The Catholic Invasion of China: Remaking Chinese Christianity by D. E. Mungello (review)

have? Nevertheless, the book’s individual articles should not be expected to tackle these broad methodological questions; their scopes are clearly set on decidedly narrower targets, which they regularly strike with fine precision. STUART H. YOUNG Bucknell University D. E. MUNGELLO, The Catholic Invasion of China: Remaking Chinese Christianity. Lanham, MD, Boulder, New York, and London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. xviii, 175 pp. US$40 (hb). ISBN 978-1-4422-5048-2 The title of D. E. Mungello’s book on the history of the Roman Catholic Church in China is arresting. Official policies and attitudes towards Christianity in China have substantially liberalized over the last thirty-five years, but representatives of authorized churches and government organs still regularly associate it with “foreign invasion ” or “foreign aggression” (waiguo qinlüe 外國侵略). Curiously, the author never explicitly addresses the resonance (and dissonance) of his arguments with this line. In exploring the relationship between the Catholic missions and Western imperialism , Mungello argues that the (mostly French) Jesuits who proselytized in China between 1842 and the early 1950s adopted culturally insensitive and even downright racist attitudes and practices. This was in contrast to their late Ming and early to mid-Qing predecessors (1580–1787), and reflected shifts in international power relations; during the mid-nineteenth century, the “unequal treaties” following the Opium Wars humbled China and endowed the foreigners with greater power. The later Jesuits’ presumptuousness was a source of tension with Christians in the Jiangnan 江南 region, to the extent that the missionaries in fact impeded the growth of the Catholic Church in China (p. 37)—only in 1926 were the first Chinese bishops consecrated! A turning point came in the 1950s, as Communist policies demanded indigenous control of Christian churches. The formation of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association in 1957 came at great cost, however. Even Catholic orphanages came under attack during this decade, as nuns and priests were accused of murdering or neglecting children in their care. The book shows how the schisms that emerged during the 1950s have persisted to the present era, as epitomized by the divergent paths of Cardinal Ignatius Gong Pinmei 龔品梅 (1901–2000), who resisted the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Church and was secretly made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1979, and Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian 金魯賢 (1916– 2013), who became bishop of Shanghai in the early 1980s without Vatican approval (pp. 64–69). The book’s treatment of allegations of sexual seduction and assault that have been made against foreign priests is less satisfying. The author acknowledges that some priests in China had sexual relations with their parishioners (pp. 93–94). This admission, however, is tempered by the suggestion in relation to one case study that because “the specific accusations [of rape] lack credible evidence” they belong “more to the realm of sexual titillation than reality” (p. 108). Rather, Mungello suggests that an equally plausible explanation for the accusations is that “[t]he BOOK REVIEWS 193 exotic fantasy of having sexual relations with someone of a very different culture or race has an enduring power in human history” (p. 108). The ease with which this conclusion is reached sits uncomfortably with this reader; at the least, some reference to relevant secondary sources seems called for. A broader observation is that the meticulous research behind this book could be tied together more effectively. Consultation of sources in multiple languages (French, German, Italian, Chinese) yields fine detail about assorted foreign priests, institutions , and Chinese individuals such as Confucian Catholic Ma Xiangbo (馬相伯, 1840–1939) and martyr Zhang Boda (Beda Chang 張伯達, SJ, 1905–1951). The limitations of these sources and subjects are expertly identified. However, the strands of information are frequently not clearly linked to a larger argument or narrative , and so their significance is left to the reader to deduce (for example, the ends of chapters 3 and 5). How do the various instances of missionary chauvinism and allegations of sexual impropriety and child neglect dotted between 1842 and 2000 relate to each other? The organizing argument offered in the introductory and concluding chapters is that the foreigners “generated consequences that helped to transform a mission church into an indigenous religion” (p. 116). The “consequences” and the mechanics of the...