Macau, Macau

Symposium

Main Themes

  • The approaching 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation (1517) provides an ideal opportunity to reflect in a deeper and new way on the history of the relationship between the Protestants and the Jesuits who were founded twenty-three years later (1540). For better or worse, much ink has been used to write about their animosity, especially in the European context. While this important historical chapter will be explored in other venues, the international conference in Macau aims to re-examine the encounters between the Jesuits and the Protestants and their respective traditions in the context of Asia.

Date:

  • 9-11 November, 2016

Location:

  • University of Saint Joseph Macau

Languages:

  • English

Introduction

The approaching 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation (1517) provides an ideal opportunity to reflect in a deeper and new way on the history of the relationship between the Protestants and the Jesuits who were founded twenty-three years later (1540). For better or worse, much ink has been used to write about their animosity, especially in the European context. While this important historical chapter will be explored in other venues, the international conference in Macau aims to re-examine the encounters between the Jesuits and the Protestants and their respective traditions in the context of Asia.

Supported by the Catholic monarchies of Portugal, Spain, and France, the Jesuit Order played a significant role in bringing Christianity and European culture, sciences, and the arts to Asia from the sixteenth through to the late eighteenth century, when a Franciscan pope suppressed the Jesuits. After the Restoration of the Order by another pope (1814), the Jesuits returned to several Asian countries at various historical moments and they found more Protestant missionaries than they left a few decades earlier. Indeed, the latter intensified their missionary efforts through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the rise of the imperial powers of Great Britain, France, and the US in the region.

This historical development lends itself to an obvious comparison between the Jesuit and Protestant methods of presenting Christianity to Asian societies, in which—with the exception of the Philippines that followed the path of Latin America—Christians never became a majority. The Jesuits themselves, however, used different strategies in different cultural circumstances. Francis Xavier who was among the first Europeans to approach Japan employed different methods than did Matteo Ricci who was allowed to enter the Forbidden City. Roberto de Nobili’s missionary style in the caste-divided society of Madurai was different from that of Alexandre de Rhodes who penetrated the Kingdom of Annam. In spite of this variety of approaches within the Society of Jesus itself, accommodation became a trademark of Jesuit missions. Knowing that charges of syncretism were a mainstay of Protestant anti-Jesuit polemic, a question that comes to mind, then, is what was the extent to which the generations of Protestant missionaries in Asia adopted Jesuit approaches to cultural accommodation. What were their approaches to studying and codifying local languages, to transmitting Western science? What was the relationship between missionaries and political/commercial elites on both sides of the confessional divide? When the Jesuits themselves began rebuilding their missions after the Restoration, did they continue their pre-Suppression traditions?

The cooperation and conflict between the Dutch merchants and the Jesuit missionaries in Japan appears to be better studied but can the same be said about the encounters between the Jesuits and the Protestant Dutch missionaries in Taiwan and Malacca, or between the Jesuits and the German Pietist missions in China and India? How did the Jesuits relate to their Protestant colleagues in the competition to gain Asian souls, say, in late nineteenth-century Korea?

These are just a few examples of complex questions about the encounters between the Jesuits and the Protestants, and their traditions, that this international conference hopes to explore in an interdisciplinary academic conversation in Macau—a city that lay at the crossroads of European explorations of Asia.

