chinese  artisans  and  painters  and  not  only  Sinicized  but  also,  in  certain 
contexts,  incorporated  within  Buddhist  iconography  The  result  of  this 
incorporation  was  the  development  of  a  unique  Chinese  Buddhist  im- 
age, Child-Giving  Guanyin.^^ 

The  oldest  image  of  Mary  in  a  Chinese  context  is  found  on  the 
tombstone  of  Catherine  Ilioni  (not  Viglione,  as  it  is  sometimes  writ- 
ten), which  bears  the  date  1342.  She  was  buried  in  the  city  of  Yangzhou, 
along  the  Grand  Canal  in  eastern  China  just  north  of  the  Yangtze  River. 
As  Francis  Rouleau,  S.J.,  a  California  Jesuit  and  Chinese  church  histo- 
rian, first  noted  in  1954,  Mary  is  shown  seated  on  a  Chinese-style  seat, 
holding  Jesus,  and  angels  fly  around  them,  again  represented  with  Chi- 
nese motifs.^^  At  the  same  time,  contemporaneous  Guanyin  images  be- 

of  the  Madonna  in  Mexico  and  China,"  a  public  lecture  by  Lauren  Arnold  at  the 
Ricci  Institute,  University  of  San  Francisco,  2005,  which  cites  Yii  frequently. 

^^Jesuits  can  often  start  the  history  of  Christianity  in  China  at  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  thereby  forgetting  the  earlier  work  of  the  Franciscans. 
One  way  to  read  about  this  history  is  through  the  letters  of  these  missionaries 
themselves;  see,  for  instance,  Henry  Yule,  trans,  and  ed.,  Cathay  and  the  Way 
Thither:  Being  a  Collection  of  Medieval  Notices  of  China  (London:  Printed  for  the 
Hakluyt  Society,  1866). 

^^ Strictly  speaking,  the  Chinese  title,  Songzi  Guanyin,  means  "son-giving 
Guanyin"  but  a  more  inclusive  translation  is  also  possible. 

^^Francis  Rouleau,  "The  Yangchow  Tombstone  as  a  Landmark  of  Medieval 
Christianity  in  China,"  Harvard  Journal  of  Asiatic  Studies  17,  nos.  3-4  (1954):  346- 
65.  Later  works,  like  Igor  de  Rachewiltz,  Papal  Envoys  to  Genghis  Khan  (London: 
Faber  and  Faber,  1971)  and  Richard  C.  Rudolph,  "A  Second  Fourteenth-Century 
Italian  Tombstone  in  Yangzhou,"  Journal  of  Oriental  Studies  13,  no.  2  (1975),  also 
write  about  this  stone,  and  a  companion  stone  for  Anthony  Ilioni,  who  died  in 
1344.  There  has  been  considerable  debate  about  whether  the  name  was  Viglione, 
or  variations  on  this,  or  Ilioni,  with  the  definitive  argument  for  Ilioni  being  put  in 
1977  by  Robert  S.  Lopez  in  his  "Nouveaux  documents  sur  les  marchands  italiens 
en  Chine  a  I'epoque  mongole,"  as  cited  in  Speaking  of  Yangzhou,  a  Chinese  City, 
1550-1850,  by  Antonia  Finnane  (Cambridge,  Mass.:  Harvard  University  Asia 
Center;  distributed  by  Harvard  University  Press,  2004),  341  n.8.  Some  other 
works,  like  Lauren  Arnold's  Princely  Gifts  and  Papal  Treasures:  The  Franciscan 
Mission  to  China  and  Its  Influence  on  the  Art  of  the  West,  1250-1350  (San  Francisco: 
Desiderata  Press,  1999),  rely  on  Rouleau  and  thus  continue  to  use,  incorrectly, 
Viglione.  Chinese  works  sidestep  this  issue  by  not  translating  the  surname;  see. 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^^ 

gin  to  show  the  female  bodhisattva  cradling  a  child,  in  a  posture  similar 
to  that  of  the  Madonna  of  Humility. 

The  vibrant  Latin  Rite  communities  established  by  the  Franciscans 
almost  certainly  seem  to  have  died  out  at  the  end  of  the  Yuan  dynas- 
ty, and  all  that  remains  of  this  history  are  funerary  monuments,  archi- 
tectural  remnants,   paintings,       

and  parts  of  letters.  Even  so, 

.1,1...        r      1.        .  .  AltnouQn  the  Catholic 

the  tradition  of  making  statues  .     .         .         y  ,       , 

.^  ji.  .  r    ^  mtsstonartes  who  were  already 

of  Guanym  cradling  an  infant  .    ^i  .  ^  /•  .i 

,■     ,      ^  P    ,       .,  tn  China  came  from  many  of  the 

child   was   maintained   with-  countries  that  made  up  Catholic 

in  Chinese  towns  along  the  Europe,  a  large  number  of  the 

eastern  seaboard.  There  was  a  ^^^/^  g^^^  Catholic  religious 

rise  in  trade  in  the  middle  de-  ^^^^  French.  The  members  of  this 

cades  of  the  sixteenth  century  national  group  brought  with  them 
between  Chinese  artisans  liv-  more  than  just  "the  universal 

ing  in  these  littoral  ports,  their  faith"  and  memories  of  home, 

compatriots  living  throughout  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^_...^^_ 
south-east  Asia  (especially  in 

Manila),  Portuguese  traders  from  Macao,  and  Spanish  merchants  from 
the  Philippines.  This  caused  the  resumption  of  production  of  Christian 
images,  including  Marian  ones,  often  with  Chinese  motifs  and  features. 

Derek  Gillman  cites  contemporary  merchant  accounts  to  illustrate 
the  sheer  diversity  of  the  items  for  trade,  as,  for  instance,  the  record 
made  by  Fernando  Riguel,  the  Philippine  governor's  notary,  of  objects 
brought  by  Chinese  merchants  in  1574. 

A  year  ago  there  came  to  the  port  of  this  city  three  ships  from  China,  and 
to  the  neighboring  islands  five  more.  Those  which  came  here  brought 
merchandise  such  as  is  used  by  the  Chinese,  and  such  as  they  bring  here 
ordinarily  The  distance  frora  the  mainland  is  not  great,  the  voyage  lasts 
about  eight  days.  .  .  .  They  brought  specimens  of  many  kinds  of  goods 
peculiar  to  their  country,  in  order  to  arrange  the  price  at  which  they  can 
be  sold — such  as  quicksilver,  powder,  pepper,  fine  cinnamon,  cloves,  sug- 
ar, iron,  copper,  tin,  brass,  silks  in  textiles  of  many  kinds  and  in  skeins, 
realgar,  camphor,  various  kinds  of  crockery,  luscious  and  sweet  orang- 
es, and  a  thousand  other  goods  and  trifles  quite  as  many  as  the  Flem- 

for  instance,  Gu  Weimin,  Zhongguo  Tianzhujiao  Biannianshi  [The  annals  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  China]  (Shanghai:  Shanghai  Shudian  Chubanshe,  2003),  44. 


10        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 


ish  bring.  Moreover  they  brought  images  of  crucifixes  and  very  curious 
seals  made  like  ours.^° 

This  account,  which  v\^as  written  when  Ricci  was  still  studying 
rhetoric  at  the  Roman  College,  reveals  that  Chinese  merchants  clearly 
considered  the  production  and  sale  of  Christian  imagery  to  be  a  profit- 
able part  of  their  business.  Three  decades  later,  in  1604,  a  letter  written 
by  a  Jesuit  in  the  Philippines  reveals  that  by  that  time  Marian  imagery 
also  featured  strongly  in  this  trade:  ''Almost  all  of  the  churches  in  the  is- 
land were  adorned  with  images,  nearly  all  of  which  were  of  the  Mother 
of  God."^^  By  the  time  of  the  establishment  of  the  first  Jesuit  residence  in 
China  in  1582,  and  therefore  even  before  the  beginning  of  the  third  pe- 
riod of  Christian  history  in  China,  there  was  already  a  strong  culture  of 
Chinese  Marian  imagery,  or  at  least  of  Marian  imagery  produced  in  Chi- 
na. The  rich  strand  of  Marian  devotion  brought  by  the  Jesuits  was  thus 
not  as  foreign  as  the  missionaries  may  have  first  presumed  or  feared. 

This  did  not  prevent  moments  of  confusion  and  misunderstand- 
ing, as,  for  instance,  when  Chinese  visitors  to  the  house  in  Zhaoqing, 
upon  viewing  a  painting  of  the  Madonna,  exclaimed  that  the  Jesuits 
worshiped  a  woman,  perhaps  thinking  this  was  a  representation  of 
Guanyin.^  Nevertheless,  this  did  not  stop  the  Jesuits  from  utilizing  the 
various  elements  of  Marian  spirituality  that  were  at  their  disposal  and 
led  indeed  to  a  further  enriching  of  both  the  images  produced  in  Chi- 
na and  the  devotions  practiced  by  the  Chinese  Christians  over  the  next 
centuries. 

The  various  expressions  and  acts  of  religious  devotion  made 
by  Chinese  Catholics  during  these  centuries  have  been  discussed  at 
length  in  the  often  acrimonious  conversation  about  the  Chinese  Rites 
Controversy,  and  it  is  not  my  intention  to  consider  that  issue  here  yet 
again.  It  is  important  to  note,  nevertheless,  that  one  consequence  of  this 
dispute  was  that  the  Qing  emperors  Kangxi  and  Yongzheng  proscribed 
the  practice  of  Christianity  in  China  in  1717  and  1724  respectively.  Un- 
derstandably, these  edicts  noticeably  affected  the  Catholic  communi- 
ties. Kenneth  Latourette  wrote  that  ''after  what  looked  like  a  promising 


2° Cited  in  Gillman,  ''Ming  and  Qing  Ivories,"  37. 

2'Citedibid.,  40. 

^^See,  among  others,  Jonathan  D.  Spence,  The  Memory  Palace  ofMatteo  Ricci 
(New  York,  N.Y.:  Elizabeth  Sifton  Books,  Penguin  books,  1985),  242-46. 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         11 

growth  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury brought  adverse  conditions  which  for  a  time  seemed  to  presage  a 
third  extinction  of  the  faith/'^^ 

The  proscriptions  did  not  mean,  however,  that  all  foreign  Cath- 
olic missionaries  left  China.  Nor  did  it  result  in  the  total  cessation  of 
missionaries  crossing  the  borders;  also,  the  established  Chinese  Catho- 
lic communities  did  not  in  fact  wither  away.  In  many  general  histories 
about  Christianity  in  China,  one  of  the  enduring  simplifications  about 
this  period  of  history  has  been  "that  by  the  time  the  [opium]  war  broke 

out  the  Catholic  Mission  to  ^^^^^_^^^^^^_^___^^__.^ 
China  had  shrunk  almost  to 

nothing  "^^  This  was  clearlv  ^Llfiree  statues  that  exist  in  churches 
not  the  case.  It  was  true,  nev-  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^^V  ^^^  kilometers 

ertheless,  that  the  increase  distant  from  one  another  show  at 
in  the  number  of  Christians  once  marked  similarities  yet  also 

during  this  time  was  remark-  significant  differences,  illustrating 
ably  slow.  Peter  Ward  Fay  es-  ^^^  ^^^^  diversity  of  the 

timates  that  by  the  beginning  Marian  devotions  in  Paris, 

of  the  1830s  there  were  around  ^^^  indeed  beyond. 

200,000  converts  throughout  ^_«.»».i«»»»«..^^_»»^.,.....^._ 
all  of  China  and  David  Mun- 

gello  adds  to  this  figure,  maintaining  that  by  the  time  of  the  Jesuits' 
return  in  the  mid-nineteenth  century  there  were  almost  250,000  Cath- 
olics.^^ Whatever  the  exact  numbers  (which  are  of  course  hard  to  deter- 
mine), whenever  they  were  able  these  Catholic  communities  continued 
to  receive  the  sacraments  from  their  priests,  both  Chinese  and  foreign. 
In  between  times  the  lay  leaders  continued  to  guide  the  communities. 

Since  the  number  of  lay  leaders  vastly  outnumbered  that  of 
priests,  devotions  that  the  lay  leaders  were  allowed  to  lead  became  the 
ones  used  more  often.  Naturally  enough,  the  lay  catechists  and  virgins 


^^ Kenneth  Latourette,  The  Nineteenth  Century  outside  Europe:  The  Americas, 
the  Pacific,  Asia,  and  Africa,  vol.  3  of  Christianity  in  a  Revolutionary  Age:  A  History 
of  Christianity  in  the  Nineteenth  and  Twentieth  Centuries  (London:  Eyre  and  Spot- 
tiswood,  1961),  444. 

'Fay,  "French  Catholic  Mission,"  117. 

David  Mungello,  "The  Return  of  the  Jesuits,"  16,  and  Fay,  "French  Cath- 
olic Mission,"  118.  Fay's  research  also  indicates  that  there  were  around  twenty- 
nine  French  missionaries  spread  throughout  all  of  China  at  this  time. 


24- 
25 


12        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S  J. 

(women  who  consecrated  themselves  to  a  form  of  religious  life  with- 
out being  formally  part  of  a  congregation)  were  assisted  in  their  work 
by  the  prayer  habits  inculcated  by  the  sodalities,  especially  the  ones 
dedicated  to  our  Lady.  It  is  no  surprise,  then,  that  by  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  when  the  Chinese  Christian  communities  were  able 
to  function  legally  again,  Marian  pieties  had  come  to  be  key  elements 
of  their  faith  life.  I  now  focus  on  the  interactions  between  the  newly 
arrived  missionaries  and  the  local  communities,  especially  regarding 
these  devotions. 

The  Nineteenth  Century 

Church  activities  ceased  to  be  illegal  after  the  victories  of  the  for- 
eign powers  in  the  Opium  Wars  of  1839-42  and  1856-60.  Attendant  upon 
these  victories  and  the  numerous  treaties  that  followed  them  was  the 
opening  up  of  a  number  of  ports  along  the  Chinese  coast  and  the  right  of 
foreign  powers  (especially  the  French)  to  protect  their  Christian  subjects, 
Chinese  or  otherwise.  Foreign  missionaries,  including  Jesuits,  were  once 
again  able  to  enter  China  legally  and  they  did  so  in  large  numbers.  Mis- 
sionaries were  also  now  allowed  to  travel  throughout  the  country. 

The  treaties  encouraged  the  arrival  of  a  new  generation  of  foreign 
missionaries,  both  Catholic  and  Protestant.  Although  the  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries who  were  already  in  China  came  from  many  of  the  countries 
that  made  up  Catholic  Europe,  a  large  number  of  the  newly  sent  Catho- 
lic religious  were  French.  The  members  of  this  national  group  brought 
with  them  more  than  just  "the  universal  faith"  and  memories  of  home. 
These  missionaries  also  had  many  popular  French  devotional  images 
in  their  possession.  Such  objects  were  instruniental  in  the  missionar- 
ies' catechetical  program  and  at  the  same  time  served  to  remind  the  re- 
ligious of  their  loved  ones  far  across  the  globe.  These  faith  objects  were 
subsequently  displayed  more  frequently  than  the  existing  images,  some 
of  which,  as  discussed,  had  Chinese  features.^^ 


M 


^^It  is  important  not  to  overstate  the  French  influence  on  the  Chinese 
church,  given  the  role  played  by  Belgian,  German,  Irish,  and  North  American 
missionaries,  for  instance,  in  the  period  after  the  Opium  Wars.  Even  so,  the 
French  influence  was  significant,  not  only  because  of  the  effects  of  the  French 
protectorate  but  also  because  of  the  number  of  French  missionaries  (especially 
in  leadership  positions),  the  places  the  French  congregations  worked,  and  the 
role  of  their  printeries,  seminaries,  and  communication  networks.  At  the  First 
Vatican  Council  (1869)  ten  of  the  fifteen  bishops  sent  from  China  were  French;  in 
1885,  seventeen  of  the  thirty-five  Catholic  missions  in  China  were  entrusted  to 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         13 

Many  of  these  new  images  were  Marian  in  nature,  and  con- 
sequently the  images  of  Mary  from  the  French  churches  soon  over- 
whelmed images  of  the  Madonna  that  had  been  produced  in  China.  The 
French  churchmen  and  churchwomen  (for,  as  distinct  from  the  previ- 
ous waves  of  missionaries,  there  were  also  groups  of  missionary  sisters 
among  these  new  generations)  certainly  had  a  large  variety  of  images  to 
choose  from.^^  This  was  but  one  ^— ^^^^— ^^^^— ^^^— ^^^^^^ 
consequence  of  the  popular-  Yhe  French  missionaries  entering 

ity  of  Marian  devotion  within  qi^i^^  i^  ^/^^  y^^y^  ^ff^y  the  Opium 
France  at  this  time.  Wars  were  thus  increasingly 

In  Paris  alone,   for  in-  ^^^^^V  *"  ''""^  ^'*^  ^^^"^  statues 

.1                           T  paintings,  pictures,  ana 

stance,  there  were  several  ma-  ^,    ,           r  ,    ^     ,     • 

T,,    .       1    .          .^1  .       1  .  holu  medals  featurtn<^ 

lor  Marian  shrines  withm  aki-  ^tj^t        j 

;              ^         .1     1       .     r  .1  Our  Lady  of  Lourdes. 

lometer  from  the  heart  of  the  ^    -^ 

city,  the  He  de  la  Cite.  Each  of  — ^^^^-^^^^— ^^— ^^^^^— 
these  shrines  had  a  distinct  devotional  focus  and  a  different  iconograph- 
ic  representation  of  Mary,  if  not  indeed  several  representations.  Even  so, 
in  each  of  these  churches  there  exists  one  particular  Marian  image,  the 
image  from  which  the  church  has  derived  its  name.  This  key  image  is 
also  the  only  one  recognized  as  the  image  of  the  particular  devotion  as- 
sociated with  the  church.  This  becomes  important  later  when  we  con- 
sider the  image  used  for  Our  Lady  Queen  of  China. 

