House of Giorgis, rock-hewn church in Lalibela, Ethiopia.Richard Abeles/Rex USA
For centuries the Catholic missionary effort in Africa was hampered by the Atlantic slave trade and by the missionaries’ association with European colonization. After about 1800, however, evangelization was vigorously renewed. Catholic missionaries had little success in western and southern Africa, where British and Dutch Protestant evangelists had preceded them, but they fared better in other parts of the continent. An archbishopric was established in Algiers, and in 1868 Archbishop Charles Lavigerie founded the White Fathers, an energetic order of missionaries whose name derived from their white cassocks. The order was quite successful in East Africa; many Africans joined it, and the first modern African Catholic bishop was a White Father. Another order, the Holy Ghost Fathers, established a settlement for freed slaves in Bagamoyo (in present-day Tanzania). Catholic missionaries also moved into Central Africa, and by 1900 there were some two million Catholics south of the Sahara.
The church expanded in Africa during the 20th century, improving its efforts in education and ministry and increasing the number of African priests and bishops to minister to the faithful, whose numbers grew to nearly 140 million by the early 21st century. The Catholic church was the first Christian denomination to staff an entire diocese with African clergy, and several Africans were raised to the rank of cardinal by the popes. Further profound changes resulted from the process of decolonization. In the 1950s and ’60s, when the countries of Africa gained their independence, Catholics and other Christians played important roles in the development of new states such as Tanzania. The church’s traditional support for education was an influential factor in its success, and in the 1990s many governments turned to the church to help them run their educational systems. In the generations following independence, the church often found itself defending the disenfranchised and opposing repressive military regimes. The church’s advocacy did not come without cost, however, as large numbers of Catholic clergy were murdered in the civil disorders that plagued the continent.
Rubaga Cathedral (also known as St. Mary's Catholic Cathedral) in Kampala, Uganda.Picturepoint, London
As it struggled to establish its place in postcolonial Africa, the church also responded to the challenges posed by Vatican II. Indeed, the African church was particularly open to some of the changes recommended by the council. Having previously taken steps toward Africanizing the hierarchy, the church redoubled its efforts in that regard. Although in competition with Muslim leaders for converts, African Catholic leaders such as the influential Nigerian cardinal Francis Arinze also pursued interfaith dialogue. African vernaculars replaced the traditional Latin of the mass, and the process of “inculturation” resulted in the incorporation into the liturgy of African traditions in music and dance. At the start of the 21st century, the church in Africa was one of the most dynamic churches of postconciliar Catholicism and was poised for continued growth and wider influence. Missions in Asia
In Asia, Catholicism profited from Portuguese and Spanish adventures beginning in the 16th century. In that part of the world, however, the church faced unique challenges. Asians had not had contact, as Muslims had, with biblical views of history and destiny. Buddhists, Daoists, Confucians, and Hindus were devoted to worldviews uncongenial to Western attitudes toward God, time, and history. In the encounter, Catholics vigorously debated the permissible degrees of accommodation to Asian views of life, rituals, and religious concepts.
In India there were traces of missionary activities from premodern centuries (e.g., the Malabar Christians), and Catholicism here and there succeeded in finding new bases. But the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV removed from the scene the most assertive group of Catholic missionaries at the most inopportune moment. However, in Indochina, in what is now Vietnam, Catholicism flourished despite persecution.
Catholic missionaries arrived in Japan in the 16th century at the time that European traders began making contact with the islands. The Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier made the first converts in Japan in 1547 and founded Catholic communities in several Japanese cities. Other missionaries followed during the second half of the 16th century. They were supported by some Japanese nobles and began to have success on the island of Kyushu and other parts of the south, establishing the faith in cities such as Nagasaki and Kyōto. A college and two seminaries were founded, and the first efforts at organizing the church were made. By the end of the century, however, opposition from Japanese Buddhists and others had limited the spread of the faith, and several missionaries and Japanese Catholics had suffered martyrdom. In the 17th century widespread persecution of Catholics began, and the church was officially suppressed.
Oura Roman Catholic Church, Nagasaki, Japan.Orion Press, Japan
Roman Catholicism in Japan enjoyed more-lasting success in the 19th and 20th centuries, despite occasional setbacks. Catholic and other Christian missionaries returned to the country after Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853–54 forced Japan to allow entry to foreigners. These missionaries made contact with descendants of 17th-century Christians and sought new converts. The reappearance of missionaries led to a wave of persecution and the exile of thousands of Catholics. Government policy, however, was quickly reversed and religious freedom was established throughout the country. Catholic seminaries and other institutions were introduced to Japan, and religious orders of men and women began establishing communities there late in the 19th century. Pope Leo XIII established the Japanese church hierarchy in 1891, and Catholic secondary schools and a university were founded in the late 19th and the early 20th century. The rise of Japanese militarism and imperialism during the first half of the 20th century brought renewed hardship to the church. The Catholic church in Japan suffered during World War II, as did all of the country, and in 1945 Nagasaki, the oldest centre of Catholicism in Japan, was largely destroyed when an atomic bomb was dropped on it. After the war the church grew once again, thanks to the guarantee of religious freedom in the new constitution. In the generations following the Second Vatican Council, the church made greater efforts to adapt to Japanese culture, which were reinforced by Pope John Paul II’s visit to Japan in 1981 and by subsequent initiatives during his long reign.
China, unlike Japan, was visited early by Christian missionaries; Nestorian Christians had arrived already in the 7th century. The first Catholic missionaries, however, began preaching in China only in the late 13th century, when the Franciscan Giovanni da Montecorvino was welcomed by the khan (the Mongol ruler of China). A small number of missionaries followed in the 14th century and, like Montecorvino, baptized members of the foreign ruling elite and built churches and other Catholic institutions. However, the failure to convert indigenous Chinese and an interruption in the arrival of missionaries from Europe led to the virtual disappearance of the faith by the end of the 14th century.
A more lasting Catholic presence in China was established by Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century. Francis Xavier inspired the first Jesuit mission to China, though he died before reaching the Chinese mainland. Adopting Xavier’s approach of preaching to the Chinese on their own terms, Matteo Ricci and other missionaries adopted the dress of Confucian scholars and gained the respect of the Confucians through discussion and display of scientific knowledge. In the 17th century the Jesuits were joined by various other religious orders, including Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians. Despite jurisdictional disputes and competition for converts, missionary activity extended into nearly every Chinese province. The deposition of the Ming dynasty and the establishment of the Qing dynasty—which adopted a less tolerant attitude toward the missionaries, especially after the church forbade Chinese converts from continuing the indigenous practice of honouring Confucius and family ancestors, during the Chinese Rites Controversy—helped to bring a successful period of missionary activity in China to an end. During the 18th century, preaching and converting to Christianity were prohibited, the church was persecuted, and the number of Chinese Christians declined dramatically.