Luo Wenzao

After he became baptized, Luo first accompanied foreign missionaries on their travels and visits. In 1634, Luo and Caballero reached Nanjing to visit Francesco Sambiasi. However, some Jesuits were concerned that their visit would disrupt Sambiasi's mission, so they kidnapped Luo and Caballero and sent them back to Fujian.[3] Then, in 1635, Luo and the Dominican missionary Francisco Diaz embarked on a trip to Manila to report the Chinese Rites controversy to the Catholic church, but they were captured by a Dutch group and did not reach Manila.[17][3] In 1637, Luo went to Beijing with other Dominican priests to explain their mission to the emperor and debate against anti-Christian officials. Johann Adam Schall von Bell intended to introduce him to evangelize in Korea, but Luo was detained when he arrived in Beijing and sent back to Fujian[17][3]

Around 1637–38, Luo and other missionaries went to evangelize in Dingtou (顶头), Fujian. The local Buddhists opposed their Catholic mission. In 1638, Luo and three other Dominicans fled towards Macau but were captured in Ningde. Luo was jailed for 23 days and beaten by clubs.[17][3] He then went into exile in Macau and Manila in 1639.[12]

In 1640, Luo returned from Manila to Macau with Dominican priests Juan Bautista Morales and Francisco Diez.[17][lower-alpha 1] In 1644, Luo left for Manila for the second time with Caballero and several Carmelite nuns. Due to inclement weather, they landed in Thuận Hóa, Vietnam.[18] Luo was almost killed by locals.[3] The group left Vietnam in the spring of 1645 and arrived in Manila on 20 May that year.[18] Luo was introduced to the Dominicans in Manila, moved to the Dominican convent, and later the University of Santo Tomas.[19] In a 1689 letter to the Propaganda Fide, Luo mentioned that he studied Spanish and Latin in Manila, and his theology was worse than other subjects.[20] In 1647, Luo was sent back to China by Domingo González to bring provisions to the missionaries there.[19]

In 1649, when Morales and Caballero revisited China, Luo met them in Anhai, Fujian, despite the ongoing war between Ming and Qing in the province. When Caballero decided to evangelize in Korea, Luo accompanied him to Beijing.[3]

In 1655, the Dominican prior provincial of Manila sent Luo back to China to evangelize. In early July, Luo embarked for Fujian with four other Dominicans including Raimundo del Valle. Their mission was impacted by the warfare between the Qing regime and Zheng Chenggong.[26] According to San Román, Luo's activity between 1656 and 1664 "has not yet been sufficiently researched". San Román asserted that Luo stayed in Fujian in this period, during which he administered sacraments, rescued captives during the war, and baptized locals.[27] In 1657, Luo appeared in Xiamen with Vittorio Ricci to assist the arrival of some foreign missionaries. Luo was in Quanzhou in 1658.[28]

Yang Guangxian depicted the crucifixion of Jesus in his articles attacking Christianity in 1664. His articles led to the Qing government proscribing Christianity in 1665, which banished foreign missionaries and left Luo the only person in charge of the Catholic mission in China.

In 1664, Yang Guangxian attacked Catholic Christianity in his articles to the imperial court. In 1665, the Qing imperial court accepted his argument and proscribed Christianity. It banished all foreign missionaries to Canton. Some missionaries hid and could not carry out their missions in public. Since Luo is not a foreign missionary, he remained free in China and became the sole person in charge of the Catholic mission during the prosecution from 1665 to 1671.[29][3][12]

In May 1665, Luo went to Manila to report the destruction of the Catholic mission in China to the Dominican prior provincial, and he sought economical support from not only the Dominicans but also the Franciscans and Jesuits.[29] When he returned to China, he first visited Francisco Varo, who was hiding in Shandong.[3] After returning to Fujian, he went to Canton and Macau to visit the banished foreign missionaries.[29] Around 1667, Luo visited a total of 178 churches in the provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Shanxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Hebei. He baptized 556 in Fujian and the coastal region around, and about 2,000 in other provinces.[29][3]

