Interview with the missionary : frequently asked questions for Jesuit petitioners for the Indies / Frei, Elisa and Nebgen Christoph

Published by Institute of Jesuit Sources 

The Roman archives of the Society of Jesus hold over twenty thousand letters—litterae indipetae—in which young Jesuits petitioned their superiors for missions abroad. While these letters are currently well-studied, there is limited insight into the broader social, religious, and political contexts that shaped missionary appointments. This book fills that gap by presenting, translating, and analyzing three early modern documents that offer invaluable perspectives on mission readiness and application.

The first document is a Latin collection by Franz Xaver Amrhyn, S.J. (1655–1731), containing meditative and ascetic texts to help aspiring missionaries discern their vocation. The second is a manuscript formerly held at Ingolstadt, featuring practical advice on qualities required for Eastern missions and a Q&A section on petitioning Rome. The third, Misión a las Indias, is a 1620 Spanish handbook by Girolamo Pallas, S.J. (1594–1670), who upon arriving in Peru detailed his experiences and outlined strategies for navigating the application process.

Together, these documents shed light on the blend of spiritual, practical, and political considerations that informed missionary applications in the Jesuit order during the early modern period.

A sketch of missions ; or history of the principal attempts to propagate Christianity among the heathen / Miron Winslow, 1789-1864

Along the mission trail / Bruno Hagspiel

Bibliography at end of each volume.

Lib. only has vol. 4: in China.

Annales de la Propagation de la Foi : recueil périodique des lettres des évêques et des missionnaires des missions des deux mondes, et de tous les documents relatifs aux missions et a l'œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi. Collection faisant suite aux Lettres édifiantes / 

vol. 4 has title "Annales de l'association de la propagation de la foi".

Lib. has vols. 3 (1829), 4 (1830), 13-14 (1841-42), 15-16 (1843-44), 17-18 (1845-46), 19-20 (1847-48), 21-22 (1849-50), 23-24 (1851-52), 26-27 (1854-55), 28-29 (1856-57), 30 (1858), 34 (1862), 35 (1863).

Atlas hierarchicus : Descriptio geographica et statistica S. Romanae ecclesiae tum occidentis tum orientis juxta statum praesentem accedunt etiam nonnullae notae historicae necnon ethnographicae / Karl Streit, 1874-1935

Choix des lettres édifiantes : écrites des missions étrangères ; avec des additions, des notes critiques, et des observations pour la plus grande intelligence de ces lettres ; précédé d'un tableaux géographique de la Chine, de sa politique, des sectes religieuses, de la littérature, et de l'état actuel du Christianisme chez ce peuple / par M. ***
t. 1-3. Missions de la Chine -- t.4. Missions de l'Inde -- t.5-6. Missions du Levant -- t.7-8. Missions de l'Amérique.

Various volumes and editions online:Hathi Trust: Revised and considerably enlarged edition, prepared by a new and unnamed editor, of Choix des lettres, etc., ed. by J. B. Montmignon, 8 v., Paris, Maradan, 1808-09. V.6. p. 1-331 contains a new introductory account of the discovery of America and of Canada, and letters from missions, as in the Lyons 1819 ed.
Also at BSB, and various other sites.

Église vivante : réponse à l'attente des peuples

Lib. only has 1.2 (1949)

Gründung der neuen Jesuitenmission durch General Pater Johann Philipp Roothaan / Otto, Joseph Albert.

Informations catholiques internationales
Library has no. 272. 

Les missions catholiques françaises au XIX siècle / publiées sous la direction du Père J.-B. Piolet, S.J. ; avec la collaboration de toutes les Sociétés de Missions ; illustrations d'après des documents originaux.

"Ouvrage couronné par l'Académie francaise."

"Il a été tiré de cet ouvrage cinquante exemplaires sur papier imperial du Japon, tous numérotés à la main. No. 50"

"Introduction: L'apostolat" (v. 1, pt. i-xcvi) signed: Etienne Lamy

Short bibliographies at end of most of the chapters.

1. Missions d'Orient.--II. Abyssinie, Inde, Indo-Chine.--III. Chine et Japon.--IV. Océanie, Madagascar.--V. Missions d'Afrique.--VI. Missions d'Amérique.