Three  of  these  shrines  included  Our  Lady  of  Paris  (Notre  Dame  de 
Paris),  on  the  island  itself.  Our  Lady  of  Good  Deliverance  (Notre  Dame 
de  Sainte  Esperance)  on  the  left  bank  of  the  river  Seine,  and  Our  Lady 
of  Victories  (Notre  Dame  des  Victoires),  on  the  right  bank.  These  three 

French  congregations,  and  even  by  1914,  of  the  1,500  n\issionaries  in  the  coun- 
try, 850  were  French.  See  Claude  Soetens,  L'Eglise  Catholique  en  Chine  au  XXe  Ste- 
ele (Paris:  Beauchesne,  1997),  79;  Louis  Wei  Tsing-sing,  La  Politique  missionaire  de 
la  France  en  Chine,  1842-1856  (Paris:  Nouvelles  Editions  Latines,  1960),  95;  and 
Louis  Wei  Tsing-sing,  Le  Saint-Siege,  la  France  et  la  Chine  sous  le  pontificat  de  Leon 
XUl:  Le  projet  de  V etahlissement  d'une  Nonciature  a  Pekin  et  I' affaire  du  Pei-t'ang, 
1880-1886  (Schoneck/Beckenreid:  Administration  de  la  Nouvelle  Revue  de  sci- 
ence Missionaire,  1966),  12.  Although  missionaries  from  the  other  nationalities 
likewise  had  their  own  devotions,  because  the  French  devotions  were  both  par- 
ticular— and  thus  especially  used  by  French  missionaries — and  universal  (used 
by  all),  they  were  present  throughout  the  whole  country. 

^^For  instance,  the  Sisters  of  Charity  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  arrived  in  Chi- 
na in  1847,  followed  later  by  the  Society  of  Helpers  in  1867,  and  a  group  of  Car- 
melite Sisters  (from  Laval)  arrived  in  1869. 


14        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 

shrines,  and  others  besides,  were  popular  as  pilgrimage  destinations  for 
French  (and  other  European)  Catholics  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
indeed  even  earlier.  Although  the  French  Marian  images  shared  many 
common  details,  such  as  the  frequent  use  of  the  mother  and  child,  among 
these  various  representations  there  were  notable  differences,  such  as  the 
physical  position  of  Jesus  in  relation  to  Mary  Thus  three  statues  that  ex- 
ist in  churches  that  were  barely  two  kilometers  distant  from  one  another 
show  at  once  marked  similarities  yet  also  significant  differences,  illus- 
trating the  rich  diversity  of  the  Marian  devotions  in  Paris,  and  indeed 
beyond. 

One  of  the  most  famous  Marian  images  of  modern  times.  Our 
Lady  of  Lourdes,  is  a  case  in  point.  This  image,  which  originated  in  the 
French  Pyrenees,  dates  back  to  the  late  1850s,  but  traces  its  origins  to 
other  earlier  images.  It  reflects  the  fact  that  the  devotion  associated  with 
the  southwestern  town  of  Lourdes  emphasizes  the  dogma  of  the  Im- 
maculate Conception  as  a  result  of  its  central  place  in  the  apparition  ac- 
counts of  a  local  shepherd  girl,  Bernadette  Soubirous. 

Given  that  devotion  to  Our  Lady  of  Lourdes  became  popular 
throughout  the  Catholic  communities  all  over  France  during  the  latter 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  this  statue  was  readily  found  in  many 
French  Catholic  churches.  It  could  also  be  seen  in  individual  homes,  more 
usually  as  small  replicas  but  sometimes  in  larger  versions  as  well.  Simply, 
this  image  was  ubiquitous  in  the  French  Catholic  world  in  the  late-nine- 
teenth century.  The  French  missionaries  entering  China  in  the  years  after 
the  Opium  Wars  were  thus  increasingly  likely  to  bring  with  them  statues, 
paintings,  pictures,  and  holy  medals  featuring  Our  Lady  of  Lourdes.  This 
image  played  an  important  role  in  the  lives  of  all  the  missionaries,  regard- 
less of  where  they  came  from  in  France.  The  establishment  of  numerous 
Lourdes-type  shrines  throughout  China  in  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth 
centuries  points  to  the  importance  that  this  image  already  had  in  the  de- 
votional lives  of  the  missionaries  who  traveled  to  China. 

The  missionaries'  own  place  of  origin  also  exerted  an  influence. 
Two  popular  devotions  usually  associated  with  missionaries  who  came 
from  the  northern  parts  of  France,  namely.  Our  Lady  of  Treille  (which 
originated  in  the  city  of  Lille)  and  Our  Lady  of  Liesse,  could  be  found  in 
China  in  towns  and  villages  where  there  were  missionaries  who  came 
from  these  areas  in  France.  A  church  built  in  the  province  of  Guizhou  in 
1876  by  Foreign  Missions  priests,  for  instance,  was  named  the  Church 
of  Our  Lady  of  Liesse,  suggesting  the  northern  origins  of  the  mission- 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         15 

aries  stationed  there.  This  was  the  case  even  though  the  seminary  and 
motherhouse  of  the  Society  for  the  Foreign  Missions  was  in  Paris,  at  rue 
du  Bac,  and  therefore  a  Marian  devotion  that  originated  in  Paris  would 
have  been  more  likely.  Another  example  is  the  seminary  at  Xianxian 
in  Hebei  province.  Jesuits  from  the  northern  French  Jesuit  Province  of 
Champagne  had  founded  this  work,  and  they  entrusted  their  endeavors 
to  Our  Lady  of  Treille. 

Until  the  appointment  of  a  diocesan  priest.  Gong  Pinmei,  as 
bishop  of  Shanghai  in  1950,  Jesuits  from  the  Province  of  Paris  admin- 
istered the  church  in  Shanghai.  It  is  understandable,  therefore,  that  in 
addition  to  the  French  Marian  devotions  that  enjoyed  a  national  and 
even  an  international  follow- 
ing, like  the  devotion  to  Our       ^— ^——^— —-——---—-—--— ------------- 

Lady  of  Lourdes,   devotions  A  newsletter  of  1936  proudly 

that  were  more  representative  reported  the  construction  in 

of  the  Parisian  Catholic  com-  Shanghai  of  a  Lourdes-style  grotto 
munities  also  became  popular  on  the  grounds  of  the  parish  of 

in  Shanghai.  It  is  for  these  rea-  Christ  the  King,  entrusted  to  the 

sons  that  the  devotion  to  Our  California  Jesuits, 

Lady  of  Victories  was  particu-  ^_^^^__^_^_^__^_^^__^__^____^^^ 
larly  popular  among  mission- 
aries who  either  came  from,  or  had  a  special  attachment  to,  the  City  of 
Lights.  Likewise  the  Marian  pilgrimage  in  Shanghai  was  significantly 
influenced  by  these  French  Jesuits,  and  so  it  is  not  surprising  that  the 
first  image  used  for  this  pilgrimage  was  a  copy  of  the  statue  of  Our  Lady 
of  Victories  from  the  famous  church  of  this  name  in  their  capital  city.^^ 

Interestingly,  the  prevalence  of  these  European  images,  however, 
came  at  the  expense  of  the  Chinese  images,  insofar  as  the  French  im- 
ages were  displayed  in  greater  numbers  and  were  reproduced  more  of- 
ten. The  innovative  evocations  of  local  imagery  that  were  popular  in  the 
late-Ming  and  early-Qing  periods  (1583-1724),  ones  that  had  been  the 
product  of  centuries  of  cultural  interaction  and  negotiation,  were  now 
supplanted  by  scenes  wholly  imported  from  afar. 


^^  Gabriel  Palatre,  Le  Pelerinage  de  Notre-Dame-Auxiliatrice  a  Zo-se,  dans  le 
vicariat  apostolique  de  Nan-kin  (Shanghai:  Imprimerie  de  la  Mission  Catholique, 
1875),  30. 


16        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  SJ. 


III.  Pilgrimages,  Shrines,  and  Paintings 

Even  though  these  images  were  not  now  truly  representative  of  a 
Chinese  Catholic  sensibility,  they  were  nevertheless  readily  ac- 
commodated within  Chinese  Catholic  spirituality.  These  pieties 
were  but  more  Marian  practices  that  could  be  added  to  the  already  rich 
set  of  devotions.  Thus,  the  foreign  missionaries  may  have  been  bringing 
their  local  devotions  with  them,  but  the  local  church  made  them  their 
own  quickly  and  fervently. 

This  could  be  observed  throughout  the  Chinese  Catholic  world  in 
the  way  in  which  Mary  was  now  depicted  in  statues  and  paintings  as 
she  had  appeared  at  Lourdes.  That  is,  she  was  dressed  in  white  with  a 
blue  belt  around  her  waist  and  with  a  rosary  in  her  hands.  She  is  situa- 
ted in  a  grotto,  with  or  without  Bernadette  kneeling  before  her,  a  clear 
reference  to  the  apparitions  in  southwestern  France.  The  replicas  were 
not  only  two-dimensional  paintings  and  drawings,  but  also  took  the 
form  of  shrines,  grottoes,  and  pavilions.  Where  there  was  no  cave  or 
rocky  overhang  that  could  play  the  part  of  a  grotto,  one  was  construct- 
ed from  whatever  stones  or  materials  were  available  and  a  statue  of 
Mary  was  placed  inside.^^  These  grottoes  were  established  at  first  by  the 
French  missionaries,  but  within  a  short  period  of  time,  Chinese  Cath- 
olics also  began  building  and  maintaining  such  structures.  Chinese 
Catholics  were  delighted  to  have  a  place  of  their  own  where  they  could 
give  honor  to  Mary,  and  it  did  not  matter  where  such  grottoes  were  built 
or  who  erected  them. 

The  popularity  of  such  Marian  devotion,  both  before  shrines  and 
in  other  pious  practices,  is  reported  in  much  missionary  literature  of  the 
period,  from  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  onwards.  A  memoir 
written  in  1855  by  the  Jesuit  missionary  Father  BrouUion,  for  instance, 
listed  the  various  devotions  that  were  popular  among  the  Jiangnan 
Catholics  and  noted  the  importance  of  Marian  piety. 

I  must  add  that  properly  speaking  devotion  is  not  unknown  to  our  Chris- 
tians: the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus  receives  the  most  fervent  homage,  and 
the  feast  is  celebrated  with  enthusiasm;  Saint  Joseph,  patron  of  China; 
Saint  Ignatius,  patriarch  of  the  missionaries  of  Jiangnan;  and  Saint  Fran- 


^^Such  places  were  called  shengmu  shan,  literally  "holy  mother  mountain/ 
and  structures  of  this  type  are  still  known  by  this  name  today. 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         17 

cis  Xavier,  patron  of  the  diocese  of  Nanjing,  are  all  honored  with  solemn 
novenas.  But  above  all  it  is  the  trust  in  Mary  that  is  the  source  of  the  most 
abundant  graces  for  our  Christians.  ^° 

In  an  article  written  in  1916,  French  Vincentian  missionary  Father 
Clerc-Reynaud  describes  his  visit  to  a  Catholic  minor  seminary  in  the 
town  of  Citou  in  Jiangxi  province: 

I  visited  the  grotto  of  Lourdes,  which  [Vincentian]  Fathers  Henri  Cra- 
pez  and  Pierre  Estamp  had  built  at  the  foot  of  a  little  coUine  on  the  sem- 
inary's property.  .  .  .  The  work  resembled  the  countryside  of  the  Pyr- 
enees; all  that  was  lacking  was  the  river  Gave  and  the  liveliness  which 
is  provided  by  the  pilgrims  who  visit  there.  The  little  mountain  where 
the  grotto  is  situated  is  very  agreeable.  There  the  students,  some  sixty  of 
them,  vividly  chant  a  canticle  before  the  statue  of  the  Virgin  at  the  end  of 
recreation  every  evening. . .  .  [This]  little  grotto  is  the  first  of  its  kind  ele- 
vated in  the  vicariate  of  east  Jiangxi  in  honor  of  the  Virgin  of  Lourdes.^^ 

These  grottoes  maintained  their  popularity  as  the  century  pro- 
gressed. A  newsletter  of  1936  proudly  reported  the  construction  in 
Shanghai  of  a  Lourdes-style  grotto  on  the  grounds  of  the  parish  of  Christ 
the  King,  entrusted  to  the  California  Jesuits. 

Our  Lady  of  Lourdes  grotto  was  recently  completed  by  Messrs  Le  Sage 
and  Deward.  It  is  built  of  brown  stone  that  rises  to  a  height  of  about 
fourteen  feet  and  has  a  niche  about  six  feet  in  height.  Rose  arbors  and 
concrete  benches  will  provide  shade  and  a  resting  place  for  those  per- 
forming devotions  there.  Two  parishioners,  Mrs  I  Min  Hsu  and  Miss 
K.  Clement,  have  just  presented  for  the  grotto  a  beautiful  statue  of  Our 
Lady  of  Lourdes.  It  stands  about  five  feet  six  inches  high  and  will  be 
blessed  in  the  near  future.^^ 

These  types  of  Lourdes  grottoes  continue  to  be  built  in  China  to- 
day. While  they  were  important  in  the  promotion  of  European-style  rep- 


^° Father  BrouUion,  S.J.,  Missions  de  Chine:  Memoire  sur  I'etat  actuel  de  la 
Mission  de  Kiang-nan,  1842-1855  (Paris:  Julien,  Lanier  and  Cie,  1855),  77  (author's 
translation). 

^^  Father  Clerc-Reynaud,  Les  Missions  Catholiques,  no.  2441  (March  17, 
1916),  130  (author's  translation). 

^^The  China  Letter  21  (September  1936):  2.  The  China  Letter:  The  American  Je- 
suits on  the  Mission  of  Shanghai,  also  known  as  China:  Letter  of  the  American  Jesuits 
in  China  to  the  Friends  in  the  States,  was  printed  by  the  California  Province  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  San  Francisco,  California. 


18        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 

resentations  of  Mary,  it  must  be  noted  that  devotions  like  the  rosary,  the 
Stations  of  the  Cross,  or  the  popular  Marian  paintings,  holy  cards,  and 
medals  that  were  also  brought  over  by  the  foreign  missionaries  were 
also  very  popular  and  maybe  even  more  so.  This  is  because  grottoes 
took  some  effort  to  build  (and  thus  were  beyond  the  capacity  of  many 
communities)  and,  therefore,  while  present  throughout  the  country, 
were  still  not  as  ubiquitous  as  the  card-size  images. 

Furthermore,  pilgrimages  to  such  grottoes,  or  ones  like  them, 
were  established  only  after  some  years.  While  two  of  the  most  famous, 
Sheshan  and  Donglu  (in  Hebei  province),  were  begun  in  1868  and  1908 
respectively,  others  were  undertaken  much  later.  The  grottoes  were 
nevertheless  a  significant  influence  on  the  development  of  both  the 
identity  and  the  devotional  life  of  Chinese  Catholic  communities. 

The  Origins  of  the  Sheshan  Pilgrimage 

While  the  grottoes  were  popular  because  they  were  places  for  tran- 
quil prayer  and  the  physical  practicing  of  devotional  rituals,  they  were 
also  much  esteemed  because  the  Chinese  Catholics  believed  graces  and 
blessings  could  be  gained  from  visiting  them.  Thus,  those  places  where 
miracles  were  said  to  have  occurred  became  all  the  more  important.  The 
popularity  of  the  Marian  devotions  increased  because  the  Catholics  be- 
lieved Mary  had  answered  the  prayers  of  her  people.  The  two  Marian 
shrines  already  mentioned,  Baoding  and  Sheshan,  are  especially  impor- 
tant in  this  regard.  As  we  have  seen,  the  devotion  at  Sheshan  became 
part  of  the  faith  life  of  the  Jiangnan  Catholics  in  1870  after  the  danger  of 
violent  attack  was  averted.  These  Catholics,  believing  that  Mary  inter- 
vened in  response  to  prayers  made  by  the  Jesuit  in  charge  of  the  mission, 
made  a  special  point  of  offering  their  thanks  for  their  preservation  in  the 
face  of  this  anti-Christian  persecution.  The  Christians'  commonly  held 
belief  in  Mary's  saving  help  and  the  manner  in  which  they  expressed 
their  gratitude  became  known  throughout  the  nation.  As  a  result  of  the 
spread  of  missionary  literature,  this  was  also  reported  abroad. 

Father  Royers,  a  nineteenth-century  English  Jesuit  working  in  the 
Jiangnan  mission,  described  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the  pilgrim- 
age was  celebrated  in  1874,  only  a  few  years  after  its  inauguration.  The 
sheer  number  of  pilgrims  is  also  striking. 

On  the  day  of  the  Feast  of  Our  Lady  Help  of  Christians,  more  than  twen- 
ty thousand  Christians  reached  the  place.  .  .  .  with  them  came  twenty- 
five  missionaries  and  fifteen  scholastics  from  Zikawer  [sic;  Zikawei/Xu- 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         19 


juahui].  His  Lordship  the  bishop  being  absent  on  account  of  sickness, 
it  fell  to  our  revered  Father  Superior,  Father  Foucault,  to  hold  the  chief 
place  in  the  procession,  sing  high  Mass,  and  give  the  Benediction  of  the 
Sacred  Heart.  The  statue  of  our  Lady,  adorned  with  flowers,  was  borne 
by  four  deacons  and  subdeacons.  Behind  it  walked  twenty  Fathers  in 
copes,  and  more  than  two  hundred  magnificent  banners,  supported  by 
six  hundred  Christians  in  surplices.  The  twenty  thousand  Christians 
were  drawn  up  on  the  mountain — and  this  in  the  midst  of  a  land  whol- 
ly given  over  to  paganism!  [sic].  But  I  must  be  short.  A  Father,  shortly 
arrived  in  the  country,  said,  ''Never  did  I  see  anything  more  beautiful, 
even  in  France";  and  one  of  our  scholastics,  who  had  previously  served 
among  the  Papal  Zouaves,  added,  'T  have  seen  magnificent  festivals  in 
Rome,  but  never  did  I  witness  anything  so  moving  as  the  sight  of  the 
Feast  of  Our  Lady,  Help  of  Christians,  at  Zo-chan  [Zose  /  Sheshan].' 


