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Communication and Jesuit Mission in Chinese Context September, 2005 Benoit Vermander, S.J. Communication and Jesuit Mission in Chinese Context September, 2005 http://www.erenlai.com/index.php?aid=1862&lan=3 Communication and Jesuit Mission in Chinese Context Benoit Vermander, s.j. What I intend to do in this paper is to reflect upon the experience we have developed at the Taipei Ricci Institute during the past ten years or so. The underlying question can be summarized as follows: how did a Jesuit-run research center on traditional Chinese culture evolve into a network trying (a) to build new lines of communication in China (b) to help to redefine what is at stake in China today in the broader context of sustainable development and world governance issues (c) to foster a sense of mission and urgency among Jesuits? - I - The Ricci Institute: a historical background Catholic missionaries arriving in Taiwan from 1950 on have concentrated their efforts on pastoral, educational and charitable concerns. At the same time, a number of them have developed a keen interest in Chinese culture and language and undertaken some research in that field. The earlier generation had been formed in the Mainland and was already sensitive to the efforts needed in order to implement a real “inculturation” of the faith (though the term was not used till after the Second Vatican Council). Research and writing were seen as prerequisite for grounding such inculturation on a real knowledge of Chinese language, psyche and customs. Other missionaries have gradually come into the field of Chinese studies through exposure to popular religion and ways of life or because of the theological and pastoral developments taking place in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. What is now known as the “Taipei Ricci Institute” was and is still officially named “Ricci Institute, Center for Chinese Studies.” The creation of other Ricci Institutes throughout the time explains for the shift in name. In 1971, Fr Claude Larre founded the Paris Ricci Institute (now directed by Fr Michel Masson). Fr Malatesta created the San Francisco Ricci Institute in 1984, within the premises of the University of San Francisco. After his death, which took place in 1998, Dr Wu Xiaoxin succeeded him. In 1999, the Macao Ricci Institute started under the impulse of Fr Sequeira and Camus, the latter one having worked at the Taipei Institute for more than twenty years, building up its library and playing a key role in the Dictionary project. These four Institutes are all Jesuit-led works. However, their internal structures and research focuses greatly vary. They are loosely connected through a network called the “International Ricci Association for Chinese Studies” (IRACS). Another Jesuit-led institution is part of the network, namely the Socio-Cultural Center at Fu Jen University now directed by Fr Edmund Ryden who is also the convener of the IRACS network. The Socio-Cultural center continues the mission first started by Fr Ladany when he launched the “China News Analysis” newsletter, a work that came from Hong-Kong to Taipei in 1994 and ended publication at the end of 1998. © 2005 eRenlai, Ricci Cultural Enterprise, all rights reserved 1 If the successors of Mateo Ricci had been the vanguard of Chinese studies, if they had to some extent ”invented” sinology in the classical and somehow “orientalist” meaning of the term, things had certainly changed much during the nineteenth century. The pastoral focus had shifted from the cities to the countryside. In the Western world, and consequently in the Church, to the early “sinophilia’ had succeeded a robust “sinophobia” that certainly was not favorable to the undertaking of any serious research in Chinese language, traditions or philosophy. However, around the end of the century the limits of the pastoralist approach were starting to clearly appear; the sufferings and humiliations endured by the Chinese nation were also raising new questions in the mind of several missionaries; furthermore, the revival in the study of the Chinese language and research on the newly discovered oracular inscriptions constituted a focus around which the early Jesuit sinologist tradition could be revived. At the turn of the century, within the premises of the Zikawei compound in Shanghai, the “bureau d’etudes sinologiques”, mostly composed of French Jesuits, was editing a number of seminal works, one of them being Fr Joseph Doré’s monumental “Recherches sur les superstitions chinoises.” The “Bureau” was soon to become a haven for lexicographic research, and the history of the “Grand Ricci”, the Dictionary finally published in 2001 by the Taipei and Paris Ricci Institutes, is to be traced back to that period. Since the history of the Taipei Ricci Institute is closely linked to the Dictionary project, I have to say a few things about this large-scale endeavor. There is a Hungarian Jesuit whose name is known by all China watchers - Fr Laszlo Ladany (1914- 1990), the founder