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Native Voices in Catholic Asia: Self-representation of Religious Identities in the 17th-19th Centuries
Organizer: Nhung Tuyet Tran, University of Toronto
Chair and Discussant: Felice Noelle Rodriguez, Independent Scholar
While the scholarship on comparative conversion has multiplied manifold in the last two decades, studies that explicitly examine the experiences of Catholics in Asia remain limited to the perspectives of European missionaries and observers. Moreover, most studies of Asian Catholicism are limited to a particular nation-state and limited to singular methodologies. This panel seeks to transcend these features of the scholarship on Asian Catholicism by exploring the experiences of Asian Catholics from a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary perspective and through their own words. Because scholarly rigor demand linguistic and local experience in particular geographic space, each of the presenters bring to the discussion case studies of Catholic experiences in India, Vietnam, China, and East Timor. The panel begins with Dr. Father Leonard Fernando, S.J.’s examination of the experiences of Indian Catholics in the long durée and assessment of the impact of the faith on the converts. Each of the following papers then present a case study of the formation and representation of Catholic identities from Vietnam, China, and East Timor. Drawing from sources as varied as official edicts, convert letters, religious texts and oral tradition, the papers bridge the divides between history, anthropology, and religious studies to lift out the voices of indigenous believers. As an expert on the history of Catholicism in the Philippines, the Chair and Discussant, Dr. Felice Noelle Rodriguez will provide comment based on her own research on conversion experiences in the Philippines. The focus of this panel and its interdisciplinary perspectives position it well as a “border crossing” panel for the Annual Meeting.
Belief, Ritual and Local Practice in Experiences of Indian Catholicism
Leonard Fernando, Vidyajyoti Theological College, India
This paper explores the impact that Indian Catholicism has had on the economic and social history of South Asia. Indian Catholics trace the origins of their faith to the apostles Thomas and Bartholomew, and in the long history of the religion in the region, has spread unevenly in each of the communities. This paper will contrast the differences in practices in three different ritual communities of Catholicism, focusing on how the localization of Catholicism in Indian contexts—in particular its dialogues with those from other religious traditions--has contributed to the educational, scientific and medical development in the country. The second portion of his paper will explore the Catholic ashram movement in India as a strength of the diversity and syncretic flavor of the religion.
A Shifting Mirror: Faces of Vietnamese Catholics in the Early Modern Period
Nhung Tuyet Tran, University of Toronto
What did it mean to be a Catholic in early modern Vietnam? While the scholarship on Vietnamese Catholicism is relatively rich in examining the influence of missionaries to the area, most works privilege the links between the transmission of the religion and the formal imposition of French imperial power in the area, and ignore converts’ experiences. To some extent, the task of examining the experiences of locals is hindered by the availability of sources, which have hitherto been limited to European observations of the converted. The recent availability of sources written in the vernacular enables us to explore the experience of conversion and faith through the eyes of the converts themselves. Through the use of letters, testimonies of faith, testimonies and public trials, this paper seeks to identify the experiences of converts in this tumultuous period in Vietnamese history. Did Vietnamese Catholics represent themselves as a part of a wider, community of faith, or were there competing loyalties that defined their positionalities? Given the immense cultural and geographic diversity in the two Vietnamese realms of the period, did natal place and the location of conversion affect one’s perception of self as a Catholic (or a ‘Vietnamese’)? Based on sources written in the Vietnamese demotic script (nom) and romanized Vietnamese, this paper seeks to examine what these converts experienced during conversion and as a member of various communities of kin, location, and faith.
Wanted: An Eighteenth-century Chinese Catholic Priest in China, Europe, India
Eugenio Menegon, Boston University
This paper explores the life of Cai Ruoxiang (1739-1806), alias Pietro Zay, a native of southern Fujian (China) who was trained as a priest in the Chinese College of Naples (Italy), and returned to China after being examined and approved by Pope Clement XIII in person for his mission. Cai quietly worked for over a decade in central China as an underground missionary, but became in 1784 the "number one" on the list of wanted criminals in an empire-wide anti-Christian campaign launched by the Qianlong emperor and his governors. In spite of hefty rewards put on his head and accompanied by his "mug-shot" portrait, however, he was able to avoid the imperial wrath by sailing to Goa (India). From there he traveled back to southern China under a new name, Giovanni Maria Ly, passing through Siam, the kingdom of Kedah in Malaysia, Batavia and Tonkin, and spent the rest of his life, until his death in 1806, working again in central China. Around sixty letters left by Cai in European archives and used in this paper reveal how a native priest interpreted his own evangelical work. Moreover they show how he manipulated the European church and state establishments to navigate a difficult life as an underground minister, as a "criminal," and as a native leader in an increasingly indigenized Chinese-Christian community. This paper thus contributes to an understanding of the self-image and identity of Chinese Catholics in late imperial China, as both part of a global network and a local place.
Catholicism, Education, and Identity on the Island of Flores
Catherine Husbands, University of California, Los Angeles
Prior to Indonesian independence, Catholicism was the cornerstone for all education in Flores. This paper traces the establishment and expansion of the education system on Flores and examines how this system affected political identities of a newly-emerging Florenese educated elite and how they represented themselves. The early education system prepared children of the local elite for baptism. After learning basic catechism and being baptized, those most gifted returned to their villages as religion teachers. Gradually, as the education system developed, these same religion teachers became the teachers in elementary schools, and taught reading with school books based upon biblical stories. The missionaries determined who would continue their education. A select few were sent by the Church to schools outside Flores with the expectation they would return to work in Flores. Others attended the seminary to become brothers and priests, or to the convent to become nuns. Whereas nationalist movements were sprouting up across Indonesia during the same period, Florenese elites remained loyal to the Dutch and it was not until well after independence that the majority of Florenese educated elites accepted their integration into the larger Indonesian nation—via a national Catholic political party. This paper argues that this Catholic dominance of the primary and secondary education system contributed significantly to this political identity. The educated were taught they were citizens of a Catholic world, rather than members of an autonomous Asian nation.