33 


For  all  the  hyperbole,  it  is  clear  that,  after  only  a  few^  short  years, 
the  Chinese  Catholic  celebration  of  this  feast  rivaled  in  beauty  and  fer- 
vor the  celebrations  held  by  the  communities  w^hence  this  devotion  had 
come.  This  zeal  was  not  a  mo- 
mentary occurrence.  From  1870  ^^^^^^^^^"^^^^^^^^^^~"^ 
to  the  present,  reports  simi-  In  the  years  immediately  prior  to 

lar  in  tone  and  content  can  be  the  eventual  uprising  there  had 

found   throughout   Sheshan's  been  periods  of  drought,  resulting 

history.  For  the  moment,  how,  in  widespread  unemployment 

ever,  let  us  move  further  north  and  famine, 

and  consider  the  origins  of  the       

other  primary  place  of  Mari- 
an pilgrimage  in  China,  the  town  of  Donglu.  Even  though  devotions  at 
Sheshan  began  earlier  than  those  at  Donglu,  the  distinctive  origins  of 
this  latter  pilgrimage  and  the  pictorial  image  that  was  especially  created 
for  this  devotion  had  a  greater  influence  on  the  development  of  Chinese 
Catholicism  during  the  first  decades  of  the  twentieth  century. 

Marian  Devotion  at  Donglu 

The  town  of  Donglu  grew  in  fame  during  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century  as  a  result  of  the  survival  of  the  local  Catholic  com- 
munity during  the  violent  times  of  the  Boxer  Uprising  (1898-1900).  The 
Donglu  Catholics  attributed  their  deliverance  to  the  salvific  interven- 
tion of  Mary.  The  faith  stories  associated  with  this  village  became  sus- 


^^ Father  Royer,  "A  Pilgrimage  in  China,''  Letters  and. Notices  (Roehampton: 
Ex  Typographia  Sancti  Josephi)  10  (1875):  101. 


20        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S  J. 

taining  narratives  within  other  Catholic  communities  in  China;  and,  in 
fact.  Our  Lady  of  Donglu  has  become  talismanic  for  the  Chinese  Catho- 
lic church.  Given  the  origins  of  this  devotion  in  the  late-nineteenth  and 
early-twentieth  centuries,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  image  associated 
with  it  is  largely  European  in  style. 

The  market  town  of  Donglu  is  in  the  prefecture  of  Baoding  in  the 
province  of  Hebei,  southwest  of  Beijing.  This  province  contains  one  of 
the  highest  concentrations  of  Catholics  in  China,  and  the  church  trac- 
es its  origins  to  the  missionary  work  of  the  late-Ming  and  early-Qing 
imperial  periods  (1583-1724).  The  Catholics  were  most  often  found 

grouped  together  in  country 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^"""""^""^^^  villages  as  a  result  of  the  mis- 
Those  Chinese  who  were  deemed  sionary  strategy  to  seek  to  con- 

to  have  sold  their  birthright  vert  large  numbers  of  families 

by  becoming  Christians  were  within  one  village,  if  not  in  fact 

convenient  scapegoats  for  people's  the  whole  village,  rather  than 
ills;  as  conditions  got  worse,  just  one  or  two  individuals 

bands  of  Boxers  scoured  the  and  their  families.  The  strategy 

countryside  looking  for  victims.  was  based  on  the  pastoral  in- 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^_  sight  that  it  was  easier  to  main- 
tain one's  faith  in  a  communal 
setting  rather  than  as  an  individual,  particularly  if  the  surrounding  vil- 
lage or  culture  was  opposed  to  the  expression  of  the  Christian  faith.  As 
seen  above,  participation  in  the  sodalities  was  one  way  of  strengthening 
the  sense  of  Christian  community  among  these  villagers. 

One  consequence  of  this  evangelical  strategy,  however,  was  that 
when  waves  of  anti-foreign  or  anti-religious  hostility  swept  the  coun- 
tryside, it  was  easy  to  attack  the  Catholics  because  they  were  readily 
identifiable  by  where  they  lived.  This  was  especially  true  of  Donglu, 
where  almost  all  the  inhabitants  were  Catholic.  According  to  mission- 
ary accounts  from  the  early-twentieth  century,  the  Catholic  population 
numbered  over  2,500  people.^ 

Work  by  Joseph  Esherick  and  others  has  also  shown  that  the  op- 
position to  Catholics  and  Christians  that  erupted  throughout  the  nine- 
teenth and  twentieth  centuries  was  not  caused  just  by  anti-foreign  sen- 


^^Le  Bulletin  Catholique  de  Pekin  141  (1925):  172.  Some  figures  today  state 
that  the  Catholic  population  of  Donglu  is  seven  thousand  out  of  around  nine 
thousand  people.  See,  for  instance  (although  with  great  reservation  because  no 
source  is  provided)  http:/  /  www.encyclopediefrancaise.com/ Donglu.html 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         21 

timent,  although  this  certainly  did  play  a  role.^^  These  scholars  have  ar- 
gued that  the  rise  in  the  number  of  Catholics  in  certain  areas  also  threat- 
ened the  local  economies,  especially  where  the  Catholics  were  grouped 
en  masse.  This  is  because  the  Catholics  refused  to  participate  in  village 
festivals  that  revolved  around  the  local  temple  cults.  These  festivals 
were  major  events  in  the  life  of  a  rural  community  and  also  included 
a  type  of  village  tax,  which  was  used  for  such  things  as  infra-structur- 
al repair  (like  roads)  as  well  as  for  the  funding  of  charitable  works  and 
prayer  services,  either  in  honor  of  the  ancestors  or  in  thanksgiving  for 
good  harvests. 

Catholics  refused  to  pay  this  tax  because  of  its  link  to  non-Catho- 
lic rituals.  Consequently,  other  village  inhabitants  thought  they  were 
not  only  paying  more  than  their  fair  share  but  were  also  subsidizing 
those  who  paid  nothing  at  all.  The  Catholic  practice  of  marrying  other 
Catholics,  even  if  this  meant  pursuing  spouses  in  other  villages,  likewise 
threatened  local  community  harmony  because  this  custom  destabilized 
well-established  local  relationships  among  families  and  clans.  Such  di- 
visions among  rural  communities  fostered  dangerous  tensions. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  hostility  and  violence  throughout  the 
late-nineteenth  century  in  China,  especially  in  the  rural  plains  around 
Beijing  and  Tianjin.  The  reasons  for  this  were  complex,  but  one  common 
consequence  was  that  the  Christian  communities  of  all  traditions  usu- 
ally bore  the  brunt  of  the  widespread  dissatisfaction  and  outrage.  Don- 
glu  was  no  exception,  and  this  predominantly  Catholic  village  was  at- 
tacked both  during  the  time  of  the  Taiping  rebellion  in  the  middle  of  the 
century  and  then  later  in  1900  during  the  rise  of  the  Boxer  movement.^^ 


^^ Joseph  W.  Esherick,  The  Origins  of  the  Boxer  Uprising  (Berkeley:  Univer- 
sity of  California  Press,  1987).  See  the  essays  by  Alan  Richard  Sweeten,  "Cath- 
olic Converts  in  Jiangxi  Province:  Conflict  and  Accommodation,  1860-1900"; 
Charles  A.  Litzinger,  "Rural  Religion  and  Village  Organization  in  North  China: 
The  Catholic  Challenge  in  the  Late  Nineteenth  Century";  and  Roger  R.  Thomp- 
son, "Twilight  of  the  Gods  in  the  Chinese  Countryside:  Christians,  Confucians, 
and  the  Modernizing  State,  1861-1911,"  in  Christianity  in  China  from  the  Eigh- 
teenth Century  to  the  Present,  ed.  Daniel  H.  Bays  (Stanford:  Stanford  University 
Press,  1996). 

^^The  Taiping  rebellion  occurred  between  1851  and  1864.  See  Jonathan  D. 
Spence,  God's  Chinese  Son:  The  Taiping  Heavenly  Kingdom  of  Hong  Xiuquan  (Lon- 
don: HarperCollins  Publishers,  1996). 


11        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S  J. 

After  these  attacks,  the  Catholics  of  Donglu  believed  that  on  both  occa- 
sions Mary  had  saved  them  from  destruction. 

The  Chinese  Catholics  were  accustomed  to  turning  to  Mary  in 
times  of  peace,  so  it  was  all  the  more  understandable  that  they  would 
then  seek  her  intercessory  prayers  in  their  potential  hour  of  death.  Af- 
ter each  wave  of  persecution,  the  Catholics  drew  solace  from  their  sur- 
_^^^^^_^^^^____^_^^^       vival  and,  as  at  Shanghai,  they 

r^^                 ^            ^    /-  t  1 .  attributed  their  deliverance  to 

The  momentous  act  of  aeltvery  .1      r    .  .i    .  t.^       i     i  i        1 

^        1                           J  J  •  the  fact  that  Mary  had  heard 

from  harm  was  recorded  in  ,                11. 

J  .     .              -n     T-i       I  and  answered  their  prayers. 

prayers  and  in  images.  The  Donglu  ^    ^ 

Catholics  produced  just  such  a  In  this  regard,  the  events 

portrait  embodying  their  devotion  of  the  years  1899  and  1900 
to  Mary^  one  that  has  been  among  proved  to  be  critical  to  the 
the  most  famous  of  the  Chinese  continued     development     of 

Marian  images  ever  since.  the  identity  of  the  Catholics 

_^^^^^^^^^^^^^^__^_^^__^^_       of  Donglu.  These  events  also 

positioned  Marian  devotions 
even  more  at  the  center  of  the  faith  life  of  the  community  After  their  ul- 
timate survival,  the  Chinese  Catholic  communities  experienced  Mary's 
traditional  titles  of  Our  Lady  Help  of  Christians  and  Our  Lady  of  Vic- 
tories as  being  true  in  deed  as  well  as  in  word.  The  experience  of  the 
Catholic  community  of  Donglu  show  how  this  situation  arose. 

Although  the  origins  of  the  Boxer  Uprising  are  complex  and  be- 
yond the  scope  of  this  essay,  it  is  clear  that  one  of  the  proximate  causes 
of  the  movement  was  the  role  of  the  church  in  local  affairs.  Certain- 
ly, things  like  the  refusal  of  Catholics  to  contribute  financially  to  cer- 
tain village  celebrations  and  the  missionaries'  overly  zealous  involve- 
ment in  local  judicial  matters  had  prompted  much  antagonistic  feeling 
toward  the  Catholic  Church.^^  Rather  than  focus  on  the  Boxer  Uprising 
as  a  whole,  I  will  examine  the  response  of  the  Catholics  of  Donglu  to  the 
violent  Boxer  attacks  and  thereby  show  the  manner  in  which  Marian  de- 


^^See,  for  instance,  in  addition  to  the  works  of  Joseph  Esherick  and  oth- 
ers already  mentioned,  Albert  Francois  Ilephonse  D'Anthouard,  Les  Boxeurs:  La 
Chine  contre  L'Etranger  (Paris:  Plon-Nourrit  et  cie,  1902);  Mark  Elvin,  "Mandarins 
and  Millenarians:  Reflections  on  the  Boxer  Uprising  of  1899-1900,"  in  Another 
History:  Essays  on  China  from  a  European  Perspective  (Sydney:  Wild  Peony  Pay  Ltd, 
1996),  chap,  7;  and  Dianne  Preston,  Besieged  in  Peking:  The  Story  of  the  1900  Boxer 
Rising  (London:  Constable  and  Company,  1999). 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^^         23 

votion  became  even  more  entrenched  in  the  life  of  the  Catholic  commu- 
nities as  a  result. 

The  Boxer  movement  has  often  been  regarded  as  "as  a  'religious 
uprising'  with  anti-foreign  aims  .  .  .  [or  as]  .  .  .  an  anti-foreign  (or  anti- 
imperialist)  movement  that  expressed  itself  in  religious  terms/'^^  Mark 
Elvin  states,  however,  that  it  "appears  that  the  link  between  Boxerism 
and  the  religious  and  foreign  irritant  usually  supposed  to  have  caused 
it  is  nothing  like  as  strong  as  it  should  be  to  serve  as  a  convincingly 
sufficient  explanation/'^^  Paul  Cohen  argues  that,  in  addition  to  the  un- 
doubted anti-foreign  aspects,  the  backlash  to  the  concessions  of  the  un- 
equal treaties,  and  the  cultural  chauvinism  of  many  of  the  foreign  mis- 
sionaries, the  economic  and  ecological  conditions  of  the  final  years  of 
the  millennium  were  also  contributory  causes  to  the  Boxer  movement. 

In  the  years  immediately  prior  to  the  eventual  uprising  there  had 
been  periods  of  drought,  resulting  in  widespread  unemployment  and 
famine.  These  in  turn  had  led  to  great  anxiety  among  the  population, 
especially  among  the  rural  poor.  These  harsh  conditions  made  it  attrac- 
tive to  the  peasantry  to  join  groups  like  the  Boxers.  An  observation  in 
1900  by  the  United  States  Minister  to  China,  Edwin  H.  Conger,  about 
the  situation  in  Zhili  (modern  Hebei)  reflects  the  complex  mixture  of 
factors. 

The  present  conditions  in  this  province  are  most  favorable  to  such  a 
movement  [that  is,  the  Boxers].  The  people  are  very  poor;  until  yester- 
day [May  7]  practically  no  rain  has  fallen  for  nearly  a  year,  plowing  has 
not  been  and  can  not  be  done,  crops  have  not  been  planted,  the  ground  is 
too  dry  and  hard  to  work  in  any  way,  and  consequently  the  whole  coun- 
try is  swarming  with  hungry,  discontented,  hopeless  idlers,  and  they  . . . 
are  ready  to  join  any  organization  offered.^" 

The  foreigners  and  those  Chinese  who  were  deemed  to  have  sold 
their  birthright  by  becoming  Christians  were  convenient  scapegoats  for 
people's  ills;  as  conditions  got  worse,  bands  of  Boxers  scoured  the  coun- 
tryside looking  for  victims.  In  Hebei  province,  the  Catholics  of  Dong- 


^^Paul  A.  Cohen,  History  in  Three  Keys:  The  Boxers  as  Event,  Experience  and 
Myth  (New  York:  Columbia  University  Press,  1997),  98. 

^^Elvin,  "Mandarins  and  Millenarians,"  208. 

^°From  a  letter  written  by  Edwin  Conger  dated  May  8,  1900,  as  cited  in  Es- 
herick.  Origins  of  the  Boxer  Uprising,  281. 


24        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  SJ. 


lu  were  a  definite  focus  of  the  Boxer  forces  and  they  suffered  a  number 
of  attacks.  Contemporary  missionary  bulletins  and  reports  stated  that 
the  Donglu  Catholics  maintained  that  Mary  appeared  to  them  several 
times  during  the  siege  of  their  church,  and  that  these  apparitions  over 
the  church  were  ''instrumental  in  protecting  them  from  a  series  of  Boxer 
assaults  between  December  1899  and  July  1900/ 


//41 


A  remarkably  similar  story  was  told  by  the  survivors  of  the  siege 
of  the  North  Church  in  Beijing,  which  lasted  from  June  16  to  August 
16,  1900.  This  siege  resulted  in  the  deaths  of  more  than  400  people,  in- 
cluding more  than  160  children.^  During  the  course  of  this  siege,  over 
three  thousand  Chinese  Christians  huddled  behind  the  walls  of  the 
church  compound.  Alongside  them  were  thirty  French  marines,  led  by 
the  23-year-old  Lieutenant  Paul  Henry  (who  died  in  the  siege),  eleven 
Italian  soldiers  led  by  their  even  younger  twenty-two-year-old  soldier. 
Lieutenant  Olivieri,  and  numerous  French  and  Chinese  priests  and  sis- 
ters. Overseeing  everything  was  the  elderly  French  Lazarist  bishop  of 
Beijing,  Bishop  Pierre-Marie-Alphonse  Favier. 

Over  a  two-month  period  they  endured  bombardments  from  the 
latest  cannon  and  bullets  from  modern  repeating  rifles.  The  Boxers  had 
been  able  to  fire  down  on  the  Catholics  from  ladders  and  scaffolds  that 
were  secured  behind  the  Imperial  City  walls.  The  beleaguered  Catholics 
also  survived  mine  attacks,  flaming  rockets,  and  starvation  through  lack 
of  food.  Their  survival  was  attributed  to  the  appearance  of  a  woman  in 
white,  the  Virgin  Mary,  over  the  walls  of  the  church.^^ 

In  1901  Bishop  Favier  described  this  experience  during  a  visit  to 
his  fellow  Lazarists  in  Paris: 


*^  Cited  in  Paul  A.  Cohen,  "Boxers,  Christians  and  the  Gods:  The  Boxer 
Conflict  of  1900  as  a  ReUgious  War,"  in  China  Unbound:  Evolving  Perspectives  on 
the  Chinese  Past  (London:  RoutledgeCurzon,  2003),  118. 

^^  Preston,  Besieged  in  Peking,  208. 