On 31 July 1673, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) discussed the possibility of appointing Luo as a bishop.[3][30] In August, Navarrete and the associate prior of the Dominican Province of Rome recommended Luo to the Propaganda Fide, respectively. The Propaganda Fide later recommended Luo to the College of Cardinals.[30] On 2 October 1673, the Propaganda Fide resolved to petition the Pope to appoint Luo as a bishop in partibus infidelium.[30]

In 1674, Pope Clement X made Luo the titular bishop of Basilinopolis and the apostolic vicar of Nanjing, to administrate the provinces of Beijing, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi and Korea. [30][31] Historians differ on when Luo received his appointment. Miguel Angel San Román argued that Luo received it in 1675, based on a letter of Luo to the King of Spain, but Joseph de Moidrey claimed that Luo only heard about his appointment in 1677.[32][33] Nevertheless, Luo intended to decline his appointment. In 1677, he wrote to the apostolic vicars of Cochinchina and Siam to ask them to convey his message to Rome, though the vicars first advised him to accept the appointment.[32] Eventually, Luo resigned in 1677.[33] His reasons were that he was not confident in himself to take the responsibilities and that his appointment could not succeed without the consent of Portugal, which had the protectorate of missions in China at the time.[34]

Zhang Kai speculated that there were several other reasons behind Luo's resignation. Firstly, he claimed that some missionaries would not welcome Luo as a bishop due to their nationalistic sentiments. Secondly, other foreign missionaries would oppose Luo's appointment because he was considered inferior to them in theology and Latin. Thirdly, Luo's tolerance of traditional Chinese culture was inherently different from the Dominican's stance in the Chinese Rites controversy. Lastly, since Luo was under the jurisdiction of the Dominican Province of the Philippines, which was under the protection of Spain, he could not carry out the powers of the appointment without Spain's consent.[3]

Antonius Calderon, the Prior of the Dominican Province of the Philippines, also strongly opposed Luo's appointment. This was because Luo held more tolerant views on the Chinese Rites controversy, which were different from the Dominican views. Calderon threatened to expel Luo from the Dominican Order if Luo accepts, recall all the Spanish missionaries from China, and end all subsidies to the Chinese missions.[34][3]

To mitigate the situation, Pallu suggested that Francisco Varo be Luo's assistant, so Luo's candidacy would be more acceptable to the Dominicans. However, Varo also opposed Luo's appointment and suggested Juan de Palafox y Mendoza as a substitute for Luo.[3]

In 1679, the Propaganda Fide received Luo's resignation.[34] On 12 October, Pope Innocent XI appointed Luo again through the letter Cum te nuper. He also requested the Master of the Order of Preachers write to him to encourage Luo to accept. The Master of the Order offered that Luo would be assigned a consultant. These letters arrived in Manilla in 1681.[35][33] In 1680, the Propaganda Fide also appointed Bernadino della Chiesa (Chinese: 伊大任) as the auxiliary of François Pallu, who had become the apostolic vicar of Fujian. The Propaganda Fide gave Bernadino della Chiesa the appointment letter of Luo and authorized him to consecrate Luo at any time and place. However, Bernadino della Chiesa was delayed in Siam for a year.[3]

Around the same time, Luo was in Luoyuan, Fujian. There he bought a house and turned it into a church. In 1680, Francisco Varo, who had become Luo's superior, ordered Luo to go to Zhangzhou, Fujian, to restore the mission there. Luo arrived in Zhangzhou in June 1680.[36]

Luo received the second appointment in December 1681. This time, he decided to accept it and to be consecrated in Manila.[37] Later, in a letter to the King of Spain, he explained:[35]

No poco afligido yo con el nuevo orden de su Santidad y gimiendo de dolor y pena [...] luego busque diligente a mis compañeros y hermanos de mi sagrada Religión. [...] Vierón la gravedad del empeño, y resolvierón que no podía dejar de obedecer a la Cabeza de la Iglesia, y poner en la primera ocasión en ejecución tan soberanos preceptos. Acepte, Senor, con este parecer el Obispado y demas dignidades, como rezan las Bulas pontificias y luego me puse en camino para esta ciudad de Manila con fines de consagrarme.

