Introduction
The Roman Catholic Church officially began its mission in Hong Kong in 1841. This was before the signing of the Nanjing Treaty between China and the United Kingdom in 1842, which included the cession of Hong Kong Island to the British. In early 1841, British troops already occupied the island and among them were many Irish Catholics who urgently required spiritual care because of illness and psychological needs. In response, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (SCPF, also known as Propaganda Fide) in Rome, which directed missionary activity for the Catholic Church, issued a decree in April 1841 that designated the island a Prefecture Apostolic. This gave Hong Kong a juridical status in the Roman Catholic Church for beginning the process of evangelization. 1 The first Catholic priest to come to stay permanently in the colony was Fr. Michael Navarro, a Spanish Franciscan, who arrived in January 1842. The first Prefect Apostolic was Fr. Theodore Joset, who had served in Macau. He arrived in March 1842, and died in August of the same year. Fr. Antonio Feliciani, an Italian Franciscan, succeeded him as the second Prefect Apostolic. Initially, the Catholic community was made up mainly of Irish soldiers. Nevertheless, the missionariesâ undertaking was the evangelization of the local Chinese.
One after another, foreign missionary societies and congregations came to the British colony. This chapter lists the first three congregations of foreign missionary sisters to arrive in Hong Kong. The Catholic sisters shouldered the tasks of providing education, childcare, medical services and doing parish work. The French Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres arrived in Hong Kong in 1848, and the Italian Canossian Sisters had arrived by 1860. Due to the enormous difficulties that the Prefect Apostolic, Fr. Luigi Ambrosi, had encountered in the local mission, the Italian sisters were asked to help out in the colony. 2 In a letter to the colonial government in 1865, Fr. Ambrosi described the foreign sisters as arriving in Hong Kong for âreligious and charitable purposes.â 3 He claimed that the congregations of French and Italian sisters were religious and charitable institutions. This was how the Catholic Mission explained the nature and motives of the Catholic sisters in the colony. Subsequently, in 1874, as Hong Kong grew, Rome raised the status of the Hong Kong Church to a Vicariate Apostolic.
The 1920s was a decade of political movements in mainland China and Hong Kong. In 1922, the Seamenâs Strike broke out in Hong Kong with the assistance of workers in Guangzhou. In 1925, the May Thirtieth Movement against Western imperialism spread from Shanghai to cities nationwide. Internally, there was civil strife between the Nationalist Party under Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which took every opportunity to expand its membership and influence since its founding in 1921. The Catholic Church faced challenges amid social tension and hostilities. The American Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic, who arrived in 1921, were the third womenâs religious congregation to reach Hong Kong. They struggled to survive the acute situation resulting from the strike in 1922.
Local Study of Chinese Sisters
This book is a local study of a congregation of Chinese sisters that recounts the evolution of the individual women, their community, and the Catholic Church from diversity to unity and from 1922 to 1973. The foundation of the Chinese sisters began shortly after the arrival of the Canossian Sisters, as the Italians needed help in communicating with the locals. Nevertheless, it was only in the early 1920s that these Chinese women obtained their full autonomy as a religious group separate from the Canossian Sisters as the Chinese Sisters of the Precious Bloodâthe fourth congregation of sisters in Hong Kong.
The Chinese Sisters of the Precious Blood became an independent congregation in 1922, when Hong Kong was a Vicariate Apostolic which included the Baoâan, Huiyang, and Haifeng districts of Guangdong Province. The Vicariate Apostolic was under the Italian leadership of the third Vicar Apostolic, Bishop Dominico Pozzoni, from the Foreign Missions of Milan (Missioni Estere di Milano, MEM). Since that time, the Precious Blood Sisters have remained the first and only locally founded congregation of Chinese sisters in Hong Kong. Their ethnicity and beginnings have distinguished them from other women religious, and they are exceptional in that they have remained exclusively Chinese in devoting themselves to life-long service to their own society. Gradually, some of them served in Macau, Taiwan, and mainland China, and others eventually have been working in foreign countries.
