Changing China

...On this point we recall the strong words of Leo XIII: "It is the practice of the Church, since the days of the Apostles, that when the multitude shall have been taught the doctrine of Christ, some of their number shall be chosen for the priesthood and for the bishopric...

...Wherever young Chinese, ambitious for western culture, have come under her influence, excellent results have been obtained...

...These have been made evident in the few Catholic educational centres of China and also, to a limited extent, in Europe where lay students from China have, for several years, been directed by some very zealous priests, notably Father Vincent Lebbe, a Lazarlst mis sioner from Belgium...

...While Catholic missioners generally have had little opportunity to develop interest in the youthful leaders of China, all realize that old China is no more and that a new China is coming into being, although the process cannot be completed without further disturbances and some ruin...

...It is true that commercial and national agents have, at times, abused the friendship "of missioners to strengthen their own interests, and that unfortunate impressions have been left as a result of such contacts...

...and it is stated authoritatively that, before long, thirteen more will be added to this number...

...Nor does he despair of the student...

...In 1685, the Chinese Bishop Luo Wen Tsao (known as Lopez) was consecrated, and his zeal, talents and virtues have been so extolled that one is puzzled to know why, until a few months ago, he should not have been followed by scores' in the centuries that have passed...

...Innocent XI said to Bishop Pallu of the Paris Foreign Missions, who died in 1684 and was bishop over nine Chinese provinces, "I would rather hear of the ordination of one native priest than of the conversion of 50,000 pagans...

...Many Catholic missions in China have been hard hit in the past months, and some missioners have suffered much...

...Such agents, even if they go into the interior, will obtain only a superficial view of Chinese life while the missioners, living constantly among the people, must know them well...

...The watchers on the towers of Rome have for generations looked forward to just such an awakening as China is experiencing today...

...Western university training has been held responsible for the excesses of these students, since many of them, especially the noisiest and most active, have come forth from such training declared atheists, ridiculing the supernatural and repudiating their ancestral traditions...

...and it follows that he should be most anxious to see the Chinese people gradually come to a position where they can control their own national life...

...Still refused the opportunity to march, they threw themselves humbly on their knees and were finally allowed to proceed...

...That day is not on our horizon, and the present duty of western Christians in America, as well as in Europe, is to help China as best they can to hasten it...

...He is very observant, too, and^ while noting western progress along certain lines, he has not overlooked western shortcomings that have drawn his silent contempt and made him resent the more the treatment accorded his country...

...In the United States, about a dozen Chinese students have been accepted in as many Catholic educational institutions...

...Since the Boxer uprising, and until the recent troubles, Catholic missioners have rarely suffered bodily harm, and their properties have been respected, even to the extent of serving as asylum to their oft harassed people...

...gradually the Church in China will be of the soil as certainly as is the Church in the United States today...

...FEW public statements have been made by Catholic missioners in China concerning conditions in that much troubled country, for the simple reason that an opinion i^ hardly formed when it is subject to change...

...Certainly when it is a question of getting at facts and opinions, there can be no comparison between the value of counsel given by missioners, who seek only the betterment of the people among whom they live, and that of commercial or political agents...

...The Catholic missioner has a strong faith in the Chinese people...

...Their attitude has been revealed by strikes in the schools, which have at times gone so far as to result in the beating of professors...

...In their speeches at that time, they wept as they described the plight of their country...

...Their work has gone forward, revealing in some sections most gratifying progress, but they have been subject to untold annoyances and obliged to move cautiously, dreading disturbances of which they knew soldier-bandits to be capable under generals who were hardly less than super-bandits...

...Facing such conditions as have existed in China for the past fifteen years, it is easy to understand that a Catholic missioner in that country would welcome almost any event that would bring hope of improvement...

...This condition— a state of practical anarchy—has favored bandits all over the land and pirates on the seas, resulting in continued disturbance to the masses of the people and in constant obstruction to industry...

...Father Lebbe knows and loves China and its people...

...but it is pretty commonly known today that, since the Chinese republic (sic) was formed in 1911, China has been practically without a government, each of its eighteen provinces, and Manchuria as well, being ruled by selfish interests with no respect for the central government supposed to function at Peking...

...At least two have been put to death...

...Two thousand were assembled on that occasion, and when the police surrounded them they promised to be moderate and dignified...

...In many instances this is doubtless true...

...The Catholic Church has not had a strong influence on Chinese students because, outside of a few places like Shanghai, the Church seems to have lacked the means to conduct higher educational establishments...