Organising Institutions

  • MACAU RICCI INSTITUTE
 

28-30 October, 2014

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Time Subject Chairperson/Speaker
9:00 Registration - Conference Papers  
9:30 Welcome Address Artur Wardega, SJ
9:45 Part 1: Introduction Chairperson: Beda Liu, SJ
  Political Context of the Jesuit Restoration Robert A. Maryks
  Jesuit Historiography 1773-1814: An Overview Robert Danieluk, SJ
  General Discussion  
10:50 Coffee Break  
11:20 Part 2: Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire Chairperson: Keith Morrison
  The Society of Jesus in the Russian Empire (1772-1820) and the Restoration of the Order (1814) Marek Inglot, SJ
  The Połock Academy (1812–1820) as an Example of the Durability of the Society of Jesus (To be presented by Prof. Robert A. Maryks) Irena Kadulska
  Sebastian Sierakowski, SJ and the Language of Architecture: A Jesuit Life during the Era of Suppression and Restoration Carolyn C. Guile
  General Discussion  
12:50 Group Photo & Noon Break  
14:45 Part 3: Central and Western Europe (I) Chairperson: Luís Sequeira, SJ
  The Jesuits and their Artistic Diaspora in Germany Jeffrey Chipps Smith
  The Protestant Christoph Gottlieb von Murr on the Suppression Claudia von Collani
  General Discussion  
15:50 Coffee Break  
16:20 Part 4: Central and Western Europe (II) Chairperson: Stephen Tong, SJ
  Enduring the Deluge: Hungarian Jesuit Astronomers from Suppression to Restoration Paul Shore
  The English Jesuits from Suppression to Restoration: Maintaining a Corporate Identity, 1773‒1803 Maurice Whitehead
  General Discussion  
17:25 End of the Day  

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Time Subject Chairperson/Speaker
9:30 Registration - Conference Papers  
10:00 Part 5: Central and Western Europe (III) Chairperson: Luciano Morra, SJ
  "A Religious Body Currently Paralyzing the Restoration of the True Jesuits": The Trial of Niccolò Paccanari and the Restoration of the Society of Jesus Eva Fontana Castelli
  Between Suppression and Restoration in Italy: Luigi Mozzi de' Capitani (1746 -1813) Emanuele Colombo
  General Discussion  
11:05 Coffee Break  
11:35 Part 6: China (I) Chairperson: Thierry Meynard, SJ
  Suppression and Restoration of the Society of Jesus in China (written by Fernando MATEOS, SJ) Artur Wardega, SJ
  Jesuit Survival and Restoration in China (written by Ronnie Po-chia HSIA) Albert Wong
  The Last Remaining Jesuits in China after the Suppression in Europe Jingjing Liu
  General Discussion  
13:05 Noon Break  
14:30 Part 7: China (II) Chairperson: Yves Camus, SJ
  Restoration or Re-creation? The Return of the Society of Jesus to China Paul Rule
  The Phoenix Rises from its Ashes: The Restoration of the Jesuit Shanghai Mission Paul Mariani, SJ
  The Gothic Revival and the Architecture of the New Society of Jesus in Macao and China César Guillen-Nunez
  General Discussion  
16:00 Coffee Break  
16:30 Part 8: The Americas (I) Chairperson: Peter Stilwell
  General Suppression, Russian Survival, American Success: The "Russian" Society of Jesus and Jesuits in the United States Daniel Schlafly
  John Carroll, the Society of Jesus, and the Catholic Church in the Early American Republic Catherine O’Donnell
  General Discussion  
17:35 End of the Day  

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Time Subject Chairperson/Speaker
9:30 Registration - Conference Papers  
10:00 Part 9: The Americas (II) Chairperson: Louis Gendron, SJ
  The Jesuit Tradition and the Rise of South American Nationalism II: Where Were the Peruvian Jesuits? Andrés Prieto
  The Return of the Jesuits, a History of the Society of Jesus in Colombia during the Nineteenth Century Jorge Salcedo, SJ
  General Discussion  
11:05 Coffee Break  
11:35 Concluding Roundtable Chairperson: Paul Rule
    Robert Danieluk, SJ
    Paul Marini, SJ
    Robert Maryks
    Jeffrey Smith
  General Discussion  
12:35 End of the Symposium  
20:00 Piano Recital at Dom Pedro V Theatre Prof. Zygmund Krauze (Polish Composer and Pianist)
  (Free ticket will be provided to Active Participants)  
  Programme  
  F. Chopin: Mazurka in A minor, Op. 67 No.4 (with improvisations)  
  I. J. Paderewski: Nocturne (with improvisations)  
  K. Szymanowski: Prelude and Fugue (with improvisations)  
  W. Lutoslawski: 3 Folk Melodies (with improvisations)  
  Z. Krauze: 6 Folk Melodies / Refrain / Chanson du mal aimé / Stone Music / Nightmare Tango  
21:00 End of Recital