*^Like  the  similarity  between  images  of  Guanyin  and  Mary  discussed 
earlier,  so  too  was  there  a  similarity  between  Guanyin  apparition  stories  and 
Marian  apparitions.  Given  the  complexity  of  that  discussion,  see,  among  oth- 
ers, Yii,  Kuan-yin,  chap.  3,  and  p.  192,  and  Maria  Reis-Habito,  "The  Bodhisattva 
Guanyin  and  the  Virgin  Mary,"  in  Buddhist-Christian  Studies  13  (1993):  65-66.  For 
the  more  general  story  of  appearances  of  Guanyin,  see,  among  others.  Glen  Dud- 
bridge,  The  Legend  of  Miao-shan  (London:  Ithaca  Press,  1978). 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         25 


Every  night  during  those  two  months,  the  Chinese  directed  heavy  gun- 
fire at  the  roofs  of  the  cathedral  and  the  balustrade  surrounding  it.  Why? 
wondered  Paul  Henry  and  the  missionaries.  There  was  no  one  there  to 
defend  the  cathedral.  After  the  liberation,  the  pagans  [sic]  provided  the 
key  to  this  mystery:  "How  is  ii,"  they  said,  "that  you  did  not  see  any- 
thing? Every  night,  a  white  Lady  walked  along  the  roof,  and  the  balus- 
trade was  lined  with  white  soldiers  with  wings."  The  Chinese,  as  they 
themselves  affirm,  were  firing  at  the  apparitions.^ 

Such  stories  of  divine  intercession  spread  throughout  the  Catholic 
communities.  They  believed  that  Mary  had  again  helped  her  people  in 
their  time  of  need.  Mary  had  provided  assistance  at  Shanghai  in  1870;  so 
too  did  she  now  appear  at  Donglu  and  Beijing  in  1899  and  1900.  In  the 
minds  of  the  Chinese  Catholics,  they  could  only  attribute  their  survival 
to  Mary's  providential  aid.^^  The  defeat  of  the  uprising  meant  that  the 
already  complex  story  of  faith  was  now  overlaid  with  another  stratum  of 
meaning.*^  Accounts  of  miraculous  delivery  in  times  of  genuine  hardship 
and  danger  now  accompanied  the  powerful  community-building  pious 
acts — for  example,  the  participation  in  sodalities,  the  carrying-out  of 
devotions  like  the  chanting  of  rosaries  and  the  making  of  pilgrimages. 

This  dramatic  overlaying  of  meaning  had  at  least  two  significant 
consequences.  First,  the  overlaying  resulted  in  a  strengthening  of  the 
archetypal  story  of  faith:  that  is,  that  Mary  the  blessed  one  would  in- 
tercede with  God  on  behalf  of  those  who  prayed  to  her.  As  a  result,  the 
acts  of  piety  that  embodied  this  belief  became  more  popular.  Second, 
the  new  story  strengthened  the  Catholics'  sense  of  identity.  In  a  cyclical 


^^Cited  by  the  Webpage  http://www.catholictradition.org/Mary 
/  peking.htm.  This  is  reputedly  sourced  from  Annales  de  la  Mission;  I  have  been 
unable,  as  of  yet,  to  find  the  relevant  article  containing  this  quotation.  Given  the 
widespread  repetition  of  this  story  in  Chinese  Catholic  circles,  1  repeat  it  here, 
albeit  with  that  caveat. 

^^Regarding  apparition  accounts  at  a  time  of  societal  upheaval,  see  Robert 
A.  Ventresca,  "The  Virgin  and  the  Bear:  Religion,  Society  and  the  Cold  War  in 
Italy,"  journal  of  Social  History  37,  no.  2  (2003);  and,  more  generally,  E.  Ann  Mat- 
ter, "Apparitions  of  the  Virgin  Mary  in  the  Late  Twentieth  Century:  Apocalyptic, 
Representation,  Politics,"  Religion  31  (2001). 

^^Praesenjit  Duara  describes  this  concept  of  overlayering  as  superscrip- 
tion in  his  "Superscribing  Symbols:  The  Myth  of  Guandi,  Chinese  God  of  War," 
Journal  of  Asian  Studies  47,  no.  4  (1988):  778-95.  1  have  been  greatly  helped  by 
Duara's  conceptualization. 


26        ^^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S  J. 

fashion,  the  bolstered  identity  encouraged  greater  practicing  of  the  re- 
ligious devotions,  which  in  turn  then  led  to  a  deepening  of  the  original 
sense  of  identity.  Each  reinforced  the  other. 

The  Donglu  Portrait  of  Mary 

The  Marian  dimensions  of  the  communities  had  thus  become  a 
major  force  that  would  continue  to  animate  the  believers.  The  momen- 
tous act  of  delivery  from  harm  was  recorded  in  prayers  and  in  images. 
The  Donglu  Catholics  produced  just  such  a  portrait  embodying  their 
devotion  to  Mary,  one  that  has  been  among  the  most  famous  of  the  Chi- 
nese Marian  images  ever  since. 

The  image  was  simply  called  Our  Lady  of  Donglu,  rather  than  a 
more  traditional  title  like  Our  Lady  of  Victories  or  Our  Lady  Help  of 
Christians,  and  it  was  commissioned  in  1908,  only  eight  years  after  the 
end  of  the  uprising.  At  the  time  the  commission  was  carried  out,  the 
loss  of  life  among  the  Catholic  families  throughout  China  was  still  sore- 
ly felt.  It  was  perceived  that  there  was  a  need  among  the  communities 
to  commemorate  both  Mary's  assistance  and  the  memory  of  their  mar- 
tyred townsfolk. 

The  painting  also  owed  its  origins  in  no  small  part  to  the  rise  in 
popularity  throughout  China  of  representational  imagery  (both  portrai- 
ture and  photography)  during  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century 
and  the  early  part  of  the  twentieth.  In  particular,  the  Empress  Dowa- 
ger's utilization  of  these  forms  of  imagery  exerted  a  surprising  influ- 
ence on  the  Donglu  Catholic  painting.  In  fact,  an  oil  portrait  of  Cixi  was 
used  as  one  of  the  main  models  for  the  Catholic  Donglu  painting. 

Katherine  Carl,  a  foreign  artist,  had  painted  this  work  in  1903  at 
the  suggestion  of  the  wife  of  the  then  U.S.  Consul  General  in  China, 
Mrs.  Sarah  Pike  Conger.^^  Cixi  was  very  careful  as  to  how  she  was  por- 
trayed in  this  portrait  and  throughout  the  process  issued  numerous  di- 
rections and  correctives.  Several  photographs  of  Cixi,  which  deliber- 
ately portrayed  her  as  Guanyin,  were  also  noticeable  influences.  These 
links  are  explained  below.  In  order  to  trace  the  history  of  this  seminal 
image,  however,  we  must  move  south  again,  back  to  Shanghai,  since 


^^See  Sarah  Pike  Conger,  Letters  from  China  (London  and  New  York:  Hod- 
der  and  Staughton,  1909),  246-48. 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         27 

the  Donglu  Catholics'  longed-for  painting  was  produced  there  at  the  art 
workshop  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  based  at  Tushanwan. 

The  Tushanwan  Orphanage 

This  workshop  was  one  of  the  many  works  of  the  Jesuits  in  Shang- 
hai situated  at  their  complex  at  Xujiahui  (Zikawei).  Tushanwan  was  in 
fact  an  orphanage,  and  the  work  produced  at  its  various  workshops  had 
become  famous  throughout  the  country  since  its  foundation. 

Tushanwan  had  taken  over  and  expanded  upon  the  operations  of 
another  orphanage,  which  had  begun  in  1848  at  a  village  on  the  outskirts 
of  Shanghai  known  as  Tsa-ka-wei  (Caijiawan,  in  Mandarin) .^^  These  or- 
phanages were  a  response  of  the  Catholic  missionaries  to  the  plight  of 
the  large  number  of  infants  whose  parents  had  died  or  become  home- 
less in  that  year,  principally  as 

a  result  of  severe  flooding.  The 

orphanages  also  housed  and        The  goods  produced  at  Tushanwan 
educated  the  many  foundlings  became  well  known  outside  the 

who  had  either  been  left  to  the       country.  Several  pieces  of  furniture 
care  of  the  Jesuits  or  had  been  and  four  large  scroll  paintings, 

saved  from  roadsides  and  oth-  f^^  instance,  were  sent  to  San 

er  places  where  they  had  been         Francisco  for  the  Panama-Pacific 
abandoned.  Two  Franciscans,  International  Exposition  of  1915, 

Father     Pellicia     and     Father       __.i.........^_ii^^_^^^^^ 

Schettino,  had  initially  run  the 

Tsa-ka-wei  Orphanage  and  had  then  handed  over  its  administration  to 
Father  Frangois  Giaquinto,  S.J.,  in  1851.  He  ran  this  for  six  years  before 
he  was  sent  to  a  new  mission  elsewhere  and  was  replaced  at  the  or- 
phanage by  Father  Luigi  Massa,  S.J.  Massa  was  at  Tsa-ka-wei  until  1860, 
at  which  time  Taiping  soldiers  killed  him,  along  with  several  Chinese 
Christians  and  a  number  of  the  orphans. 

After  this.  Father  Giaquinto  returned  to  Shanghai  in  1861  to  re- 
sume the  position  of  director  of  the  orphanage,  which  had  moved  into 
downtown  Shanghai  after  the  Taipings'  attacks;  he  held  this  post  until 
his  death  at  the  age  of  forty-six  in  1864.^^  He  had  contracted  typhoid  fe- 
ver in  the  confined  conditions  of  the  new  site.  Those  orphans  who  had 


^^See  Joseph  Serviere,  L'orphelinat  de  T'ou-se-we:  Son  histoire,  son  etat  pres- 
ent (Zikawei,  Shanghai:  Imprimerie  de  I'orphehnat  de  T'ou-se-we,  1914),  3. 

^^See  Catalogus  of  1863  and  Catalogus  of  1865. 


28        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 

survived  violence  from  their  fellow  Chinese  and  had  resisted  the  ill- 
nesses that  abounded  in  such  an  unhealthful  environment  were  then 
moved  to  Tushanwan  in  November  of  the  same  year,  1864.  Father  Emil 
Chevreuil,  S.J.,  became  director  of  the  Tushanwan  orphanage  in  1865 
and  held  this  position  until  at  least  1868.  Construction  of  spacious  new 
premises  began  at  Tushanwan  in  1864  and  these  were  completed,  in  sev- 
eral stages,  by  1875.  On  July  11  of  that  year,  the  superior  of  the  mission, 
the  French  Jesuit  Father  Foucault  (who  led  the  prayers  at  Sheshan  that 
so  impressed  Father  Royer)  blessed  Tushanwan' s  new  buildings  and 
workshops  during  a  solemn  opening  Mass.  At  this  time  there  were  two 
hundred  orphans  at  Tushanwan  and  around  one  hundred  adults  were 
employed  in  the  various  workshops. ^° 

At  Tushanwan  the  Jesuit  priests  and  brothers  worked  as  the  mas- 
ter craftsmen  and  taught  the  boys  in  their  care  various  trades,  including 
woodworking,  metalworking,  printing,  and  painting.  In  the  course  of 
learning  these  skills,  which  would  then  provide  the  orphans  with  a  live- 
lihood once  they  were  old  enough  to  leave  the  orphanage,  the  young 
students  produced  a  variety  of  religious  and  secular  goods.  The  sale 
of  these  goods  helped  offset  the  operating  expenses  of  the  orphanage. 
Some  of  the  orphans  also  chose  to  remain  working  in  the  various  de- 
partments of  Tushanwan  once  they  had  reached  adulthood.^^ 

The  art  workshop  began  operations  at  Tushanwan  in  1867,  al- 
though Spanish  Jesuit  Brother  Jean  de  Dieu  Ferrer,  S.J.,  had  been  teach- 
ing art  to  students  at  Xujiahui  since  1852,  ^nd  from  1865  Brother  Pe- 
ter Lu  (Lu  Bodu),  S.J.,  had  been  in  charge  of  teaching  the  orphans  to 
paint.^^  Lu  had  himself  been  one  of  Ferrer's  earliest  pupils  and  contin- 


^°See  Relations  de  la  Mission  de  Nan-king,  II,  1874-75  (Shanghai:  Imprimerie 
de  la  Missions  CathoHque,  1876),  70.  Chinese  female  religious,  the  Presentandines, 
and  French  female  religious,  the  Helpers  of  the  Holy  Souls,  cared  for  the  many 
female  orphans.  For  more  on  orphanages  and  the  work  of  the  French  Holy  Child- 
hood Association,  see  Henrietta  Harrison,  "A  Penny  for  the  Little  Chinese:  The 
French  Holy  Childhood  Association  in  China,  1843-1951,"  American  Historical 
Review  113,  no.  1  (February  2008):  72-92. 

^^For  instance,  according  to  the  article  "Un  Vieil  Orphelinat,"  Le  Bulletin 
CathoHque  de  Pekin,  no.  269  (January  1936),  183-84,  each  day  there  were  650  peo- 
ple to  feed  at  the  orphanage. 

^^One  of  the  earliest  histories  of  Tushanwan  is  in  Relations  de  la  Mission 
de  Nan-king,  II,  1874-75.  Although  there  are  a  number  of  academic  references  to 
Tushanwan,  as  for  instance,  in  several  of  Michael  Sullivan's  works,  there  is  yet 
to  be  a  full-length  study  devoted  to  it.  References  are  also  contained  in  the  recent 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         29 

ued  Ferrer's  work  after  his  death  in  1855.  Lu  joined  the  Jesuits  in  1862. 
In  addition  to  supplying  works  for  the  local  and  regional  churches  and 
attracting  curious  day-trippers  from  among  the  Europeans  resident  in 
Shanghai,  this  workshop  also  began  to  attract  interest  from  among  local 
Chinese  artists  as  well.^^ 

The  goods  produced  at  Tushanwan  became  well  known  outside 
the  country.  Several  pieces  of  furniture  and  four  large  scroll  paintings, 
for  instance,  were  sent  to  San  Francisco  for  the  Panama-Pacific  Interna- 
tional Exposition  of  1915.^*  The  extent  of  the  activities  at  Tushanwan  was 
revealed  in  an  advertisement  in  the  1937  publication  A  Guide  to  Catho- 
lic Shanghai.  This  proclaimed  that  the  orphanage  would  "fill  personal 
orders  at  moderate  prices  and  could  supply  stained  glass,  fancy  lamp 
shades,  hand-carved  furniture,  silver  plating,  steel  work,  artistic  book- 
binding, sacred  vessels,  statuary  and  paintings  and  printing  services.''^^ 
In  fact,  the  vast  majority  of  Catholic  publications  produced  in  Shanghai, 

work  on  Shanghai  artist  Ren  Bonian:  New  Wine  in  Old  Bottles:  The  Art  of  Ren  Bo- 
nian  in  Nineteenth-Century  Shanghai,  by  Yang  Chialing  (London:  Saffron  Books, 
2007).  For  information  on  Tushanwan,  Yang  relies  on  several  early-twentieth- 
century  Chinese-language  publications,  including  Lin  Zou,  Xuhui  JilUe  (Shang- 
hai: Tushanwan  yinshuguan,  1933),  chap.  13.  Details  in  these  works  differ  from 
the  earlier  and  more  contemporaneous  accounts  in  both  Relations  and  Joseph 
Serviere's  history  of  1914,  L'orphelinat  de  T'ou-se-we.  Consequently,  the  weight  of 
evidence  seems  not  to  be  with  Lin  Zou  et  al.  One  example  of  this  is  that  the  build- 
ings were  finally  finished  in  1875,  not  1867. 

^^Some  of  the  Chinese  artists  who  were  assisted  or  influenced  by  the  Jesuit 
teachers  at  Tushanwan  include  Ren  Bonian,  Xu  Beihong,  and  Zhang  Chongren. 
The  Jesuits  also  produced  a  number  of  books  that  helped  Chinese  students  ac- 
quire Western  techniques.  Liu  Dezhai,  S.J.,  was  responsible  for  some  of  these,  as 
was  another  Jesuit  priest,  Adolphe  Vasseur,  S.J.,  who  briefly  taught  art  at  Tush- 
anwan. 

^"^The  four  scrolls  mentioned  here  may  be  seen  at  the  Lone  Mountain 
Campus  of  the  University  of  San  Francisco,  and  several  items  of  furniture  are 
also  in  Jesuit  houses  of  the  California  Province.  Moreover,  elaborate  pieces  of 
embroidery,  needlework,  and  bound  photographic  albums  produced  at  the  girls' 
workshops  were  delivered  to  Rome  for  the  Mission  Exposition  of  1924  and  1925, 
held  at  the  Vatican. 

^^ Anonymous,  A  Guide  to  Catholic  Shanghai  (Shanghai:  T'ou-Se-We  Press, 
1937),  56.  In  fact,  according  to  Paul  Mariani,  S.J.,  although  their  names  were  not 
recorded  in  this  work,  the  book  was  produced  by  a  number  of  California  Jesu- 
its for  the  use  of  visitors  to  Shanghai  who  made  their  way  there  after  the  Thirty- 
third  Eucharistic  Congress  in  Manila  in  February  1937. 


30        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 

including  this  guidebook  itself,  were  produced  by  Tushanwan's  print- 
ing house,  which  began  in  1870.^^ 

Thus,  when  the  Donglu-based  missionary  wished  to  procure  a 
new  and  especially  beautiful  image  of  Mary,  it  was  no  surprise  that  he 
turned  to  the  Jesuit  workshop  in  Shanghai.  This  work  was  indeed  com- 
missioned from  the  painters  at  Tushanwan  in  1908.  Some  years  later, 
in  1925,  an  extensive  account  of  the  origins  of  this  painting  was  pub- 
lished.^^ This  account  was  written  at  a  time  when  there  was  an  ongo- 
ing debate  among  the  church  communities  about  the  appropriateness 
of  utilizing  Chinese  clothing,  symbols,  and  stylistic  devices  in  Christian 
paintings  and  statuary.  The  apostolic  nuncio  to  China,  Archbishop  Cel- 
so  Costantini,  had  initiated  this  debate,  in  no  small  part  because  of  the 
currents  of  nationalism  sweeping  the  country,  and  especially  Shanghai, 
at  this  time.^^  The  account  of  the  painting's  origins  is  the  earliest  and 
most  comprehensive  description  in  existence,  although  the  author  was 
anonymous. 

