Chapter 11 Catholic Mission Stations in Northern China: Centers of Stability and Protection in Troubled Times
In: The Church as Safe HavenSearch for other papers by Rolf Gerhard Tiedemann in
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Abstract
This chapter refers to the Jesuit mission station in Xianxian in Hebei Province, and shows that in the absence of a functioning government, the Catholic Church provided a safe haven for Chinese refugees during the Sino-Japanese War and even issued its own currency to stabilize rural economy. This practice indicated the important roles that some of the Catholic mission stations had played in local society since the late nineteenth century. The small and predominantly Christian village of Zhangjiazhuang, for example, became in 1863 the central mission station and episcopal residence of the newly established Vicariate Apostolic of Southeast Zhili. From these small beginnings, a major mission complex developed, with a seminary, hospital, convents, schools, orphanages and workshops. The mission also possessed considerable agricultural land to ensure self-sufficiency in food supplies. Such effective Christian communities were criticized as self-contained foreign bodies, but they frequently interacted with local society and politics. It was after the outbreak of the Chinese civil war that the Jesuit mission station could not function. Zhangjiazhuang, along with many other mission stations, had ceased to be safe havens affording protection, shelter and sustenance for the local people, and Catholic priests and sisters were no longer able to act as healers, providers, protectors and mediators.