Liturgy and the Missions : The Nijmegen Papers / Johannes Hofinger

Includes index.

Mission de l'Église
Library has no. 159. 

Mission for Samaritans : a survey of achievements and opportunities in the field of Catholic medical missions / by Anna Dengel, MD, Superior of the Society of Catholic Medical Missionaries ; with a foreword by the Rt. Rev. John M. Cooper, PhD, STD, The Catholic University of America.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 116-121).
Problems of the Living Church Series.

Contents: What are medical missions? -- Historical background of medical missions -- Medical missions in the twentieth century. Catholic ; Protestant -- Africa -- India -- China -- Islands of the Pacific. The Philippines ; Japan ; Oceania -- Latin America -- North America. The American Indian ; The Eskimo -- Special groups in the United States. The Negro ; Underprivileged white groups.

From dust jacket (not included with this copy): "An interesting and impressive tour awaits the reader within the following pages. With admirable directness and lucidity, Mother Anna Dengel, M.D., who established the Medical Mission Sisters in 1925, explains what medical mission work is, what it has done, and what it plans to do."

Nos missionaries : patriotes et savants / par A.-A. Fauvel.

The Conversion of the Pagan World / McGlinchey, Joseph F.

The man on Joss Stick alley / James E. Walsh

First ed. pub. in 1932 under title: Father McShane of Maryknoll.

The Maryknoll Brothers : the Catholic Church in the United States and a new way of mission / Kevin Dargan

Date from preface.

The Maryknoll golden book : an anthology of mission literature / Albert J. Nevins

The meaning of Maryknoll : illustrated with photographs /Albert J. Nevins

Includes index.

The missionary movement in American Catholic history / Angelyn Dries.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 357-375) and index.

Contents: Mission in the colonial period, 1492-1775 -- Mission within the United States, 1820-1920 -- Missions overseas, 1820-93 -- The Spanish-American War, the Americanist period, and a national focus for missions overseas, 1898-1919 -- "America's hour" for missions overseas, 1918-35 -- "Light to the darkness": mission to Asia, 1918-53 -- Struggle for world order, 1946-59 -- From "rehabilitation" to "development": Latin America, 1959-71 -- A time for reassessment: liberation theology and the "option for the poor," 1965-80 -- U.S. Catholic mission history: themes and threads, 1850-1980.

From the publisher: "This first general history of American Catholic mission explores not only its institutions but its human and religious aspects as well. It shows how the church in the United States not only sent thousands of men and women overseas but evangelized internally and incorporated millions of immigrants over the course of two centuries. Angelyn Dries offers a thoroughly researched and nuanced view of this history, and its profound influence on the emergence of a distinctive American Catholic identity."

The Vatican mission exposition : a window on the world / by Reverend John J. Considine.
Former private library copy from the Jesuit Residence in Hong Kong, Ricci Hall, Hong Kong.

Online at Hathi Trust.

The short-lived Catholic Central Bureau : national catalyst for cultural apostolate in China (1947-1951)  /  Bibiana Yee-ying Wong = Tanhua-yixian : Tianzhujiao jiaowu xiejin weiyuanhui yu Zhongguo wenhua chuanjiao shiye  曇花一現 : 天主教教務協進委員會與中國文化傳教事業 (1947-1951) / Huang Yiying 黃懿縈.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-295) and index.
Based on the author's Ph.D. Thesis (Ph.D. Furen daxue Zongjiaoxue yanjiusuo  仁大學宗教學研究所 (2020)),
Text in English with abstract also in Chinese.

Gift of the Author.