Parts  of  the  report  are  quoted  here  because  the  origins  of  the  Don- 
glu  painting  have  been  largely  forgotten,  or  inaccurately  remembered. 
This  is  even  though  the  painting  quickly  became  iconic,  metamorphosed 
later  into  Our  Lady  of  China  and,  since  its  execution,  was  accepted  by 
Chinese  and  foreign  Catholics  alike  as  a  Chinese  religious  painting. 

IV.  From  Donglu  to  Our  Lady  of  China 

The  Donglu  missionary  "dreamed  of  equipping  his  church  with 
a  beautiful  painting  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  who  was  much  honored 
by  the  Christians. "^^  The  missionary  in  question  was  a  Lazarist 
priest  named  Rene  Flament,  who  was  encouraged  to  pursue  his  dream 
by  ''the  words  and  gifts  of  Monsignor  Jarlin,  the  vicar  apostolic,  and 


^^  According  to  the  article  "'Un  vieil  orphelinat/'  183-84,  each  year  on  av- 
erage the  printery  published  fifty  works  in  European  languages,  producing  be- 
tween 25,000  and  75,000  copies,  and  sixty  Chinese-language  works,  numbering 
between  250,000  and  350,000  copies. 

^^  An  anonymous  article  entitled  "Notre  Dame  de  Chine,"  in  Le  Bulletin  Catholique 
de  Pekin,  141,  (May  1925),  71-73. 

^^  In  May  1919  there  was  a  large  protest  in  Beijing  (the  May  4  protest),  and  in  May 
1925  there  was  a  large  strike  in  Shanghai.  These  are  beyond  the  scope  of  this  essay. 

^^ "Notre  Dame  de  Chine,"  172  (author's  translation). 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^\^        31 


^'60 


Monsignor  Fabregues,  who  was  director  of  the  district  of  Baoding 
When  Father  Flament  placed  his  order,  he  also  mailed  a  photograph  of 
the  Katherine  Carl  portrait  of  the  Empress  Cixi  to  the  director  of  the  or- 
phanage's art  workshop,  rather  than  simply  leaving  the  design  solely  to 
the  whim  of  the  painters  at  Tushanwan.^^ 

The  director  of  the  painting  studio  at  the  time  was  the  Chinese  Je- 
suit brother  and  artist,  Liu  Dezhai  or  Simeon  Liu,  who  took  personal  re- 
sponsibility for  fulfilling  Flamenfs  request.^^  When  Liu  was  a  child,  his 
father  had  been  taken  away  in  a  boat  by  the  Taiping  rebels  on  the  out- 
skirts of  Shanghai  and  was  never  seen  again.^^  Liu's  family  was  Chris- 
tian, and  he  was  allowed  to  en-       ^_^^^^^_^_^.^^__^^^_ 

ter  the  college  of  Saint  Ignatius  r^     .  .  -,  ,     -       _ 

.^..1.1       1  .^  The  tmpenal  court  had  an  Empress 

at  Xuiianui  when  he  was  quite  ^    ^  .i     r^i  -         ^  ^i    i- 

^    ^  ,        111  Dowager;  the  Chinese  Catholics 

young.  It  was  then  that  he  be-  ^^^  ^^^  .^  ^^^  heavenly 

gan  his  artistic  education  with  mother  and  child. 

those  Jesuits  based  at  Xujiahui, 

especially  with  Jean  de  Dieu       "~"'"^'^'""'^^^^^^^^^^^^"""~ 

Ferrer,  S.J.  Although  Brother  Ferrer  was  a  sculptor  by  profession,  having 

completed  his  own  artistic  studies  in  Rome  prior  to  joining  the  Society, 

he  was  also  a  competent  painter  and  draughtsman.  He  was  assisted  by 

an  Italian  Jesuit  priest,  Nicholas  Massa,  S.J.,  who  was  one  of  four  Jesuit 

brothers  of  Luigi  Massa,  who  had  died  at  the  Tsa-ka-wei  Orphanage.^^  As 


^°Ibid.,  172  (author's  translation).  Flament  would  later  become  the  presi- 
dent of  the  inaugural  synodal  commission. 

'^Ibid. 

^^Joseph  de  Lapparent,  "Notre  Dame  de  Chine-Regina  Sinarum: 
Historique,"  Le  Bulletin  Catholique  de  Pekin  (1941):  359-60.  His  name  was  also 
written  in  missionary  literature  as  Liu,  Lieu  and  Liou.  De  Lapparent  wrote  this 
concise  history  of  the  image  so  that  there  would  be  no  further  debate  about  its 
origins.  His  article  drew  on  the  earlier  article  of  1925.  Liu  Dezhai  was  born  on 
February  2,  1843,  and  died  July  31,  1912.  Some  articles  say  his  name  was  Liu  Bi- 
zhen;  yet  a  recent  Chinese  work,  20  shiji  Zhongguo  yishu  shi  de  ruogan  keti  yanjiu 
(1900-1949)  [Research  on  a  number  of  problems  in  twentieth-century  Chinese  art 
history  between  1900  and  1949],  ed.  Wu  Wuhua  (Sichuan:  Sichuan  Meishu  chu- 
banshe,  2006),  182,  records  his  name  as  Liu  Dezhai. 

^^See  Cent  ans  sur  le  Fleuve  Bleu:  line  mission  des  Jesuites  (Zikawei,  Shanghai: 
Imprimerie  de  T'ou-se-wei,  1942),  218. 

^^  Ellen  Johnstone  Laing,  in  Selling  Happiness:  Calendar  Posters  and  Visu- 
al Culture  in  Early-Twentieth-Century  Shanghai  (Honolulu:  University  of  Hawaii 


32 


Jeremy  Clarke,  S  J. 


a  younger  man,  Nicholas  Massa  had  received  training  in  the  art  of  paint- 
ing in  Europe.  Ferrer  and  his  assistant  Massa  not  only  trained  genera- 
tions of  artists  and  artisans  after 
their  arrival  in  Shanghai  (Ferrer  ar- 
rived in  October  1847)  but  also  pro- 
duced a  great  deal  of  religious  art 
for  the  various  chapels  and  church- 
es of  the  Jiangnan  mission,  as  did 
his  many  students  after  him.  Ferrer 
also  drafted  the  plans  for  the  first 
church  at  Xujiahui. 

Liu  must  have  learned  more 
than  art  from  Ferrer  because,  like 
Lu  before  him,  he  subsequently 
entered  the  Society  on  September 
7,  1867.  He  began  working  in  the 
painting  department  in  1870  after 
completing  his  two-year  novitiate. 
He  was  admitted  to  final  vows  on 
the  feast  of  Saint  Ignatius,  July  31, 
1878.^^  For  many  years  Brother  Liu 
was  the  director  of  the  painting 
workshop  at  Tushanwan,  a  posi- 
tion he  took  over  from  Brother  Pe- 


Plate  2:  This  is  a  cropped  reproduction  of  the  or- 
dination card  for  John  J.  Brennan,  S.J.,  ordained  at 
Shanghai  on  June  8, 1946.  The  image  bears  the  title 
"Heavenly  Queen  of  China,  pray  for  me."  It  is  re- 
ferred to  in  the  text  as  Plate  2.  (From  the  archives 
of  the  California  Province  of  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
gratefully  used  with  permission.) 


ter  Lu,  upon  Lu's  death  in  1880. 
Liu  was  still  head  of  the  department  in  1908,  at  sixty-five  years  of  age, 
and  died  in  1912.^^  The  efficient  administration  of  the  workshop  and  the 
popular  work  first  of  Ferrer  and  Massa,  and  then  of  Lu  and  Liu,  as  well 


Press,  2004),  62,  calls  Nicholas  Massa  a  brother,  rather  than  a  priest.  The  confu- 
sion exists  because  Nicholas  Massa  began  his  religious  life  as  a  brother  but  later 
undertook  theology  studies  and  became  a  priest.  See  G.  B.  Rossi,  Cenni  storici  dei 
cinque  f rat elli  Massa  della  Compagnia  di  Gesu  morti  nelle  missioni  della  Cina  tra  gli 
anni  1850-1876  (Naples:  Pe'tipi  di  Salvatore  Marchese,  1879). 

^^ Index  to  Catalogus  Provincide  Francide,  1900. 

^^He  is  listed  as  director  in  the  1908  catalogue  of  the  French  Jesuits,  "Mis- 
sio  Sinensis  in  Provincia  Nankinensi,"  53.  Showing  the  ideally  ever-present  reli- 
gious aspect  of  the  Jesuit  vocation,  Liu  was  also  responsible  for  ensuring  that  the 
charges  in  his  care  were  saying  their  prayers  (visit,  orat.  et  exam.,  as  described  in 
the  Jesuit  Latin  shorthand  used  in  province  catalogues). 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         33 

as  the  many  students  who  had  learned  from  them,  had  ensured  that  the 
painters  of  Tushanwan  had  a  national  reputation.  Between  them,  the 
two  Chinese  Jesuit  brothers  directed  the  painting  workshop  for  almost 
sixty  years. 

Liu  Dezhai  used  the  photograph  of  the  Katherine  Carl  portrait  as 
a  model  for  his  oil  portrait,  incorporating  additional  suggestions  made 
by  others,  including  the  client  who  offered  the  commission,  the  Laza- 
rist  Father  Flament.  As  in  the  painting  of  Cixi,  Mary  was  seated  on  a 
throne  and  was  dressed  in  a  sumptuous  blue  and  yellow  Manchu  court 
garment.^^  Although  there  was  only  one  subject  in  the  Carl  painting, 
namely  Cixi,  here  the  child  Jesus  appears  with  Mary.  He  stood  on  the 
throne,  beside  Mary's  leg,  and  was  likewise  clad  in  rich  vestments.  Al- 
though Liu  had  any  number  of  models  for  this  depiction,  ranging  from 
Our  Lady  of  Paris  to  Our  Lady  of  Treille,  it  is  not  known  why  Jesus  was 
shown  in  this  fashion,  rather  than  in  some  other  way. 

It  is  also  unknown  if  the  original  image  painted  by  Liu  Dezhai 
stills  exists  in  Donglu.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  many  copies  of  this 
image  were  produced  in  the  subsequent  years,  especially  after  the 
Shanghai  Plenary  Council  of  1924,  when  Celso  Costantini  ensured 
a  greater  circulation  of  the  image,  as  discussed  below.  Some  of  these 
reproductions  were  themselves  replicated  from  other  copies  and  a 
number  of  changes  occurred  in  the  process  of  transmission.  Given  that 
it  was  painted  at  a  time  when  other  regal  images,  such  as  the  photo- 
graphs of  Cixi  as  Guanyin  and  the  photographs  of  the  Empress  Dowa- 
ger portrait,  were  also  being  circulated,  one  can  easily  understand  how 
it  could  attract  the  reverence  of  Catholics  beyond  Donglu.  The  connec- 
tion between  the  images  was  as  much  the  result  of  the  shared  historical 
context  as  of  the  visual  similarities,  or  even  more  so.  The  imperial  court 
had  an  Empress  Dowager;  the  Chinese  Catholics  had  their  own  heaven- 
ly mother  and  child. 

The  initial  portrait  brought  much  joy  to  Liu  Dezhai  and  his  fellow 
Jesuits,  so  much  so  that  they  were  apparently  tempted  to  keep  the  paint- 


^^De  Lapparent,  "Notre  Dame  de  Chine,"  359.  The  photographs  of  Cixi  as 
Guanyin  show  her  either  standing  or  sitting,  and  accompanied  by  court  atten- 
dants dressed  as  Buddhist  figures.  She  is  also  photographed  among  a  field  of  lo- 
tuses, a  Buddhist  symbol  of  purity.  There  are  no  attendants  in  the  Donglu  paint- 
ing or  lotuses.  It  thus  seems  reasonable  to  accept  both  the  anonymous  article  and 
de  Lapparent's  account  that  the  painting,  and  not  the  photographs,  provided  the 
model  for  Liu's  work.  See  Lin  Jing,  The  Photographs  of  Cixi  in  the  Collection  of  the 
Palace  Museum  (Beijing:  Forbidden  City  Press,  2002). 


34 


^ 


Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 


ing  at  Xujiahui.  They  honored  their  contract,  however,  and  the  paint- 
ing was  transported  to  Donglu  by  train,  where  it  arrived  on  March  17, 
1909.  Father  Flament  subsequently  displayed  it  behind  the  main  altar  in 
the  church,  replacing  another  image  of  Mary  that  had  been  painted  by 
a  local  Chinese  virgin.^^  This  apparently  had  "a  certain  grace,''  although 

it  was  not  as  attractive  as  the 
new  work.^^  The  earlier  image 
had  already  helped  the  popu- 
larization of  the  cult  of  the  Vir- 
gin Mary  within  this  Catholic 
village.  Father  Flament  hoped 
that  this  much-longed-for  new 
painting  would  likewise  be  a 
successful  means  of  strengthen- 
ing the  already  significant  de- 
votion to  Mary. 

Liu  Dezhai's  image  sub- 
sequently became  famous 
throughout  China.  The  church 
at  Donglu  had  already  been  a 
place  of  pilgrimage  for  Catho- 
lics from  nearby  villages  (as  a  re- 
sult of  the  apparition  stories  re- 
counted earlier).  It  now  became 
well  known  throughout  all  the 
Chinese  Catholic  communities. 
This  increase  in  fame  likewise 
saw  a  rise  in  the  number  of  visi- 
tors. The  Donglu  Catholics  were 
justifiably  proud  of  their  Christianity  and  of  their  pious  devotion  to  the 
Holy  Virgin,  and  this  impressed  all  those  who  made  the  pilgrimage  to 
their  church.  "[There  was]  nothing  as  touching  as  listening  to  the  end- 
lessly repeated  invocation,  chanted  with  an  engrossing  and  moving  in- 
sistence, 'Heavenly  Holy  Mother,  Queen  of  Donglu,  pray  for  me.'  "^° 


Plate  3:  A  cropped  reproduction  of  a  prayer  card 
produced  by  the  Paris  Foreign  Mission  Society, 
some  time  in  the  1940s,  which  bore  the  title  Notre 
Dame  de  Chine. 


^^See  J.  M.  Tremorin,  "Les  Pelerinages  a  Notre  Dame  de  Tonglu,"  Le  Bul- 
letin Catholique  de  Pekin,  no.  229  (September  1932):  174-75. 

^^See  de  Lapparent,  "Notre  Dame  de  Chine,"  172. 

''°De  Lapparent,  "Notre  Dame  de  Chine,"  172  (author's  translation). 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         35 


The  chants,  the  pilgrimages,  and  the  rosaries  in  particular,  ensured 
that  devotion  to  Mary  (especially  as  it  was  associated  with  Donglu)  be- 
came widespread  and  even  more  deeply  held.  The  complex  cultural  in- 
teractions that  took  place  within  the  Chinese  Catholic  communities  are 
well  illustrated  by  the  people  involved  in  bringing  this  iconic  Chinese 
Catholic  image  into  being.  A  French  priest  commissioned  the  work  from 
a  Chinese  Jesuit  painter,  who  in  turn  had  learned  the  art  of  painting 
from  Spanish  and  Italian  missionaries.  The  painter  used  Chinese  sty- 
listic devices  to  depict  a  Catholic  devotion  from  a  rural  market  town  in 
the  north  of  China.  The  original  model  for  this  work,  furthermore,  was 
a  photographic  reproduction  of  an  oil  portrait  of  the  Chinese  Empress 
that  had  been  painted  by  a  United  States  citizen. 

This  portrait  would  also  play  a  part  in  the  deliberate  and  con- 
scious program  of  indigenization  that  was  taking  place  throughout  the 
international  Church  during  the  early  part  of  the  twentieth  century,  and 
which  had  China  as  a  particular  focus.  Rome  led  this  program  in  many 
ways,  even  in  the  face  of  marked  opposition  from  numerous  European 
missionaries  working  in  China.  The  Our  Lady  of  Donglu  painting  was 
a  famous  harbinger  of  the  plan  to  strengthen  the  local  church.  Its  adop- 
tion by  Bishop  Celso  Costantini  at  the  Plenary  Council  in  1924  is  the  fi- 
nal part  of  our  story,  and  we  return  once  more  to  Shanghai. 

The  Shanghai  Plenary  Council  of  1924 

As  apostolic  delegate,  Costantini  called  for,  planned,  and  then 
chaired  the  first  plenary  council  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  China,  held 
in  Shanghai  between  May  15  and  June  11, 1924.  It  began  with  a  Mass  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  and  concluded  with  another  solemn  Mass  on  June  12.  At 
the  opening  Mass  a  relic  of  Blessed  (now  Saint)  Robert  Bellarmine  was 
placed  on  the  altar  in  Saint  Ignatius  Church,  Xujiahui.  Those  of  the  as- 
sembled faithful  who  did  not  know  that  Bellarmine  had  had  personal 
correspondence  with  the  famous  seventeenth-century  Shanghai  Catho- 
lic, Paul  Xu  Guangqi,  certainly  knew  of  this  by  the  end  of  the  service,  as 
much  was  made  of  the  relationship  between  these  two  great  minds  liv- 
ing on  opposite  sides  of  the  globe.  There  were  many  such  symbols  of  the 
longevity  of  the  Chinese  church  evident  throughout  the  course  of  the 
gathering.^^ 


^^For  more  about  the  daily  events  of  the  council,  see  Louis  Wei  Tsing-sing, 
Le  Saint  Siege  et  La  Chine:  De  Pie  XI  a  nos  jours  (Sotteville-les-Rouen:  Allais,  1971), 
108-16.  Bellarmine  was  not  canonized  until  1930. 