I was afflicted with the new order from his Holiness [...] I consulted diligently for the advice of my brothers of my holy Religion [...] They advised me to do whatever the Head of the Church had ordered me. I accepted, Lord, the dioceses and other obligations as the pontifical Bull reads. Later, I came to this city of Manila to be consecrated.

— Luo Wenzao[35]

Luo headed to Manila to be consecrated. He arrived in Canton in 1682 and reached Macau on 3 March 1683.[38] On that day he wrote a letter to Propaganda Fide describing the anti-Christian situation in China.[39] He soon sailed for Manila along with Pedro de Alarcón, vicar of the Dominicans in China, and arrived there in early May 1683.[38]

At Manila, Luo was not immediately consecrated. de Moidrey claimed Luo was not consecrated because of two reasons: that the papal bull appointing Luo had not reached Madrid, and that Luo supported the Chinese Rites.[33] The Dominican prior provincial Calderon first sent him to Parián to evangelize to the Chinese community there.[34][3] San Román observed that some Dominicans in the province also opposed the second appointment of Luo as bishop.[37] Zhang Kai argued that Calderon even intended to exile Luo to Cagayan.[3] On 11 June 1684, Luo wrote a lengthy letter to Propaganda Fide explaining why he was not consecrated yet. He complained that Alarcón spoke badly of Luo, that Alarcón said Luo was sympathetic to Jesuits in China, and agreed with many Jesuit stances, especially in the Chinese Rite controversy.[3] He then escaped to the Augustinian convent in Intramuros, where he was greatly welcomed.[37][39]

In July 1684, Luo left for China, hoping to be consecrated by Pallu.[37] He arrived in Muyang, Fujian, on 31 October, but Pallu died on the 29th.[37] Upon his death, Pallu expressed the wish to consecrate Luo.[39]

Meanwhile, on 27 August 1684, Bernadino della Chiesa arrived in Canton. He wrote to Luo, and Luo received his letter in Fujian after Pallu's death. [3] Luo then headed for Canton with Charles Maigrot and reached there on 31 March 1685. On 8 April, Luo was consecrated bishop by Bishop Bernardino della Chiesa.[37] Historians consider Luo to be the first Chinese bishop.[23][40]

Thomas Pereira (1645–1708) was a Portuguese Jesuit at the court of Kangxi Emperor. Around 1688, he suspended the powers and privileges of the five French Jesuits in China because they did not take the oath of obedience. However, Luo allowed the five Jesuits to administer sacraments.

In 1693, Charles Maigrot, the apostolic vicar of Fujian, published a mandate (pictured) forbidding missionaries to venerate Confucius or ancestors. Luo opposed Maigrot's strictness against Chinese rituals in a 1688 letter.

As an apostolic vicar, Luo argued for the policy of accommodation and tolerance in the Chinese Rites controversy. In 1686, Luo wrote a long letter to the Propaganda Fide explaining the origins and meanings of Chinese rituals and arguing that Confucius-honoring ceremonies are not religious.[3]

According to Luo's letter to Rome in 1690, Luo chose Nicolai as his successor in 1688 because Nicolai knew to read and speak Chinese, understood the procedures to deal with Mandarin bureaucrats, and was familiar with local customs.[42] The King of Portugal, who had the protectorate of missions in China, stopped to subsidize Luo because Luo made his choice without his consent, but Luo upheld his decision for his successor.[3]

In addition, in 1688, Luo consecrated three Chinese Jesuits as priests: Wu Li, Liu Yunde (Chinese: 劉蘊德), and Wan Qiyuan (Chinese: 萬其淵).[44][33] When the three Chinese men were consecrated, Wu was 57, Liu was 69, and Wan was 53. According to Zhang Kai, Luo's preference for senior Chinese laity over younger foreign missionaries shows Luo's decision to "nativize" Catholicism.[3] According to San Román, Wu Li would later accompany Luo in his pastoral visits.[44]