of "China News Analysis", a newsletter that for decades was the most insightful source on the Beijing regime. Another Hungarian Jesuit deserving the same fame as Fr Ladany is Fr Eugene Zsamar. Fr Zsamar, who died in 1974, was the instigator of the most daring enterprise in Chinese lexicography attempted by foreigners during this century - an enterprise which started officially in Macao in 1949 and came to an end more than fifty two years later. Fr Zsamar's dream was to gather a team able to compile an encyclopedic polyglot dictionary in five languages: Hungarian, English, French, Spanish and Latin. Although Jesuits had compiled numerous dictionaries during their 400 hundred years of presence in China, there was a need for a systematic work on every aspect of Chinese language and culture. The initial stage of the project was soon disrupted by the political chaos in China. Father Zsamar took refuge in Macau. In 1949, a French Jesuit Father Deltour joined him and enriched the basic research material with some 200 dictionaries or related works which he had brought with him. The first two language teams were Hungarian and French. During the fall of 1951, the Spanish team was organized. Later on, at the request of Chinese seminaries, a Spanish Father and an Italian engaged in the compilation of the Latin section. The English team joined last, in 1952, when the team had already settled and settled in Taichung, central Taiwan. Father Zsamar had envisioned a dictionary that would cover the whole of Chinese history and culture. For this reason he selected as a reference all the material included in the three most well known Chinese dictionaries. Together, these three works included about 16,000 single characters and 180,000 compounds. It took two years to inventory all this basic documentation on cards. With the help of thirty collaborators, they added all possible translations in French, German, Spanish and Hungarian. This work amounted to an inventory with two million entries. Soon, a French Jesuit, Fr Yves Raguin, had to succeed to Fr Zsamar, whose health was deteriorating, as director of the project. Fr Raguin was to continue in this capacity until 1996 (he died in December 1998). Financial difficulties, deaths, the departure of many Jesuits towards other apostolic fields slowed considerably the completion of the project. Soon, the French section was the only one where a sizable number of Jesuits © 2005 eRenlai, Ricci Cultural Enterprise, all rights reserved 2 and collaborators were able to continue the work. The English section was dissolved after the unexpected death of its leader, Father Thomas Carroll, an archeologist. In 1966, after two years of preparation, Fr Raguin created the Taipei Ricci Institute, in order to give an institutional basis to the dictionary project and to include it within a broader range of research programs. During the seventies, medium-size Chinese-French, Chinese-Spanish and Chinese-Hungarian dictionaries were published by authors of the Institutes, their material based on a selection taken from the archives gathered during the years. However, it was the coming of the computer that saved the whole project, as it helped to organize and treat the data in a systematic way. It enabled the data to circulate between Taipei and Paris, where sinologists revised the material gathered by former generations of Jesuit scholars. Finally published in January 2002, the Dictionnaire Ricci de la Langue Chinoise contains 13,500 single characters and 300,000 Chinese expressions, spanning seven volumes and 9,000 pages. The Grand Ricci (as it is known) is an unparalleled publication effort in any European language, covering more than 4,000 years of the history of the Chinese language, the origins of its script, and extending up to the most contemporary usage. An association has been constituted in order to supervise the follow-up: shift to the pinyin romanization system, specialized lexicons, commercial contracts, maintenance of the database… A contract with Beijing Commercial Press for an abridged Mainland edition of the Dictionary has been secured and was signed in Paris in September 2002. Summing up, on the Dictionary front, the mission has been accomplished, but the work nevertheless is continuing, in a more cooperative and diversified fashion. - II – Vision, Tradition and Trials: 1966-1996 I have said that Fr Raguin and Lefeuvre created the Ricci Institute for giving an institutional basis to the Dictionary endeavor. However, from the start, the vision was much larger. In a document dated March 20, 1966, which signals the effective launch of the Institute, Fr Raguin, Lefeuvre and Larre sketch out the following program: “(The Institute) will be an extension of the Five Languages Dictionary Project. (…) The purpose of the Institute is to promote the study of questions concerning China, both ancient and modern. It should be noted that the past will be studied in order to understand the present and effectively plan for the future.
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