36        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 


The  council  was  a  momentous  event  in  the  life  of  the  Chinese 
Catholic  community,  and  it  marked  yet  another  major  step  in  the  move- 
ment toward  the  creation  of  a  locally  led  church.  Various  activities  of 
the  council  also  reinforced  the  distinctive  Marian  identity  of  the  Chinese 
Catholic  church.  They  did  this  administratively  as  well  as  through  sim- 
ple means.  As  the  Chinese  Catholic  church  grew  in  stature  and  maturity, 
so  too  did  its  Marian  identity  become  more  pronounced. 

The  Marian  pieties  and  devotions  practiced  within  the  Chinese 
Catholic  communities  traditionally  reflected  the  strong  French  influ- 
ence that  had  been  exerted  on  the  Catholics  throughout  the  time  of  the 
French  protectorate.^^  As  the  Chinese  church  grew  in  independence,  one 
could  expect  that  there  would  be  a  visible  change  in  the  ways  in  which 
these  pieties  would  be  expressed.  Events  which  took  place  at  the  council 
seemed  to  suggest  that  such  change  would  continue  to  occur  throughout 
the  twentieth  century. 

Once  the  council  had  been  called.  Pope  Pius  XI  sent  a  letter  to  his 
delegate,  Costantini,  discussing  the  importance  of  the  synod.  He  said 
that  this  council  would  be 

one  of  the  grandest  of  the  lights  shining  among  the  splendors  of 
the  church  and  that  it  would  be  engraved  on  the  memories  of  future 
generations.  In  bringing  this  project  to  realization,  it  seems  to  us  that  one 
can  see  the  very  ashes  trembling  of  those  who,  in  centuries  past,  spent 
their  lives  working  and,  courageously  and  generously,  even  pouring  out 
their  blood  to  bring  the  people  of  China  to  Jesus  Christ.^^ 

The  council  called  together  all  the  leadership  of  the  Catholic 
Church  in  China.  This  obviously  meant  that  the  council  was  a  gathering 
of  male  clerics,  and  thereby  excluded  not  only  the  local  superiors  of  the 
numerous  female  congregations  present  in  China  at  this  time  but  also 
representatives  of  the  non-priestly  male  orders  in  China,  like  the  Marist 
Brothers.  Those  invited  to  attend  consisted  of  all  the  vicars  and  prefects 
apostolic  of  the  missions  in  China,  the  superiors  of  the  priestly  orders. 


^^That  is,  the  period  initiated  by  the  Opium  Wars  treaties.  As  this  essay- 
focuses  on  the  church  communities  in  China,  it  does  not  discuss  the  broader  ef- 
fects of  the  French  influence.  See,  among  others,  Guy  Brossollet,  Les  Frangais  de 
Shanghai,  1849-1949  (Paris:  BeHn,  1999),  and  John  K.  Fairbank,  ed..  Late  Ching, 
1800-1911,  part  1  (Cambridge:  Cambridge  University  Press,  1978). 

^^Les  Missions  de  Chine,  no.  129  (May  1924):  162  (author's  translation). 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         37 

the  abbot  of  the  Cistercian  monastery  at  Yangjiaping  (Our  Lady  of  Con- 
solation), and  the  bishop  of  Macau 7"^ 

It  was  an  amazing  feat  to  bring  together  all  these  clerics  from  the 
far-flung  corners  of  the  country.  At  the  preliminary  session,  which  was 

held  the  day  before  the  official  ^^^^^^_^^^^^^^^^^^__^^^ 
opening,  the  proceedings  be- 
gan with  a  formal  prayer.  Af-  ^^^  ^^^^^  possibility  is  that 
terward,  Costantini  proposed  ^^^  ^^^  ^^^S^  ^f  ^"^  ^^^V  ^f 
sending  a  telegram  to  the  Holy  ^^^^^  ^^^  carried  in  front  of  the 
Father  and  to  Cardinal  van  procession  in  the  form  of  a  portrait 
Rossum  in  Rome,  informing  and  the  invocations  were 
them  of  the  successful  gather-  repeated  in  front  of  it 
ing  of  most  of  those  invited.  ^^^^^^^^^^— ^^^-^—^ 
Those  who  had  not  arrived 

had  been  prevented  from  doing  so  because  of  sickness,  encounters  with 
robbers  on  the  journey,  or  rivers  in  flood  that  had  become  impassable.^^ 


The  journeys  of  the  bishops  of  Yunnan  and  Sichuan,  for  instance, 
is  illustrative  of  the  difficulties  involved: 

They  were  twenty  days  on  horseback,  until  they  came  to  the  nearest 
tributary  of  the  Yangtze;  then  by  raft,  sampan,  sailboat,  and  a  succession 
of  steamers  [they  traveled]  another  period  of  thirty-one  days  [and  even- 
tually] arrived  at  Shanghai.  They  traveled  downstream  all  the  way,  made 
unusually  quick  connections,  and  had  no  mishaps;  yet  the  trip  took  fifty- 
one  days.  Going  back  upstream  they  expect  to  make  it  in  slightly  over 
two  months.^^ 


^^The  Cistercian  monastery  became  famous  later  because  of  the  death 
march  forced  upon  the  monks  by  the  troops  of  the  Communist  Party's  Fifth 
Route  Army  in  the  late  1930s,  and  the  total  destruction  of  the  abbey.  See  James 
T.  Myers,  Enemies  without  Guns:  The  Catholic  Church  in  China  (New  York:  Paragon 
House,  1991),  1-13. 

^^See  "Le  Concile  Plenier  de  Shanghai,"  Les  Missions  de  Chine,  no.  130 
(June  1924):  202. 

^^Francis  X.  Ford,  "Report  on  the  General  Council  at  Shanghai,  June  1924," 
in  MaryknoU  Mission  Letter,  China,  II:  Extracts  from  the  Letters  and  Diaries  of  the 
Pioneer  Missioners  of  the  Catholic  Foreign  Mission  Society  of  America  (New  York: 
MacMillan,  1927),  344.  Ford,  who  later  became  a  bishop,  was  arrested  as  a  spy  in 
April  1951  and  died  in  1952  in  prison  in  Guangzhou.  See  Jean-Paul  Wiest,  Mary- 
knoll  in  China:  A  History,  1918-1955  (Armonk,  New  York:  M.  E.  Sharpe,  1988), 
395-401. 


38        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 


Although  the  council  was  able  to  inform  Ronie  almost  immedi- 
ately of  its  commencement,  traveling  within  China  could  still  take  more 
than  seven  weeks.  Plane  travel  over  the  Atlantic  Ocean  may  have  made 
the  world  appear  smaller  by  the  early  decades  of  the  twentieth  centu- 
ry, but  in  China  these  journeys  were  still  dauntingly  long.  The  fact  that 
the  council  members  were  even  able  to  come  together  was  a  remarkable 
achievement,  and  a  testimony  to  the  participants'  genuine  sense  of  mis- 
sion, whatever  lack  of  willingness  some  of  them  had  hitherto  shown  in 
adopting  new  ways  to  carry  out  this  mission. 

The  Chinese  church  leadership  that  did  manage  to  ford  rivers, 
survive  brigandage,  and  remain  healthy  enough  to  reach  Shanghai  was 
obviously  overwhelmingly  foreign  at  this  time,  the  recent  appointment 
of  two  Chinese  as  prefects  apostolic  notwithstanding.^^  The  very  pres- 
ence of  these  two  Chinese  priests,  nevertheless,  was  a  sign  of  the  chang- 
es that  were  being  wrought  by  the  leadership  of  Celso  Costantini  and 
Pius  XL  Costantini  had  increased  the  number  of  Chinese  representa- 
tives in  other  ways,  as  is  evident  in  the  list  of  those  who  were  present. 

In  addition  to  the  fifty-nine  vicars  and  prefects  apostolic,  there 
were  a  number  of  others  present  at  the  council  in  their  capacity  as  reli- 
gious superiors,  theologians,  or  consultants.  Given  that  Costantini  ap- 
pointed these  specialists,  it  is  no  surprise  to  find  the  names  of  at  least 
seven  other  Chinese  priests. ^^  He  had  also  requested  that  the  Chinese 
clergy  send  some  representatives  of  their  own  choosing. 

Consecrating  China  to  Mary 

One  of  the  council's  simplest  acts  brought  about  one  of  the  most 
significant  results.  This  act  also  gave  rise  to  the  profoundest  of  long- 
term  effects.  Simply,  the  council  unanimously  adopted  a  proposal  put 
forward  by  Costantini  that  they  consecrate  China  to  the  Most  Holy  Vir- 
gin Mary.^^  The  consecration  meant  that  the  church  leaders  were  plac- 


^^The  first  Chinese  bishops  since  the  seventeenth  century  were  ordained 
two  years  later,  in  1926,  at  St.  Peter's  in  Rome.  See  Pasquale  D'Elia,  Catholic  Na- 
tive Episcopacy  in  China  (Shanghai:  Tou-se-we  Printing  Press,  1927). 

^^Jean-Paul  Wiest  states  that  there  were  thirteen  Chinese  present.  Sun  and  Cheng 
and  eleven  others.  See  "Introduction,"  Collectanea  Commissionis  Synodalis  (Bethesda, 
Maryland:  CIS  Academic  Editions,  1988),  x;  but  the  memorial  of  the  council  lists  only 
seven,  in  addition  to  the  prefects  apostolic. 

^^See  de  Lapparent,  "Notre  Dame  de  Chine,"  359. 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         39 


ing  the  needs,  the  hopes,  and  the  prayers  of  their  communities  (and  the 
whole  of  the  Chinese  people)  at  the  feet  of  Mary  in  a  special  way,  seek- 
ing her  intercession  and  help. 

There  were  two  main  impulses  for  this:  the  strong  Marian  pieties 
that  had  spread  out  from  France  in  the  late-nineteenth  century  and  that 
had  taken  root  in  China,  and  the  belief  held  by  the  Chinese  Catholic 
communities  that  Mary  had  been  a  consistent  and  salvific  presence  in 
their  midst.  These  impulses  are  most  clearly  evident  in  the  story  of  the 
Donglu  painting  and  in  the  Sheshan  and  Donglu  pilgrimages.  Through 
this  act  of  consecration,  the  council  was  articulating,  and  indeed  recog- 
nizing in  the  deepest  symbolic  way  possible,  these  strong  devotions  and 
the  prevailing  belief  of  the  Chinese  Catholics. 

The  dedication  occurred  at  the  end  of  the  council,  on  June  11, 
1924.^°  After  each  bishop  prayed  for  his  own  diocese  or  vicariate,  all  the 
participants  read  out  a  common  formula  of  consecration.  A  French  Je- 
suit, Henri  Lecroart,  S.J.,  vicar  apostolic  of  Xianxian  (Hebei  province) 
had  composed  this  formula  in  French  and  in  Latin.  According  to  the 
common  ritual  form  of  such  prayers,  the  consecration  concluded  with  a 
threefold  invocation,  taking  the  form  of  three  statements,  each  of  which 
consisted  of  an  invitation  and  a  response.  The  first  two  invocations  were 
traditional  and  universally  applicable — ''Help  of  Christians,  pray  for 
us,''  and  "Mary,  mother  of  grace,  pray  for  us" — but  the  final  invocation 
was  entirely  new  and  was  specific  to  the  Chinese  people.  This  invita- 
tion was  "Heavenly  Queen  of  China."  With  one  voice  the  bishops  and 
priests  then  responded  in  Latin,  "Pray  for  us." 

Fittingly,  the  council  finished  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  which  ac- 
cording to  Christian  belief  celebrates  the  moment  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
descended  on  the  first  Christians,  giving  them  gifts  and  graces,  empow- 
ering them  to  go  to  all  nations  and  spread  the  good  news  in  all  languag- 
es (Acts  1:22 — 2:6).  In  1924  Pentecost  fell  on  June  12,  and  the  celebration 
took  place  at  Saint  Ignatius  Church,  Xujiahui.  Two  days  later,  Costan- 
tini  climbed  Sheshan.  He  was  accompanied  by  a  significant  number  of 
the  council  fathers,  even  though  some  of  the  bishops  had  already  begun 
their  journey  back  to  their  vicariates.  They  renewed  the  consecration, 
this  time  before  the  statue  of  Our  Lady  at  Sheshan. 

The  actual  image  used  at  Sheshan  was  not  identified  in  the  jour- 
nals of  the  time.  If  the  prayers  of  consecration  were  said  in  front  of  the 


'See  Ford,  "Report  on  the  General  Council  at  Shanghai,"  344. 


40        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 


shrine  halfway  up  the  hill  at  Sheshan,  then  the  image  would  have  been 
the  statue  of  Our  Lady  of  Lourdes,  as  this  was  in  the  pavilion  at  this  spot. 
If,  however,  the  prayers  of  consecration  were  said  in  the  church  on  the 
^^^^^— ^^^^^— ^^^— ^^^^^—  surmnit  of  the  hill,  then  it  was 
At  first  glance  it  is  tempting  to  intoned  in  front  of  one  of  two 

say  that  the  Our  Lady  ofDonglu  images,  a  statue  or  portrait  of 

painting  is  thus  more  European  ^^^  Lady  of  Victories  or  a  stat- 

in style  than  it  is  Chinese.  For  ^^  or  portrait  based  on  the  Our 

instance,  Mary  and] esus  both  Lady  Help  of  Christians  im- 

wear  jewel-encrusted  crowns,  ^S^-  ^^^  latter  image  was  re- 

traditional  symbols  of  European  produced  often  in  the  pre-1949 

royalty,  and  Mary  also  holds  a  Period  and  was  clearly  associ- 

scepter  in  her  hand.  ^^^^  ^ith  Sheshan.^^  One  other 

possibility  is  that  the  new  im- 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^~  age  of  Our  Lady  of  China  was 
carried  in  front  of  the  procession  in  the  form  of  a  portrait  and  the  invo- 
cations were  repeated  in  front  of  it.  Certainly,  the  famous  modem  image 
of  Our  Lady  of  Sheshan,  where  she  is  holding  Jesus  above  her  head,  had 
not  yet  come  into  being,  and  thus  could  not  have  been  used.^^ 

Given  the  descriptions  of  public  worship  recorded  above,  it  is  more 
than  likely  that  Costantini  led  the  gathered  faithful  behind  a  banner  or 
portrait  of  the  newly  designated  Our  Lady  of  China  image,  whether  or 
not  they  had  other  images  in  their  possession  (see  plate  1  on  p.  x).  Based 
on  modern-day  practice,  which  does  not  differ  greatly  from  what  was 
usual  before  1949,  the  entourage  would  have  paused  in  front  of  the  Mar- 
ian pavilion  half  way  up  the  hill,  where  the  new  prayers  would  have 
been  pronounced;  they  then  would  have  made  their  way  up  past  the 
Stations  of  the  Cross  intoning  the  rosary,  and  upon  entering  the  church 
they  would  have  placed  the  banner  or  portrait  at  the  front  of  the  church, 
perhaps  to  one  side  in  the  Marian  chapel.  There  it  would  have  been 
alongside  the  other  Marian  image  (or  images)  in  use  and  further  prayers 
would  have  been  recited.  Thus  the  new  devotion  was  not  displacing  the 
previous  ones,  even  physically,  but  was  being  placed  alongside  them. 


^^As  described  above.  It  was  associated  with  Sheshan  because  the  traditional 
feast  day  for  this  devotion.  May  24,  was  one  of  the  main  pilgrimage  days  for  the  Catho- 
lics. Each  year  thousands  visited  Sheshan  on  this  day. 

*^It  was  designed  when  the  new  basilica  at  Sheshan  was  opened  in  1935.  Construc- 
tion of  a  new  church  had  only  just  begun  in  the  year  prior  to  the  consecration,  in  1923. 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         41 

Whereas  in  China  there  had  already  been  the  beginnings  of  lo- 
cal Marian  devotions,  such  as  Our  Lady  of  Penha  and  Our  Lady  of 
Donglu/^  as  we've  seen,  there  were  still  many  shrines  that  represented 
foreign  devotions,  like  Our  Lady  of  Treille  and  so  on.  The  newer,  lo- 
calized pieties  had  arisen  out  of  the  experiences  of  the  people.  The  be- 
stowal of  additional  titles  upon  Mary  was  the  result  of  the  way  people 
sought  to  overlay  words  onto  these  experiences.  This  new  invocation. 
Our  Lady  Queen  of  China,  was  the  way  in  which  Costantini  and  the 
council  fathers  were  recognizing  the  special  Marian  identity  of  the  Chi- 
nese Catholic  communities.  In  so  doing  they  were  enunciating  on  a  na- 
tional scale  the  prayers  and  hopes  of  these  different  communities. 

By  creating  both  a  new  invocation  and  a  new  title,  the  council 
also  reinforced  the  Marian  identity  and  popularized  Marian  devotions 
even  further.  These  Marian  characteristics,  given  formal  approval  at 
the  council,  became  in  turn  an  even  more  readily  identifiable  feature 
of  the  Chinese  Catholic  church.  This  particularly  strong  local  devotion 
was  to  bind  the  Catholics  together  into  the  future  and  sustain  them  in 
difficult  times.  For  all  the  optimism  of  the  council,  its  members  were 
well  aware  that  their  communities  lived  constantly  with  the  threat  of 
persecution.  A  specifically  Chinese  devotion,  which  had  grown  out  of 
Chinese  Catholic  experiences,  was  therefore  all  the  more  attractive  to 
the  faithful. 

