Catholic Church in Sichuan

Catholic Church in Sichuan
Clockwise from upper left: coat of arms of the Diocese of Chengdu; St. Joseph's Cathedral, Chongqing; Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Chengdu.
Classification	Catholic
Orientation	Latin
Scripture	Catholic Bible
Theology	Catholic theology
Polity	Episcopal
Governance	CPC and BCCCC [zh] (controversial)
Pope	Francis
Archbishop of Chongqing	Sede vacante
Region	Sichuan, Chongqing, as well as Tibet Autonomous Region and part of northwestern Yunnan under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Kangding[a]
Language	Sichuanese, Chinese, English, Latin
Headquarters	Chengdu, Sichuan
Founder	Lodovico Buglio Gabriel de Magalhães François Pottier [fr]
Origin	1640 (384 years ago) (1640) Chengdu, Sichuan, Ming empire

The presence of the Catholic Church in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan^[b] and city of Chongqing^[c] dates back to 1640, when two missionaries, Lodovico Buglio and Gabriel de Magalhães, through Jesuit missions in China, entered the province and spent much of the 1640s evangelizing in Chengdu and its surrounding areas.^[1]

The Basset–Su Chinese New Testament produced in Chengdu by the French missionary Jean Basset and the Sichuanese convert Johan Su during the first decade of the 18th century, became the prototype for Protestant Bible translations done by Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China in the early 19th century, which paved the way for the entire Protestant missionary enterprise in the country.^[2]

In 1724, Yongzheng Emperor's "Amplified instructions on the Sacred Edict" proscribed Christianity in the Manchu-led Qing empire and declared European missionaries personae non gratae. Catholics in Sichuan found a way to muddle through without ordained priests. When the imperial authorities became increasingly paranoid and were convinced that Catholics were members of a "heretical" organization —as contrasted with state-supported Confucianism— which might threaten the empire's order and rule, district magistrates found it convenient to manipulate non-Catholic communities against the Catholics, leading to discrimination as well as social and political pressure against Catholic families. In consequence of this persecution, a considerable number of Catholics withdrew into the remote mountains and hinterlands of western Sichuan, becoming "hidden Christians" whom were mistaken for Buddhists by European missionaries after the legalization of Christian missions in 1858.^[3]

Nevertheless, by 1870, the Catholic Church in Sichuan had 80,000 baptized members, which was the largest number of Catholics in the entire country. By 1911, the number increased to 118,724 members.^[4] Throughout its ecclesiastical history, Sichuan was one of the hotbeds of anti-missionary riots in China.^[5]

Following the fall of mainland China to communism in late 1949, and the subsequent establishment of the state-sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Church (CPC), the Church in Sichuan, as well as in other provinces, has been subjected to the control of the CPC since 1957, which generated controversy between the Holy See and the People's Republic of China, and created a schism between CPC Catholics and those who remain loyal to Rome. The latter are commonly referred to as loyal church or "underground church" Catholics.^[6]

According to 2011 data, Catholics in the dioceses of Chengdu, Shunqing, Jiading, Suifu, Ningyuan numbered 110,000, 80,000, 60,000, 30,000 and 30,000 people, respectively, making a total of 310,000 faithful.^[7] This data did not include Catholics in Chongqing (dioceses of Chongqing and Wanxian) and Tibet (Diocese of Kangding), due to the separation of Chongqing from Sichuan in 1997 and the diocesan jurisdiction changes took place in the 1980s and the 1990s.^[8]

Despite the Diocese of Chengdu being the oldest bishopric in Sichuan, the primate of the province is the Archbishop of Chongqing, with his seat at St. Joseph's Cathedral. The post has been vacant since the last Archbishop Peter Luo Beizhan [no] died in 2001.^[9]

While works on the Catholic missions in the imperial Chinese capitals are abundant (e.g., Chang'an, Khanbaliq/Karakorum, Nanjing, Beijing), Catholicism in Sichuan has seldom been the focus of study.^[3]

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