...The writer recalls an instance, in September, 1919, when students of Tientsin gathered outside the city for a parade that might awaken the people to what they believed to be a danger from Japan...

...This will doubtless take generations, but we who are interested in the spread of the Catholic faith are fully justified in looking forward to a day when the last western missioner to China will recite his nunc dimittis...

...If this did not eventuate, certainly it was not for lack of approval and encouragement at Rome, from which have issued many documents recalling the tradition of the Church that in every country native bishoprics must be formed...

...The true Catholic missioner, too, naturally sympathizes with the aspirations of the people among whom he labors...

...A score of native bishops are not many among the hosts of Chinese, but the movement is on...

...He lately returned to the land of his adoption and has been engaged in forming clubs of young men, one of which is already credited with several conversions and with having made a strong impression on one of the best-known leaders of the Southern Moderates...

...This is an absolutely new phase in the conduct of the Chinese youth, who always had for their teachers a traditional respect bordering on awe...

...The six Chinese bishops recently consecrated at Rome have returned and are today shepherding their flocks in China...

...A series of successes and the excitement consequent thereupon have naturally turned the heads of many students but, as the excitement dies down—^perhaps through setbacks— there will come an appreciation of conditions, and the young Chinese will realize that in the missioner they will find their best friend...

...We may hope, too, that the great nations of the West, by kind cooperation, will speed the day when China can lift her head and take her place among them...

...He admires their patience and longsuffering, and has often remarked that, if, in his own homeland, men and women could be found to suffer for Christ the physical discomforts to which hundreds and thousands of the Chinese are daily subjected, they would be looked upon as saints...

...Pius XI, in a recent letter to the vicars and prefects apostolic of China, speaks of the eager solicitude the Church has always shown for the formation of a native clergy, to replace, eventually, the foreign missioners...

...He realizes that he is the representative of a world-wide organization whose aim is to help the Chinese form their own Church...

...The spirit of Chinese students has changed considerably since then, and the development of student interest has broadened until it covers every province in the land...

...Their demand for independence, such as our own country enjoys, is certainly justified, but they are impatient and do not realize that adjustments can be made only gradually...

...Back of the movement they see many influences, some good and others evil, but they know that whatever comes the leaders of new China can hardly be more self-seeking than were those who, in the past fifteen years, have been trying, with such miserable results, to direct the country's affairs...

...They sympathize with the suffering masses and admire the ideals and achievements of many upper-class Chinese...

...vocations are being cultivated as never before...

...A marked change has come with this generation, a change which may be traced to western education given in Europe and America, as also in China itself...

...The people have rarely had cause to suspect missioners of any but worthy motives in their regard...

...The western educated Chinese youth awoke gradually to the fact that his country was becoming the laughingstock of the world, and a Chinese student does not like to lose "face...

...With the impulse of youth and a consciousness of wrongs that should be righted, some Chinese students have made mistakes, many of them, which have given occasion to their being classed as radicals and Soviet sympathizers...

...The recent movement among Chinese students has been going on quietly for several years...

...Many have lost the idea of discipline and are almost impossible to manage...

...He has race pride and, if not a superiority complex, at least an appreciation, quite just, of excellence among his countrymen...

...No strong protests have been recorded, doubtless because of the fact that it is practically impossible to fix responsibility in China at the present time...

...It may even be said that, in some instances, missioners have not been altogether blameless, but these instances have been very rare...

...It is said that certain foreign commercial interests, taking full advantage in China of low wages so as to overcome high tariff in their homeland and leave a large margin of profit, have been responsible, in some measure, for the lack of a living wage in China...

...the thousand and more native priests will, in a few years, be doubled...

...The writer of this article has been personally interested in most of these...

...All along, however, they have felt helpless to right conditions and there is no one of them, doubtless, who has not asked himself dozens of times—Quo usque...

...Certainly the wages are, generally speaking, a miserable pittance, compelling unbelievable living conditions...

...As a rule, the rank and file of Chinese respect the missioners, most of whom, Protestant as well as Catholic, have had at heart the interests of the Chinese masses...

...The average news reader does not visualize events in China—perhaps because his geography is hazy...

...and the practical result of their appeal was a successful boycott...

...This is to be deeply regretted because the Catholic Church would, undoubtedly, have given to young China, along with western education, a solid and satisfying religious foundation for its future conduct...

...Upset political conditions have not discouraged or disgusted them, of course...