CICM and the Chinese Church

Arriving in China at the end of 1864, founder Theophile Verbist took over the Vicariate Apostolic from the Lazarists. For priests, who were only used to pastoral work in Belgium, to get to know missionary life through missionary practice demanded enormous adaptability, a lot of courage and an ability to accept suffering and setbacks. The founding father, Theophile Verbist, died in Feb. 1868 of typhus fever and his friend Alois Van Segvelt died within the space of one year. Frans Vranckx took over the direction of the Congregation while Jaak Bax became the Provicar of Inner Mongolia.

In a few years, the latter managed to transform the Provicariate into three vicariates. As of 1878, Scheut was also given the care for Catholic mission work in Gansu and Xinjiang. It was then actually in charge of Catholic mission work in the whole of what is now Inner Mongolia all the way west till Xinjiang: i.e. from the far east of China all the way to the western border with Russia. In the period between 1865 to 1887, CICM managed to send no less than 74 missionaries to Inner Mongolia.

When CICM missionaries arrived in Xiwanzi (1865) there were about 10,000 Catholics in Inner Mongolia. Besides the early death of the founder, the CICM missionaries encountered enormous difficulties in their work in this barren province of northern China. The region was extremely poor. To help the poor farmer families they bought wide pieces of farmland and built an irrigation system in the whole region, with hundreds of kilometers of water canals using water of the Yellow River to irrigate the whole region.

Bishop Hamer and companions

In 1900, the Scheut missions were hit severely by the Boxer Rebellion, during which more than 2000 Catholics were murdered in Inner Mongolia alone. Among them were several "pious women" of the Holy Childhood, several catechists, one Chinese priest (Jacobus Lu) and eight CICM missionaries: Bishop Ferdinand Hamer, the fathers Joseph Segers, Armand Heirman, Jan Mallet, Joseph Dobbels, Andre Zylmans, Desire Abbeloos and Gisbert Jaspers. Two other CICM missionaries -- Remi Van Meirhaeghe and Henri Bongaerts were killed in the aftermath, one year after the rebellion. A great number of their churches and institutions had been burned or destroyed. Together with the Christians the missionaries rebuilt them all.

Scheut developed the mission of Inner Mongolia and divided it into six dioceses: Xiwanzi, Suiyuan, Ningxia, Jining, Chifeng and Jehol. Two of the Inner Mongolia Dioceses -- Chifeng and Jining -- were turned over to the Chinese clergy in the 1920s and 1930s. Msgr. J. Van Aertselaer was a central figure in these early developments.

During the years following the Boxer Rebellion, the number of Catholics in northern China increased rapidly. Schools, even a teacher's formation school, were built in many missions; the Catholic hospital of Suiyuan was also built. It was at that time the biggest hospital in the whole of Inner Mongolia.

Major seminaries were opened in Datong and Suiyuan (now Hohhot). Fr Rutten was the great promoter of all these. He was also the one who invited a Polish doctor to come to China to develop an anti-typhus fever serum. Since they arrived in China, until the 1920s an average of one out of five young missionaries died within one or two years after their arrival. That average went down to nil after the serum was developed and all missionaries received the injection.

The church in Inner Mongolia and northern China was again flourishing when the communists came to power at the end of the forties. By then, the number of Catholics in Inner Mongolia had grown from 10,000 (in 1864) to about 250,000. The general situation of the Church in Inner Mongolia in 1940 was as follows:

The creation of the Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation at Louvain (1982):

When Deng Xiaoping came to power (1978) China opened up. There were rumors that even some churches were opened again. CICM immediately found that we should take steps to contact the Church in China - not with the purpose to send foreign missionaries to China but in order to search for cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual respect, cooperation with the Chinese Church, and also with official institutions. The initiative for this move came from the Chinese Province of CICM (i.e. CICM in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore).

Chinese bishops visit
the Catholic University of Louvain, 1985

It was thought that the (Dutch speaking) Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) would be a good basis from where such cooperation could be promoted in the fields of research (China mission history), development and, so it was hoped, eventually even cooperation with the Church in the pastoral field between the Chinese Church and the Church in Belgium.
This project resulted in 1982 in the creation of a non-profit corporation "Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation KULeuven". It is a joint venture between the university and CICM (Chinese Province and the Province of North Belgium). CICM agreed not to call the foundation after Theophile Verbist, its founder (19th century), but after Ferdinand Verbiest, the famous Jesuit astronomist, well-known in China for being a teacher of the emperor in the 17th century.

Since 1982, the Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation promotes the development of a relationship of cooperation with China. It did so by initiating three programs one after the other: the Pastoral Program which, through the Chinese College in Leuven, contributes to the formation of Chinese Church leaders; the Development Program, running projects of healthcare and rural development in the poorest regions of China; and the Research Program, doing research on the history of the Chinese Catholic Church. Director of the Foundation is Jeroom Heyndrickx.

The Chinese Catholic Church is very grateful for the work which missionaries did in China. Yet, we missionaries ourselves are convinced that the time that foreign missionaries take part directly in mission work inside China belongs to the past. We do not prepare ourselves for this kind of missionary apostolate.

Since Vatican II, missionary work in the Catholic Church is the responsibility of each and every local Church, not of missionaries. There is no need any more for foreign missionaries to work inside China. The local Chinese Church will take care of it. But there is a need for missionaries FOR China who work from their local churches, in Asia, Europe or the USA in co-operation with the Church in China on a "basis of equality and mutual respect".

We do believe that individual missionaries can and will be invited for short periods of time and for particular tasks, e.g. teaching in Chinese seminaries. An official Chinese decree (Nr 114) of 1994 even allows this formally. But these are rather exceptions.

The China missionary of today and of the future is a faithful friend of the Chinese Church, living in a far away country. He speaks the Chinese language and appreciates the country, its culture, and its people. He also knows the complex history of China and the dramatic events of the past. From there, he understands something of the background of what happens today, no matter how disappointing. But in spite of it all, he remains faithful and is open to respond to any call or invitation towards cooperation that comes from China.