This article is the first part of an essay by Father Gianni Criveller of the of Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) on the missionary endeavours undertaken by the PIME during its 150 years of history in China
The narrative of Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) in China oscillates between history and present time; between situations of an unrepeatable past, and current events loaded of uncertain consequences for the future. The mission in China and Hong Kong, for PIME missionaries, is not only a past history to recall with melancholy, it is also a difficult and uncertain present and it is also a future for which we continue to hope.
It is not the first time that our missionaries faced a serious difficulty. The evangelical mission carries a message of joy and peace, but it collides with opposition, defeats, failures and restarts. We are not surprised to find ourselves in difficult situations. We are happy to share the anxieties and pains of our friends and disciples of Jesus in China and Hong Kong. And we continue trusting in God, who guides history providentially, however mysteriously.
The history of PIME in China is full of exciting, painful and complex events. The protagonists were 263 missionaries. If we include the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and the missionaries of Hong Kong, the number would exceed 500.
Jesus’ mandate to proclaim the gospel was not only for the past, it is also for the present and the future. Our present is Hong Kong, a city that is going through one of the most difficult and crucial moments in its history. We hope to continue offering our evangelical witness in Hong Kong in the future, as it was here that our presence in China had its beginning in 1858. The first PIME leader in this small British colony was Paolo Reina; then Timoleone Raimondi, whose main collaborator was the brilliant Giuseppe Burghignoli.
Two hundred and twenty PIME missionaries have served in Hong Kong. Until 1949, the diocese included large areas in the province of Guangdong, on the Chinese mainland. Today 30 of our missionaries continue their missionary service in Hong Kong.
PIME Missionaries in central-north China
On 8 February 1870, 150 years ago, four pioneers of the Foreign Missions of Milan, know today as PIME, left Hong Kong and, after a stopover in Shanghai, sailing along the Yangtze River, reached Hankou, now part of the city of Wuhan. It was nearly the end of February. They stayed for few days at the missionary station run by the Franciscan Missionaries. Then they continued by boat for a couple of weeks, then two days on foot to reach Jingang (then called Jinjiagang, which became the famous, at least among PIME, as Kin Kia Kang, walled citadel). It was at the centre of the Henan Mission, the apostolic vicariate that the Holy See had entrusted to them the previous year. A group of Christians led by two Chinese priests welcomed them. The chronicles report that there was a lot of joy. It was 19 March 1870.
The history of PIME in China is full of exciting, painful and complex events. The protagonists were 263 missionaries. If we include the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and the missionaries of Hong Kong, the number would exceed 500.
The start in Jingang, which later became the diocese of Nanyang, was remarkable: in 12 years the few Milanese missionaries doubled the number of the faithful, founded schools, opened seminars, helped the poor. They invited the Daughters of Charity of the Canossian Institute (Canossian Sisters) to save baby girls; to educate young women and provide health care for the female population.
Reading about the initial difficulties, the misunderstandings and the lack of thoughtfulness on the part of male missionaries, rouses a sentiment of great admiration for the worth of these women and their selfless devotion to the cause of women emancipation and of evangelisation. When they arrived in Hong Kong, due to communication difficulties and a certain amount of sloppiness that the ecclesiastical authorities sometimes holds towards women, they were offered no place to spend the night! A humiliation they suffered with Christian resignation.
I would like to say a word about the Canossian Sisters, collaborators of the PIME missionaries in Hong Kong and China. This year, the 170 years since their arrival in Hong Kong, I was asked to study, write and talk about their missionary enterprise. It is indeed an impressive story. They arrived in Hong Kong in 1860, accompanied by Father Burghignoli.
Their experience in Hankou, China, was no different either. The bishop who had insisted on having them was out of residence and on their arrival, no one had prepared a home for the sisters. Yet these women have done nothing short of amazing things for the emancipation of girls, education and the promotion of women in the city of Hong Kong, in China and throughout Asia.
Let’s go back to PIME. The forces were always inadequate and well below what was needed, yet the enthusiasm of the young missionaries, transmitted to us by their letters, was contagious. An enthusiasm and generosity in the midst of dramatic situations: frequent famines, floods, banditry, attacks and civil wars. Their letters also offer moving accounts of the miseries suffered by poor people, especially the women and children. The missionaries did their utmost for them, with a specific intention of salvation and promotion.
The Yellow River runs through Henan province. Its floods shattered the lives of hundreds of thousands of farmers. The flood of 13 and 14 June 1938, caused by the opening of the dams by the authorities to counter the Japanese advance, was especially devastating. The city of Kaifeng and the surrounding area were submerged. At least half a million people lost their lives and many millions more were left homeless. Numerous Christian communities founded by our missionaries were destroyed.
The exercise of charity by the missionaries was the true engine for the progress of evangelisation. The help received from the missionaries moved many neophytes. It is a lesson always valid in the Church, even today: what leads people to faith in Jesus is the witness of love.
The missionaries could see that the motives for some conversions were not always spiritually oriented. But it is also a constant law of evangelisation: although the initial motives are scarcely spiritual, true conversions and transformation take place by living the Christian faith. From them derive vocations and martyrs.
Martyrdom is an important part of this story. Martyrdom is not an accident, nor a parenthesis. It is the daily condition of Christian life. Missionaries do not seek persecution, and they do not want to see their communities suffer. They had built Christian villages to protect the faithful, in some cases they even erected fortified citadels capable of resisting attacks.
This happened during the Boxer Rebellion (1900) or during the systematic violence by the Warlords (1920s). Among Chinese faithful, there are many priests, religious and foreign missionaries who were martyred for confessing their faith.
In addition to St. Alberico Crescitelli (Guo Xide) in Shaanxi (21 July 1900), and the two missionaries killed in Hong Kong (1943 and 1974), PIME counts six martyrs in China, killed in 1941 and 1942 in Henan. I want to remember their names out of a debt of justice and respect: Cesare Mencattini (12 July 1941) Antonio Barosi, Mario Zanardi, Bruno Zanella, Gerolamo Lazzaroni and (19 November 1941); Carlo Osnaghi, together with his servant, on 2 February 1942.
Male missionaries could not enter homes and approach women. The Canossian Sisters, and the Missionaries of St. Joseph helped them.
PIME created and led four vicariates, that later became dioceses, in mainland China: three in Henan province: Kaifeng, Nanyang and Anyang (known as Weihui); and Hanzhong in southern Shaanxi, the mission of Alberico Crescitelli and the famous photographer Leone Nani. Each of these missions generated numerous communities of the baptised, martyrs and confessors, priests, men and women religious.
Male missionaries could not enter homes and approach women. The Canossian Sisters, and the Missionaries of St. Joseph helped them.
The Missionaries of St. Joseph were founded in 1920 in Anyang (Henan) by Father Isaia Bellavite, after the devastating flooding of the Yellow River. Twelve girls answered Bellavite’s invitation to help devastated families. Several of the sisters died of tuberculosis and fatigue.
In 1949 the congregation had more than 70 sisters working in the city hospital, in clinics and in the orphanage, as well as in mission stations. Now, in the year 2020, the community counts 130 sisters, most of them young, actively involved in health care and in the life of the diocese.
