CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN CHINA

New Zealand Tablet, 18 September 1913, Page 49

CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN CHINA

- At the meeting of the Association for the Propa- ■ - gation of the Faith, held recently at Plymouth, Rev. Father Wolferstan, S.J., read a paper on 'Catholic Missions in China,' in the course of which he said: ;: For the whole of China, last year there were employed 1408 European and 700 Chinese priests; 198 European lay Brothers; 685. European and 1195 Chinese nuns; and 13,300 catechists and others. The Chinese Catholics numbered 1,345,376, and the catechumens were 496,9120 n June 30, 1912. The outlook for the future, from an official point of view, is promising. China appears to be on the point of officially renouncing paganism. Religious liberty has been promised to all; the higher offices are to be open to Christians —"even Mandarins are to be allowed to embrace Christianity. But, on the other hand, there is the intense conservatism of the Chinese character to be reckoned with as well as the danger that all the energies of the people may be swallowed up in the quest of material prosperity. Further, the 'blessings of civilisation'are finding their way to the Far East; and these are usually inimical to Christianity— as they do, the latest rationalistic propaganda, which, through the agency of the secret societies, are making much progress. That there is any great wave or movement in the direction of Christianity, I do not for a moment believe; but we may hope that the progress of the Catholic Faith, though slow, will be as solid as it has been hitherto. It only remains for me to recommend to your prayers and alms the work of the Association for the Propagation of the Faith. This, as you are well aware, is an international society for the practical furtherance of the Divine command to ' go and teach all nations. 2 While the missionary gives his whole life, leaving country, friends, everything that makes life pleasant * —to labor and die, sometimes by violence, in a strange land—the missionary societies concern themselves with the training of those who are to follow him, and the general apportionment of a field of operations for each. The Association for the Propagation of the Faith endeavors to provide the means to enable both the societies and their missionaries to carry on their work, unhampered by considerations of how to obtain the wherewithal to do so. Last year the Association raised £322,063 0s sd. 'A wealthy Association!' you say. Well, when the amount was dispensed, there remained the magnificent sum of £3 14s Bd. Of the total receipts, no less than £25,000 was allotted to missions in China Proper alone. What comfort the missionaries must live in! Let the Rev. Lord William Cecil Protestant clergyman, and one of the most generous and ungrudging admirers of the Catholic missionary let him describe it: —' There are few bodies of people who are more heroic and devoted than the Roman missionaries; they have died by fever, have been massacred, they live on a miserable pittance—l was told that one enlightened missionary, once a professor in Paris University, lived on £l2 a year.'