A  New  Image  for  a  New  Title 

New  titles  demand  new  images.  Costantini,  as  thoughtful  in  this 
as  he  was  in  other  regards,  visited  the  Tushanwan  orphanage  work- 
shops on  May  22,  1924,  when  the  council  had  already  begun  its  meet- 
ing. This  shows  that  the  consecration  of  the  church  to  Mary  sever- 
al weeks  later  (on  June  11)  was  already  in  his  plans.  At  Tushanwan 
Costantini  asked  to  see  their  collection  of  Marian  images  and  from  the 
many  presented  to  him,  he  was  attracted  to  the  image  that  Brother  Liu 
Dezhai  had  painted  in  1908,  namely  the  Donglu  portrait.^^  "We  must 
popularize  this  image,''  he  declared.^^  Father  Rene  Flament  willingly 


^^There  is  a  shrine  of  this  name  in  Macau.  This  shrine  was  the  first  site  of  Marian 
pilgrimage  in  China,  dating  back  to  1622.  See  Joseph  de  la  Largere,  "Les  pelerinages  a  La 
S.  Vierge  en  Chine,  Le  Bulletin  Catholique  de  Pekin,  no.  261  (May  1935). 

^Anonymous,  "Correspondence  et  Renseignements/'  Le  Bulletin  Catholique  de 
Pekin  (1941):  359-60. 

^  Ibid.,  360  (author's  translation). 


41        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 


consented  to  the  image  of  Our  Lady  of  Donglu  being  circulated  more 
widely  around  China  under  the  title  Our  Lady  of  China.  Costantini  de- 
manded that  a  large  number  of  these  images  be  printed  for  distribu- 
tion, and  they  were  to  be  ready  by  June  12,  the  anticipated  final  day  of 
the  council.  They  were  to  carry  the  Chinese  title,  Zhonghua  Shengmu 
(Our  Lady  [Holy  Mother]  of  China).^^ 

We  have  seen  earlier  how  the  thirteenth-century  images  of  Child- 
giving  Guanyin  seemingly  resembled  European  images  of  Mary  as  a  re- 
sult of  a  mixture  of  superscription  and  copying.  This  episode  from  the 
twentieth  century  likewise  shows  that  Europeans  also  engaged  in  such 
_^.^_i..i_i,.i^_^..i...^^.^^^^_       copying.  This  new  Marian  im- 

Seveml  other  key  Chinese  features  ^B^  ^^^^"^^  ^^1^  ^^^^  ^i^h- 
have  also  been  lost  over  the  years.  '^  China,  through  its  dissemi- 
Perhaps  the  most  significant  nation  as  holy  cards  and  as 

is  that  the  distant  mountains  mementos  of  ordinations  and 

visible  through  the  windows  in  through  reproductions  in  vari- 

the  earliest  reproductions  are  ous  church  magazines  and  jour- 

reminiscent  of  the  scenery  in  much  nals.  It  also  inspired  countless 
Chinese  landscape  painting.  other  versions  of  Chinese-style 

^..»^— ^^..—i— .ii—^— 1^-^^.  Marian  images.  This  was  espe- 
cially so  following  the  advent 
of  the  Christian  art  school  at  Furen  University  in  Beijing  in  the  next  de- 
cade.^^  Some  of  these  other  images  have  threatened  to  supplant  the  Don- 
glu image  as  the  one  most  usually  referred  to  as  Our  Lady  of  China.  This 
situation  has  caused  much  debate  in  some  Chinese  Catholic  circles.^^ 


^^Later  reproductions  also  carried  the  title  in  Italian,  Nostra  Signora  della  Cina, 
or  in  English,  Our  Lady  of  China. 

^^See  Chen  Shijie  John,  The  Rise  and  Fall  ofFu  Ren  University,  Beijing  (New  York 
and  London:  RoutledgeFalmer,  2004).  Technically,  this  city  was  called  Beiping  between 
the  years  1928  and  1949,  but  for  reasons  of  convenience  I  will  use  Beijing  when  referring 
to  the  national  capital. 

^^One  critic  of  other  images  is  the  Chinese  Catholic  Church  advocacy  agency,  the 
Cardinal  Kung  Foundation.  The  nephew  of  Cardinal  Gong,  Joseph  Kung,  founded  this 
group  after  his  arrival  in  the  United  States.  They  present  themselves  as  the  defender  of 
the  "persecuted"  Chinese  church,  and  as  opponents  to  any  recognition  of  the  officially 
registered  communities,  even  after  recent  papal  attempts  to  bring  about  reconciliation 
within  the  Chinese  Catholic  communities.  They  also  reject  attempts  to  apply  the  title 
Our  Lady  of  China  to  any  other  Marian  images. 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         43 


The  adoption  and  use  of  this  Donglu  image  by  the  council,  at  the 
prompting  of  the  Apostolic  Delegate,  guaranteed  its  official  status.  It 
was  given  even  greater  recognition  in  1928  when  Pius  XI  accepted  it  as 
the  image  to  accompany  the  devotion  to  Our  Lady  of  China.  This  ob- 
viously does  not  prevent  other  images  also  using  this  title,  but  strictly 
speaking,  just  as  there  is  an  accepted  iconographic  form  for  Our  Lady 
of  Lourdes  or  of  Our  Lady  of  Czestochowa,  for  instance,  so  too  is  the 
Donglu-derived  Our  Lady  of  China  the  model  to  which  others  either 
allude  or  from  which  they  depart. 

There  are  many  features  of  this  image  suggesting  that  Liu  drew 
on  European  paintings  for  his  inspiration.  Therefore  at  first  glance  it 
is  tempting  to  say  that  the  Our  Lady  of  Donglu  painting  is  thus  more 
European  in  style  than  it  is  Chinese.  For  instance,  Mary  and  Jesus  both 
wear  jewel-encrusted  crowns,  traditional  symbols  of  European  royal- 
ty, and  Mary  also  holds  a  scepter  in  her  hand.  Whereas  Katherine  Carl 
used  traditional  Chinese  symbols  of  authority  in  her  painting,  items 
like  phoenixes  and  dragons,  Liu  used  relatively  Western  symbols  to  in- 
dicate the  high  status  of  the  Madonna  and  Child.  Furthermore,  Mary's 
visage  was  not  especially  Chinese  and  the  face  of  Jesus  was  likewise 
decidedly  European.  The  floor  of  the  room  in  which  the  throne  is  situ- 
ated also  features  black  and  white  square  tiles  in  a  checkerboard  de- 
sign, reminiscent  of  numerous  Renaissance  paintings. ^^  While  it  is  pos- 
sible to  glimpse  background  scenery  through  the  windows  on  either 
side  of  the  backing  wall,  in  later  prints  the  terrain  and  the  flora  are  too 
indistinct  for  one  to  be  able  to  say  definitely  whether  the  scene  has  been 
set  in  Europe  or  in  China.^° 

Yet  a  close  examination  of  the  two  oldest  images — ordination  cards 
from  1933  and  1946  (see  plates  1  and  2  on  pp.  x  and  32) — show  that  Liu 
did  in  fact  fill  his  painting  with  many  Chinese  references.^^  While  the 
European  influences  are  undoubtedly  evident,  so  too  are  Chinese  ones. 


^^  See,  for  instance,  Giovanni  Bellini's  painting  of  the  Madonna  and  Child,  pro- 
duced in  1505,  which  is  in  the  church  of  San  Zaccaria,  Venice. 

^°I  am  hesitant  to  agree  with  Professor  Paul  Rule,  who  in  private  correspondence 
about  this  image,  says  that  the  scenery  "seems  distinctly  Italian." 

^^  These  two  cards  are  the  oldest  color  images  I  have  been  able  to  find.  One  is  the 
ordination  card  for  Charles  Simons,  S.J.,  and  the  other  for  John  J.  Brennan,  S.J.  There  is 
an  image  on  the  Cardinal  Kung  foundation  Website  that  purports  to  be  the  original  im- 
age, but  for  many  reasons  this  is  doubtful.  I  am  preparing  another  article  that  deals  with 
all  these  different  reproductions  from  an  art-historical  perspective.  A  more  common- 


44        *        Jeremy  Clarke,  S  J. 


Once  one  looks  for  these  influences,  it  is  possible  to  see  that  Liu  has 
very  successfully  taken  a  relatively  traditional  Western  religious  repre- 
sentation— Mary  and  Jesus  on  a  throne — and,  influenced  by  Carl's  use 
of  Chinese  symbolism,  has  created  something  new:  Our  Lady  of  China, 
Our  Lady  of  Donglu. 

These  Chinese  features,  which  have  been  lost  in  transmission  in 
later  reproductions,  include  the  manner  in  which  the  throne  is  depicted, 
the  design  featured  on  the  rear  wall,  the  pillars  that  buttress  the  back 
wall,  and  the  foliage  and  scenery  visible  through  the  rear  windows. 
There  are  again  subtle  differences  between  the  images  on  these  two  or- 
dination cards  that  suggest  that  Liu's  painting  had  become  a  prototype 
that  was  copied  over  and  over  by  the  artists  at  Tushanwan.^^ 

While  the  portrayal  of  Mary  seated  on  a  throne  was  a  common 
motif  in  European  religious  paintings,  Liu  Dezhai  translated  this  motif 
into  a  distinctively  Chinese  context.  For  instance,  just  as  the  unknown 
artist  at  Yangzhou  had  done  centuries  before  him,  Liu  Dezhai  used  a 
Chinese-style  seat  to  acculturate  this  image. ^^  Furthermore,  in  all  the 
images,  the  throne-seat  cushion  is  covered  in  red  Chinese  silk,  with  dec- 
orations imprinted  on  it. 

The  ornamentation  of  the  throne  is  likewise  significant.  The  earli- 
est extant  image,  Simons' s  ordination  card,  shows  an  elaborately  carved 
dragon  on  the  seat  back,  which  appears  to  be  riding  the  rail  of  the  seat 
with  a  pearl  clasped  in  one  of  its  claws.  These  Chinese  figurative  mo- 
tifs both  possess  imperial  symbolism.  The  pearl  also  represents  femi- 


ly  known  image  was  produced  by  the  Paris  Foreign  Mission  Society,  after  the  original 
print.  See  plate  3,  p.  34. 

^^It  is  known  that  one  way  students  at  Tushanwan  were  instructed  in  painting 
techniques  was  by  the  process  of  continuously  copying  old  paintings.  An  undated  pho- 
tograph from  the  archives  of  the  California  Jesuit  Province  shows  that  the  Donglu  Mary 
(which  by  the  time  of  the  photograph  could  already  have  become  Our  Lady  of  China) 
had  indeed  become  one  of  the  images  to  be  replicated  by  the  students. 

^3 Why  this  is  a  Chinese-style  seat,  as  opposed  to  something  that  could  be  found 
in  any  culture,  is  evident  in  a  technical  sense  for  those  with  the  knowledge  of  what  to 
look  for.  Such  detail  seems  extraneous  to  the  present  work,  so  I  refer  interested  readers 
to  C.  P.  Fitzgerald's  Barbarian  Beds:  The  Origin  of  the  Chair  in  China  (Canberra:  Australian 
National  University,  1965). 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         45 


nine  beauty  and  purity,  which  from  a  Christian  perspective  was  an  apt 
choice  for  a  painting  of  Mary^^ 

Although  the  seat  legs  on  the  earliest  images  were  also  noticeably 
Chinese  in  style,  by  the  time  of  the  latter  images  they  had  lost  this  dis- 
tinctiveness in  the  process  of  transmission.  The  curved  throne  leg  on  the 
Simons  card  seems  to  feature  an  elaborately  carved  lion,  while  the  sec- 
ond card  shows  a  simpler,  yet  arguably  more  elegant  design,  with  the 
beading  on  the  leg  twirling  into 
a  ruyi  mushroom  cloud  shape 

at  the  inside  top  and  bottom,  W/z^n  we  pray  with  contemporary 
which  in  the  language  of  Chi-  Chinese  Catholics  for  the  future 

nese  symbolism  is  a  symbol  of-  of  their  communities,  therefore, 

ten  associated  with  prosperity  ^ot  only  do  we  give  thanks  for 

and  good  fortune.  The  thrones  ^^^  ^^^1/  manifestations  of  God's 
on  other  cards  (see  plates  2  and  grandeur,  hut  we  can  thus  also 

3  on  pp.  32  and  34),  however,  recognize  the  contributions  of  our 
reveal  straight  legs  with  rather  forebears  and  the  richness 

geometrical  design  features.  It  of  our  own  past. 

is  ironic  therefore,  that,  by  the  ^^^^^^^_^__^^^«^^^— 
time  the  image  had  become 

generally  accepted  as  showing  a  Chinese  Mary  and  Child  Jesus,  several 
of  the  distinctive  Chinese  designs  had  been  lost  in  the  process  of  dupli- 
cation. It  is  thus  easy  to  see  how,  if  one  relies  on  later  reproductions,  one 
could  think  the  image  is  more  European  in  style  even  as  it  was  univer- 
sally regarded  as  a  Chinese  picture. 

Several  other  key  Chinese  features  have  also  been  lost  over  the 
years.  Perhaps  the  most  significant  is  that  the  distant  mountains  visible 
through  the  windows  in  the  earliest  reproductions  are  reminiscent  of 
the  scenery  in  much  Chinese  landscape  painting.  Other  noticeably  Chi- 
nese features  in  these  prints  are  the  Buddhist  pagoda  (a  id),  visible  in  the 
middle  distance  on  the  left-hand  side  of  both  images,  the  scholar  stone 
in  the  left-hand  foreground  in  the  Simons  image  (which  is  replaced  by 
a  tree  in  the  latter  images),  and  the  Chinese  buildings  in  the  middle  dis- 
tance, visible  in  both  reproductions.  Jesus  and  Mary  are  enthroned  on  a 
Chinese  seat,  surrounded  by  motifs  representing  good  fortune,  purity. 


^*  See  C.  A.  S.  Williams,  Chinese  Symbolism  and  Art  Motifs:  A  Comprehensive  Hand- 
hook  on  Symbolism  in  Chinese  Art  through  the  Ages  (North  Clarendon,  Va.:  Tuttle  Publish- 
ing, 2006).  This  is  a  later  edition. 


46        ^        Jeremy  Clarke,  S.J. 


and  beneficence,  and  through  the  windows  of  their  house  can  be  seen 
the  typical  countryside  of  China. 

V.  Conclusion 

The  development  of  Marian  spirituality  within  the  Chinese 
church  was  thus  something  that  both  nurtured  a  unique  Catho- 
lic identity  and  helped  bolster  that  emergent  identity.  Through- 
out this  long  process  artists  created  innovative  and  beautiful  images 
that  expressed  the  manner  in  which  the  Chinese  Catholic  communities 
had  evolved.  Thus,  in  the  beginning  these  images  drew  their  inspiration 
from  works  imported  from  afar,  while  later  they  reflected  the  influence 
of  local  traditions  or  events  that  had  taken  place  in  China.  In  the  tumul- 
tuous early  decades  of  the  twentieth  century,  this  process  culminated  in 
a  picture  of  our  Lady  at  home  in  China,  accepted  and  honored  by  the 
local  Catholics  as  their  patron.  Bearing  the  title  Our  Heavenly  Queen  of 
China,  the  officially  approved  and  domestically  produced  image  encap- 
sulated all  their  stories  of  deliverance,  their  places  of  pilgrimage,  and 
their  prayers  of  entreaty  and  praise. 

This  essay  has  attempted  to  show  that,  at  the  very  least,  the  So- 
ciety was  actively  involved  with  the  initial  shaping  of  such  an  iden- 
tity, the  subsequent  establishment  of  methods  to  nurture  it,  and  the 
encouragement  of  culturally  appropriate  ways  of  expressing  this  cen- 
tral feature  of  Chinese  Catholicism  through  artistic  forms.  While  there 
were  obviously  many  individuals  and  missionary  societies  involved 
in  this  process — and  thus  it  is  important  not  to  overstate  the  case — the 
Jesuit  involvement  was  nevertheless  important,  if  only  as  one  inipetus 
among  several. 

Such  Jesuit  involvement  occurred  in  part  because  of  the  Society's 
vibrant  tradition  of  Marian  piety,  including  its  strong  encouragement 
of  pilgrimages,  but  also  because  of  missiological  tactics  pursued  by  Je- 
suit raissionaries  and  the  local  Catholic  converts  in  both  the  pre-Sup- 
pression  and  post-Opium  War  periods.  These  decisions  were  part  of  an 
apostolic  program  that  valued  the  sponsorship  of  artistic  endeavor  not 
only  for  the  practical  purpose  of  providing  devotional  images  for  local 
faith  communities  (and  imparting  practical  skills  to  often  needy  indi- 
viduals in  the  process)  but  also  because  such  activities  in  the  realm  of 


Our  Lady  of  China        ^         47 

visual  culture  produced  objects  of  beauty  that  delighted  the  senses  and 
lifted  the  soul. 

In  doing  so,  the  church  in  China  articulated  its  identity,  and  the 
international  Church  received  beautiful  expressions  of  faith.  Although 
these  images  (and  the  influences  that  led  to  their  production)  may  seem 
far  away  and  long  ago,  they  are  nevertheless  reminders  of  the  vibrant 
ways  that  the  Christian  life  and  the  Christian  message  can  be  incarnat- 
ed in  all  cultures,  and  especially  in  China.  When  we  pray  with  contem- 
porary Chinese  Catholics  for  the  future  of  their  communities,  therefore, 
not  only  do  we  give  thanks  for  the  many  manifestations  of  God's  gran- 
deur, but  we  can  thus  also  recognize  the  contributions  of  our  forebears 
and  the  richness  of  our  own  past. 


Past  Issues  of  Studies  in  the  Spirituality  of  Jesuits 
Available  for  Sale 

(For  prices,  see  inside  back  cover.) 