This book is distinctive as a local study of the Catholic Church in the Chinese society of Hong Kong, whose population had been over 90 % Chinese. It is also distinctive as a study of a minority in society: it reveals the transformation of a minority of Chinese sisters within the minority of the Catholic population in Hong Kong. Initially, only one or two of the Chinese sisters were educated while the rest only received some very basic education. These sisters evolved from being subordinate to the Italian missionaries to becoming independent in the early 1920s and from being poorly educated to attaining professional education from the 1970s onward. By the 1970s their status in the Church hierarchy had risen.
In addition, this book tries to demonstrate in what ways the history of the Precious Blood Congregation throws light on the formation and development of indigenous groups of sisters in contemporary China. How does the history of this congregation relate to and allow for a better comprehension of the current advancement of Catholic sisters in mainland China?
Interrelationship between Congregations and Societies
This book is a cross-cultural study, stressing the interactions between the Chinese and the foreign missionaries in the local society. Of tremendous significance was the fact that the Precious Blood Sisters, the Italian missionaries (men and women), and the other foreign missionaries were undergoing a historic evolution, as was the Roman Catholic Church. The SCPF in Rome decided to entrust the Prefecture Apostolic of Hong Kong to the Foreign Missions of Milan (MEM) in 1858. MEM had only existed since 1850 as the result of Pope Pius IXâs drive for foreign missions. In 1867, it received the missionary mandate to administer the Hong Kong Mission. When the Prefect Apostolic Fr. Luigi Ambrosi passed away in the colony in 1867, 4 Fr. Giovanni Timoleone Raimondi, MEM, became the Pro-Prefect Apostolic of Hong Kong. 5 The succession of Fr. Raimondi signified the dedication of the full authority of the local Catholic Church to MEM. In 1868, Fr. Raimondi was appointed the procurator of Propaganda Fide and the Prefect Apostolic of Hong Kong. 6
The Roman Catholic Church manifested tremendous zeal for sending missionaries abroad. During the time of Pope Pius XI in 1926, MEM merged with another institute to form the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (Pontificio Istituto Missioni Estere, PIME). PIME called this a historic evolution: âThe sole purpose was the first proclamation of the Gospel and foundation of local churches in regions entrusted to them by Propaganda Fide.â 7 The China Mission was of prime significance. In From Milan to Hong Kong, Fr. Gianni Criveller, PIME, states that the Italian missionaries had to work closely with the other local and foreign Catholic societies and congregations for evangelization. The missionary groupsâ histories were intertwined. 8
Chinese Sistersâ Spirituality
While the congregations of foreign sisters in Hong Kong were reluctant initially to invite young Chinese to join them, the Maryknoll Sisters accepted local applicants, Chinese and Portuguese, who manifested a vocation for foreign mission work. The Precious Blood Sisters, however, have been Chinese throughout their entire history. The main question is why did an increasing number of these Chinese women readily pledge their allegiance to a foreign religion, Christianity? Why did they choose to join the Precious Blood Sisters? They persisted in their dedication to the religious life and grew in numbers without the help of foreign missionaries within their congregation, so what vision drove them and their superiors and superiors general? Why did the Precious Blood Congregationâa unique, indigenous group of women religious in the Hong Kong Churchâcontinue to grow and attract increasing numbers of applicants throughout the decades?
The existence of the Precious Blood Sisters was related to a much larger and crucial development within the Universal Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church considered the China Mission of utmost importance. In addition, the British colony had been essential to the mission, with the Third Synod of the Fifth Region of the Chinese Catholic Church taking place in Hong Kong from January to February 1909. 9 Most notably, in the 1920s, the Roman Catholic Church had a special concern for the indigenization of the Church in China.
Impact of the Indigenization of the Catholic Church on Hong Kong
The call for the indigenization of the churches in overseas missions began in November 1919, when Pope Benedict XV issued the apostolic letter Maximum Illud. The Pontiff took the first steps in fostering the indigenization of the local churches and the formation of native clergy in the field far from Rome. It was the Lazarists, Vincent Lebbe and Antoine Cotta who led the Tianjin Movement against the French Consulâs arbitrary seizure of Chinese land in 1916, and filed a complaint with Rome that caused the Pope to recognize the significance of reinforcing the leadership of the churches in China. The aposto...