本書是研究在戰後中國成立的上海天主教教務協進委員會的首部專著。時值教廷在中國建立教會聖統制，並與國民黨政府展開正式外交關係，教務協進會在教廷駐華公使指導下，集合不同傳教修會的中外籍神職菁英，除了協調近140個教區的傳教活動，特別著重於文化傳教事業，運用現代媒體向城市知識分子傳播基督信仰的價值觀，抗衡唯物論者的反宗教宣傳。它又向全國推廣聖母軍，培育平信徒協助文化傳教，為使一旦神職人員無法履行牧職，天主教團體依然保持活力。最終，教務協進會在中共建國初年被取締，各項計劃未能實現，主要成員遭逮捕、驅逐或在拘禁期間殞命。儘管上海教務協進會鮮明的歷史角色結束，它卻在台北和新加坡開枝散葉，協調全球華人傳教工作，本書的敘述延伸至這兩個鮮少有人研究的機構。

 This book may be called a groundbreaking work of research into the historical event of the Shanghai Catholic Central Bureau (CCB), which was an ecclesiastical executive organ set up by the Apostolic Internuncio after the establishment of Sino-Vatican diplomatic relations and the Catholic Hierarchy in post-war China. Besides coordinating missionary activities of nearly 140 dioceses administered by various religious congregations, it promoted a cultural apostolate with the use of modern communication media to guide people in the understanding of the Catholic faith and advise missionary work in the face of anti-religious propaganda by materialists. It also trained the laity through the Legion of Mary to sustain Catholic communities when the clergy was barred from its ministries. Eventually, the CCB could not establish its endeavor due to the Communist ban. Key members of the Bureau were arrested, expelled or died early in prison. Despite its vivid historical role of the CCB in Shanghai, this book also investigates its two “heirs” in Taipei and Singapore to organize the apostolate to the Chinese in diaspora.

關鍵詞：中國天主教、共產主義與基督宗教、聖母軍、政教關係、三自運動

Keywords: Chinese Catholicism, communism and Christianity, Legion of Mary, state-church relations, Three-Self Movement

Bibiana Yee-Ying Wong is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica in Taiwan. She received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Fu Jen Catholic University in 2020. Her research interest is in the history of Chinese Catholicism in the twentieth century. While working as a journalist for two Catholic news organizations in Hong Kong from 2002 to 2013, she obtained Master’s degrees in Journalism and in Religious Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

黃懿縈是土生土長的香港人，台灣天主教輔仁大學宗教學博士（2020），中央研究院近代史研究所博士後研究學者（2021-2022），研究方向為二十世紀中國天主教歷史與政教關係。曾任職於香港兩間天主教新聞機構（2002-2013），並修畢香港中文大學的新聞學及宗教研究碩士學位。

Table of Contents

Introduction

1 A Zigzag Path to Uniformity

– Historical overview of missionary cooperation before the CCB –

Regional synods in China during late Qing period

New missionary strategy and directives

Celso Costantini and Primum Concilium Sinense

Synodal Commission on Schools, Books and Press

Catholic Action movement and Mario Zanin

2 “The Dizziest Place” in Shanghai

– Creation and organization of the Catholic Central Bureau–

Establishment of the Chinese Catholic Hierarchy

Reorganization of Synodal Commissions by Antonio Riberi

The Catholic Central Bureau in its initial stage

Christianization of China through cultural apostolate

3 Creative Propagators of the Faith

– Five foreign missionaries in the CCB and their work–

François X. Legrand and publication work

Jan Joos and Catholic radio activities

Jozef Vos, Correspondence Courses and his books

Patrick O’Connor and Hua Ming News Service

Aedan W. McGrath and the Legion of Mary

4 Talented Defenders of the Church

– Five Chinese priests in the CCB and their life’s witness –

Matthew Chen, courageous scholar and writer    

Joseph Shen, organizer and martyr of the Legion

John Dong and his apologetic speech  

John B. Gao and the national congress on Catholic education

John Mao and his fight for the Overseas Student Service

 5 Three-Self Reforms and the CCB

– The origin and course of state-church friction –

Opposition between Catholic and Communist ideologies

Religious policy of Chinese Communists

The Three-Self Reform Movement

The CCB’s three responding documents

 6 A Tool of the Imperialist Riberi”

– Ban on the CCB and the Legion of Mary –

The first arrest: François Théry

Suspension of the CCB and press attack

Mass arrest of the CCB directors

Crackdown on the Legion of Mary

Tragic death of Jozef Vos

Imprisonment of McGrath and Legrand

7 Aftermath and Continuation

– The CCB’s final days in Shanghai and reestablishment after 1952 –

The CCB chapel and playground

The fate of Bishop James E. Walsh

Riberi restored the CCB in Taiwan

The Singapore Catholic Central Bureau

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index