In Luo's time, foreign missionaries were required by the Propaganda Fide to take an oath of obedience to the apostolic vicars of their location.[47] According to Luo's description, the oath included renouncing the veneration of Confucius and ancestors, as well as refraining from using Chinese names such as Shangdi or Tian to call God.[48] After Charles Maigrot was consecrated as the apostolic vicar of Fujian on 5 February 1687, he strictly enforced the requirement: if a missionary did not make the oath, he would not be able to administer sacraments. On the contrary, Luo and Bernardino della Chiesa did not enforce the missionaries to take the oath.[3]

The issue of the oath was raised upon the arrival of French Jesuits in 1687. In 1685, Louis XIV sent six French Jesuits to China. Jean de Fontaney headed the mission, and he chose Guy Tachard, Joachim Bouvet, and Claude de Visdelou. Louis XIV had appointed four of them as the "King's Mathematicians". Louis XIV "intended them to work under his sole authority", and the title was "a device to avoid the necessity for them to swear allegiance to the king of Portugal", according to Catherine Jami. Fontaney nominated two more Jesuits: Louis le Comte and Jean-François Gerbillon.[49] In the middle of the journey, Tachard was sent back from Siam to recruit more Jesuit mathematicians. In July 1687, the remaining five Jesuit missionaries arrived in Ningbo, Zhejiang.[50]

The five missionaries went to the court of the Kangxi Emperor in Beijing and were tested on their knowledge by Thomas Pereira. The Kangxi Emperor kept Bouvet and Gerbillon at his court and allowed de Fontaney, de Visdelou, and le Comte to settle freely in China. The three first headed to Shanxi, but de Fontaney came to Nanjing on 14 April 1687 and met Luo.[3]

The head of the Jesuits in Zhejiang, Prospero Intorcetta, learned that Louis XIV forbade the five missionaries to take an oath to the apostolic vicar: if they had taken the oath, the King would close their seminaries in France. Intorcetta sought Luo's help on the issue of the oath. The issue was raised again when Simão Martins, the visitor of the Jesuits, wrote to demand the five French Jesuits to take the oath. When Pereira received the letter, he suspended the powers and privileges of the five as priests and missionaries. Maigrot further argued that missionaries who were leaving the apostolic vicariates ought to take the oath.[3] However, Luo allowed these Jesuit missionaries to administer sacraments without swearing the oath.[39]

From 1688 to 1689, Luo wrote several letters to Rome about the situation of the dioceses and the issue of taking the oath.[44][51] In his letter dated 3 October 1688, he stressed that, if the missionaries had to adhere to the oaths of the Propaganda Fide, he would lose over half of the missionaries and most of the believers. Luo acknowledged the authority of Propaganda Fide on the Chinese Rites controversy but warned that if clergy members like Maigrot carry out the policy of the oath strictly, the Catholic Church in China would be at risk of destruction. He also pleaded that missionaries who do not adhere to the oath should be able to administer sacraments.[48]

Towards the end of his life, Luo oversaw the repair of the tomb of Antonio Caballero. In 1690, Luo restored the stele and wrote following the Latin inscription:[52][11]

A.R. P. F. ANTONIO A S. MARIA ORDINIS MINORUM, MINISTRO ET PRAEFECTO VERE APOSTOLICO AB EXILIO CANTONENSI AD COELESTEM PATRIAM EVOCATO ANNO M.D.C.LXIX DECIMO TERTIO KALENDAS IUNII FR. GREGORIUS LOPES, EPISCOPUS BASILITANUS ET VICARIUS APOSTOLICUS NANKIM, PATRI SUO SPIRITUALI, RESTAURATO SEPULCRO, LAPIDEM HUNC GRATITUDINIS MONUMENTUM EREXIT

To the memory of the Reverend Father Antonio a Santa Maria of the Order of the Minorites, who was a truly apostolic servant and superior, who was called to the heavenly fatherland from the exile in Canton in the year 1669, on 13 June. Father Gregory Lopes, the Bishop of Basilia and Apostolic Vicar of Nanjing has restored the tomb for his spiritual father and has erected this stele as a monument of gratitude.

— Luo Wenzao[11][lower-alpha 4]

In his Christians in China, 600–2000, J.-P. Charbonnier called Luo's work a "fine epitaph". Leopold Leeb argued that Luo's epitaph is probably the first epitaph made by a Chinese for a foreigner.[11]