1/1         Sheets,  Profile  of  the  Contemporary  Jesuit  (Sept.  1969) 

1  / 2        Ganss,  Authentic  Spiritual  Exercises:  History  and  Terminology  (Nov.  1969) 

2/1        Burke,  Institution  and  Person  (Feb.  1970) 

2/2        Futrell,  Ignatian  Discernment  (Apr.  1970) 

2/3        Lonergan,  Response  of  the  Jesuit  as  Priest  and  Apostle  (Sept.  1970) 

3/1        Wright,  Grace  of  Our  Founder  and  the  Grace  of  Our  Vocation  (Feb.  1971) 

3/2        O'Flaherty,  Some  Reflections  on  Jesuit  Commitment  (Apr.  1971) 

3/4        Toner,  A  Method  for  Communal  Discernment  of  God's  Will  (Sept.  1971) 

3/5        Sheets,  Toward  a  Theology  of  the  Religious  Life  (Nov.  1971) 

4/2        Two  Discussions:  I.  Spiritual  Direction,  II.  Leadership  and  Authority  (Mar.  1972) 

4/3        Orsy,  Some  Questions  about  the  Purpose  and  Scope  of  the  General  Congregation 

Qune  1972) 
4/4        Ganss,  Wright,  O'Malley,  O'Donovan,  Dulles,  On  Continuity  and  Change:  A 
Symposium  (Oct.  1972) 
5  / 1-2        O'Flaherty,  Renewal:  Call  and  Response  (Jan.-Mar.  1973) 
5  /  3        Arrupe,  McNaspy,  The  Place  of  Art  in  Jesuit  Life  (Apr.  1973) 
5/4        Haughey,  The  Pentecostal  Thing  and  Jesuits  (June  1973) 
5/5        Orsy,  Toward  a  Theological  Evaluation  of  Communal  Discernment  (Oct.  1973) 
6/3        Knight,  Joy  and  Judgment  in  Religious  Obedience  (Apr.  1974) 
7/1        Wright,  Ganss,  Orsy,  On  Thinking  with  the  Church  Today  (Jan.  1975) 
7/2        Ganss,  Christian  Life  Communities  from  the  Sodalities  (Mar.  1975) 
7/3        Connolly,  Contemporary  Spiritual  Direction:  Scope  and  Principles  (June  1975) 
715        Buckley,  The  Confirmation  of  a  Promise;  Padberg,  Continuity  and  Change  in 

General  Congregation  XXXII  (Nov.  1975) 
8/1         O'Neill,  Acatamiento:  Ignatian  Reverence  (Jan.  1976) 
8/2-3        De  la  Costa,  Sheridan,  and  others.  On  Becoming  Poor:  A  Symposium  on  Evan- 
gelical Poverty  (Mar.-May  1976) 
8/4        Faricy,  Jesuit  Community:  Community  of  Prayer  (Oct.  1976) 
9/1-2        Becker,  Changes  in  U.S.  Jesuit  Membership,  1958-75;  Others,  Reactions  and  Ex- 
planations (Jan.-Mar.  1977) 
9/4        Connolly,  Land,  Jesuit  Spiritualities  and  the  Struggle  for  Social  Justice  (Sept. 

1977). 
9/5        Gill,  A  Jesuit's  Account  of  Conscience  (Nov.  1977) 

10/1         Kammer,  "Burn-Out" —Dilemma  for  the  Jesuit  Social  Activist  (Jan.  1978) 
10/4        Harvanek,  Status  of  Obedience  in  the  Society  of  Jesus;  Others,  Reactions  to  Con- 
nolly-Land (Sept.  1978) 
11/1         Clancy,  Peeling  Bad  about  Peeling  Good  (Jan.  1979) 

11/2        Maruca,  Our  Personal  Witness  as  Power  to  Evangelize  Culture  (Mar.  1979) 
11/3        Klein,  American  Jesuits  and  the  Liturgy  (May  1979) 
11/5        Conwell,  The  Kamikaze  Factor:  Choosing  Jesuit  Ministries  (Nov.  1979) 
12/2        Henriot,  Appleyard,  Klein,  Living  Together  in  Mission:  A  Symposium  on  Small 

Apostolic  Communities  (Mar.  1980) 
12/3        Conwell,  Living  and  Dying  in  the  Society  of  Jesus  (May  1980) 


13/1         Peter,  Alcoholism  in  Jesuit  Life  (Jan.  1981) 

13/3        Ganss,  Towards  Understanding  the  Jesuit  Brothers'  Vocation  (May  1981) 
13/4        Reites,  St.  Ignatius  of  Loyola  and  the  Jews  (Sept.  1981) 
14/1        O'Malley,  The  Jesuits,  St.  Ignatius,  and  the  Counter  Reformation  (Jan.  1982) 
14/2        Dulles,  St.  Ignatius  and  Jesuit  Theological  Tradition  (Mar.  1982) 
14/4        Gray,  An  Experience  in  Ignatian  Government  (Sept.  1982) 
14/5        Ivem,  The  Future  of  Faith  and  Justice:  Review  of  Decree  Four  (Nov.  1982) 
15/1        O'MaUey,  The  Fourth  Vow  in  Its  Ignatian  Context  (Jan.  1983) 
15/2        Sullivan  and  Parley,  On  Making  the  Spiritual  Exercises  for  Renewal  of  Jesuit 
Charisms  (Mar.  1983) 
15/3-4        Padberg,  The  Society  True  to  Itself:  A  Brief  History  of  the  32nd  General  Congrega- 
tion of  the  Society  of  Jesus  (May-Sept.  1983) 
15/5-16/1      Tetlow,  Jesuits'  Mission  in  Higher  Education  (Nov.  1983-Jan.  1984) 

16/2        O'MaUey,  To  Travel  to  Any  Part  of  the  World:  Jeronimo  Nadal  and  the  Jesuit  Voca- 
tion (Mar.  1984) 
16/3        O'Hanlon,  Integration  of  Christian  Practices:  A  Western  Christian  Looks  East  (May 

1984) 
16/4        Carlson,  "A  Faith  Lived  Out  of  Doors":  Ongoing  Formation  (Sept.  1984) 
17/1        Spohn,  St.  Paul  on  Apostolic  Celibacy  and  the  Body  of  Christ  (Jan.  1985) 
17/2        Daley,  "In  Ten  Thousand  Places":  Christian  Universality  and  the  Jesuit  Mission 

(Mar.  1985) 
17/3        Tetlow,  Dialogue  on  the  Sexual  Maturing  of  Celibates  (May  1985) 
17/4        Spohn,  Coleman,  Clarke,  Henriot,  Jesuits  and  Peacemaking  (Sept.  1985) 
17/5        Kinerk,  When  Jesuits  Pray:  A  Perspective  on  the  Prayer  of  Apostolic  Persons  (Nov. 

1985) 
18/1         Gelpi,  The  Converting  Jesuit  (Jan.  1986). 

18/2        Beime,  Compass  and  Catalyst:  The  Ministry  of  Administration  (Mar.  1986) 
18/3        McCormick,  Bishops  as  Teachers  and  Jesuits  as  Listeners  (May  1986) 
18/5        Tetlow,  The  Transformation  of  Jesuit  Poverty  (Nov.  1986). 
19/1        Staudemnaier,  United  States  Technology  and  Adult  Commitment  (Jan.  1987) 
19/2        Appleyard,  Languages  We  Use:  Talking  about  Religious  Experience  (Mar.  1987) 
19/5        Endean,  Who  Do  You  Say  Ignatius  Is?  Jesuit  Fundamentalism  and  Beyond  (Nov. 

1987) 
20/1        Brackley,  Downward  Mobility:  Social  Implications  of  St.  Ignatius's  Two  Standards 

Qan.  1988) 
20  /  2        Padberg,  How  We  Live  Where  We  Live  (Mar.  1988) 

20/3        Hayes,  Padberg,  Staudenmaier,  Symbols,  Devotions,  and  Jesuits  (May  1988) 
20/4        McGovem,  Jesuit  Education  and  Jesuit  Spirituality  (Sept.  1988) 
20/5        Barry,  Jesuit  Formation  Today:  An  Invitation  to  Dialogue  and  Involvement  (Nov. 

1988) 
21/1        Wilson,  Where  Do  We  Belong?  United  States  Jesuits  and  Their  Memberships  (Jan. 

1989) 
21/2        Demoustier,  Calvez,  et  al..  The  Disturbing  Subject:  The  Option  for  the  Poor  (Mar. 

1989) 
21/3        Soukup,  Jesuit  Response  to  the  Communication  Revolution  (May  1989) 
22/1         Carroll,  The  Spiritual  Exercises  in  Everyday  Life  (Jan.  1990) 
22/2        Bracken,  Jesuit  Spirituality  from  a  Process  Prospective  (March  1990) 
22/3        Shepherd,  Fire  for  a  Weekend:  An  Experience  of  the  Exercises  (May  1990) 
22  /  4        O'Sullivan,  Trust  Your  Feelings,  but  Use  Your  Head  (Sept.  1990) 
22/5        Coleman,  A  Company  of  Critics:  Jesuits  and  the  Intellectual  Life  (Nov.  1990) 


23  / 1  Houdek,  The  Road  Too  Often  Traveled  Qan.  1991) 

23/3  Begheyn  and  Bogart,   A  Bibliography  on   St.   Ignatius's   Spiritual  Exercises 

(May  1991) 

23/4  Shelton,  Reflections  on  the  Mental  Health  of  Jesuits  (Sept.  1991) 

23/5  Toolan,  "Nature  Is  a  Heraclitean  Fire"  (Nov.  1991) 

24/1  Houdek,  Jesuit  Prayer  and  Jesuit  Ministry:  Context  and  Possibilities  (Jan.  1992) 

24/2  Smolich,  Testing  the  Water:  Jesuits  Accompanying  the  Poor  (March  1992) 

24/3  Hassel,  Jesus  Christ  Changing  Yesterday,  Today,  and  Forever  (May  1992) 

24/4  Shelton,  Toward  Healthy  Jesuit  Community  Living  (Sept.  1992) 

24/5  Cook,  Jesus'  Parables  and  the  Faith  That  Does  Justice  (Nov.  1992) 

25/3  Padberg,  Ignatius,  the  Popes,  and  Realistic  Reverence  (May  1993) 

25/4  Stahel,  Toward  General  Congregation  34  (Sept.  1993) 

25/5  Baldovin,  Christian  Liturgy:  An  Annotated  Bibliography  (Nov.  1993) 

26/2  Murphy,  The  Many  Ways  of  Justice  (March  1994) 

26/3  Staxidemnaier,  To  Fall  in  Love  with  the  World  {May  1994) 

26/5  Landy  Myths  That  Shape  Us  (Nov  1994) 

27/1  Daley,  "To  Be  More  like  Christ"  Qan.  1995) 

27/2  Schmidt,  Portraits  and  Landscapes  (March  1995) 

27/3  Stockhausen,  Td  Love  to,  but  I  Don't  Have  the  Time  (May  1995) 

27/4  Anderson,  Jesuits  in  Jail,  Ignatius  to  the  Present  (Sept.  1995) 

27/5  Shelton,  Friendship  in  Jesuit  Life  (Nov.  1995) 

28/1  Begheyn,  Bibliography  on  the  History  of  the  Jesuits  (Jan.  1996) 

28/3  Clooney,  In  Ten  Thousand  Places,  in  Every  Blade  of  Grass  (May  1996) 

28/4  Starkloff,  "As  Different  As  Night  and  Day"  (Sept.  1996) 

28/5  Beckett,  Listening  to  Our  History  (Nov.  1996) 

29/1  Hamm,  Preaching  Biblical  Justice  (Jan.  1997) 

29/2  Padberg,  The  Three  Forgotten  Founders  (March  1997) 

29/3  Byrne,  Jesuits  and  Parish  Ministry  (May  1997) 

29/4  Keenan,  Are  Informationes  Ethical?  (Sept.  1997) 

29 / 5  Ferlita,  The  Road  to  Bethlehem  —Is  It  Level  or  Winding?  (Nov.  1997) 

30/1  Shore,  The  "Vita  Christi"  ofLudolph  of  Saxony  and  Its  Influence  on  the  "Spiritual 

Exercises  of  Ignatius  of  Loyola"  (Jan.  1998) 

30/2  Starkloff,  "I'm  No  Theologian,  but...  (or  So...)?"  (March  1998) 

30/3  Torrens,  The  Word  That  Clamors  (May  1998) 

30/4  Petrik,  "Being  Sent"  (Sept.  1998) 

30/5  Jackson,  "One  and  the  Same  Vocation"  (Nov.  1998) 

31/1  Clifford,  Scripture  and  the  Exercises  (Jan.  1999) 

31/2  Toohig,  Physics  Research,  a  Search  for  God  (March  1999) 

31/3  Fagin,  Fidelity  in  the  Church— Then  and  Now  (May  1999) 

31/4  Schineller,  Pilgrim  Journey  of  Ignatius  (Sept.  1999) 

31/5  FuUam,  Juana,  S.J.:  Status  of  Women  in  the  Society  (Nov.  1999) 

32/1  Langan,  The  Good  of  Obedience  in  a  Culture  of  Autonomy  (Jan.  2000) 

32  /  2  Blake,  Listen  with  Your  Eyes  (March  2000) 

32/3  Shelton,  When  a  Jesuit  Counsels  Others  (May  2000) 

32/4  Barry,  Past,  Present,  and  Future  (Sept.  2000) 

32/5  Starkloff,  Pilgrimage  Re-envisioned  (Nov.  2000) 

33/1  Kolvenbach  et  al..  Faith,  Justice,  and  American  Jesuit  Higher  Education  (Jan. 

2001) 

33/2  Keenan,  Unexpected  Consequences:  Persons's  Christian  Directory  (March  2001) 

33/3  Arrupe,  Trinitarian  Inspiration  of  the  Ignatian  Charism  (May  2001) 

33/4  Veale,  Saint  Ignatius  Asks,  "Are  You  Sure  You  Know  Who  I  Am?"  (Sept.  2001) 


33/5  Barry  and  Keenan,  How  Multicultural  Are  We?  (Nov.  2001) 

34  / 1  Blake,  "City  of  the  Living  God  "  (Jan.  2002) 

34/2  Clooney,  A  Charism  for  Dialog  (March  2002) 

34/3  Rehg,  Christian  Mindfulness  (May  2002) 

34/4  Brackley,  Expanding  the  Shrunken  Soul  (Sept.  2002) 

34/5  Bireley,  The  Jesuits  and  Politics  in  Time  of  War  (Nov.  2002) 

35/1  Barry,  Jesuit  Spirituality  for  the  Whole  of  Life  (Jan.  2003) 

35/2  Madden /Janssens,  The  Training  of  Ours  in  the  Sacred  Liturgy  (March  2003) 

35/4  Modras,  A  Jesuit  in  the  Crucible  (Sept.  2003) 

35/5  Lucas,  Virtual  Vessels,  Mystical  Signs  (Nov.  2003) 

36/1  Rausch,  Christian  Life  Communities  for  Jesuit  University  Students?  (Spring 

2004) 

36/2  Bernauer,  The  Holocaust  and  the  Search  for  Forgiveness  (Summer  2004) 

36/3  Nantais,  "Whatever! "  Is  Not  Ignatian  Indifference  (Fall  2004) 

36/4  Lukacs,  The  Incarnational  Dynamic  of  the  Constitutions  (Winter  2004) 

37/1  Smolarski,  Jesuits  on  the  Moon  (Spring  2005) 

37/2  McDonough,  Clenched  Fist  or  Open  Hands?  (Summer  2005) 

37/3  Torrens,  Tuskegee  Years  (Fall  2005) 

37/4  O'Brien,  Consolation  in  Action  (Winter  2005) 

38/1  Schineller,  In  Their  Own  Words  (Spring  2006) 

38/2  Jackson,  "Something  that  happened  to  me  at  Manresa"  (Summer  2006) 

38/3  Reiser,  Locating  the  Grace  of  the  Fourth  Week  (Fall  2006) 

38/4  O'Malley,  Five  Missions  of  the  Jesuit  Charism  (Winter  2006) 

39/1  McKevitt,  Italian  Jesuits  in  Maryland  (Spring  2007) 

39/2  Kelly,  Loved  into  Freedom  and  Service  {Summer  2007 

39/3  Kennedy,  Music  and  the  Jesuit  Mission  (Autumn  2007) 

39/4  Creed,  Jesuits  and  the  Homeless  (Winter  2007) 

40  / 1  Giard,  The  Jesuit  College  (Spring  2008) 

40/2  Au,  Ignatian  Service  (Summer  2008) 

40/3  Kaslyn,  Jesuit  Ministry  of  Publishing  (Autunm  2008) 

40/4  Rehg,  Value  and  Viability  of  the  Jesuit  Brothers'  Vocation  (Winter  2008) 

41/1  Friedrich,  Governance  in  the  Society  of  Jesus,  1540-1773  (Spring  2009) 

41/2  Manuel,  Living  Chastity  (Summer  2009 

41/3  Clarke,  Our  Lady  of  China  (Autumn  2009) 


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Fax:    617-552-0925  E-mail:  ijs@jesuitsources.com 

E-mail:  fleminpb@bc.edu 


►  SINGLE  ISSUES  (Current  or  Past): 

The  price  for  single  copies  of  current  or  past  issues  is  $4.00,  plus 
postage  and  handling  charges.  Double  issues  (for  example,  5/1-2,  8/2-3,  9/1-2, 
etc.)  are  $7.50  each,  plus  postage  and  handling. 


The  Institute  of  Jesuit  Sources 

The  Seminar  on  Jesuit  Spirituality 

3601  Lindell  Boulevard 

St.  Louis,  MO  63108-3393 


Non  Profit  Org. 

US  Postage 

PAID 

Kansas  City  MC 

Permit  6654 


Address  Service  Requested 


Boston  College  Library 
eill  Serials 
Boston  College 
Chestnut  HII!  MA  02467 


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