When addressing the Bishops of Taiwan during one of their Ad Limina visits, Pope John Paul II exhorted them: “In your case, the inculturation of the Gospel in your own culture must show that there can be no opposition or incompatibility between being at one and the same time truly Catholic and authentically Chinese”. Four centuries ago, a courageous Italian priest and worthy spiritual son of St Ignatius of Loyola had already put into practice those words of the Polish Pontiff with all his heart, soul and might. I am referring to the great Jesuit missionary Father Matteo Ricci.

Matteo was born in Macerata on 6 October 1552. After studying law for three years in Rome, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1571. When he finished his studies in mathematics, geography, cosmology and astronomy in 1578, his Jesuit superiors dispatched him to the China mission. In 1580, the year of his priestly ordination, the superior of Jesuit missions in the East Indies, Alessandro Valignani, sent Ricci to prepare himself to enter China. Two years later Father Matteo sailed to the Portuguese colony in South China of Macao where he embarked on an intensive study of the Chinese language, which he mastered perfectly. Ricci made the much-awaited entry into China, accompanied by his Jesuit fellow missionary Michael Ruggieri, on 10 September 1583. Initially dressed as a Buddhist monk and later as a Confucian mandarin, Ricci was determined to adapt to Chinese customs and culture so that he could proclaim Christ’s Gospel to the indigenous people.

Recognising the enormous potential of culture at the service of evangelisation, Ricci brought with him western clocks, musical instruments, mathematical and astronomical instruments, as well as cosmological, geographical, and architectural works with maps and diagrams in order to serve him well through his singular tactic of disseminating the Gospel, i.e. intercultural dialogue. By generously and amicably sharing his Western cultural heritage with the locals, together with his extraordinary memory and mathematical and astronomical talents, Father Ricci managed to hold the attention of a significant group among the Chinese elite, some of whom, like Paul Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Hsü Kuang-ch’I, Li Chih-ts’ao, and Yang T’ing-yün subsequently became Christian converts.

In 1601, Ricci was warmly received by Emperor K’ang-Hsi of the Ming dynasty in Peking. He was the first western missionary to be officially invited by a Chinese sovereign. For nine years Ricci and other Jesuits dialogued with Chinese intellectuals. Thanks to these engaging dialogues, marked by deep mutual respect, Father Ricci tried to bridge the Christian faith with Chinese culture. The marvellous results of this difficult yet vital evangelising mission are truly remarkable. By the time he died, on 11 May 1610, Ricci had brought 2,500 Chinese to the Catholic faith, mainly from the cultured classes. Moreover he authored the following works in the Chinese language: Treatise on Friendship, Treatise on Mnemonic Arts, a Chinese translation of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, a book of Chinese apologetics –The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, and Ten Discourses by a Paradoxical Man.

During the weekly audience of 2 June, Pope Benedict XVI said that Father Ricci is “a singular case of a happy synthesis between the proclamation of the Gospel and dialogue with the culture of the people to whom it is taken, an example of the balance between doctrinal clarity and prudent pastoral action”. As an exemplary minister of the Gospel, Ricci accomplished this only via “the profound learning of the language, but also the assumption of the lifestyle and customs of the educated Chinese classes, fruit of study and of patient and farsighted exercise, done in such a way that Father Ricci was accepted by the Chinese with respect and esteemed, no longer as a foreigner, but as the ‘Teacher of the Great West’”. Additionally, the Holy Father pointed out that the Jesuit was adept to inculturate the evangelical proclamation in the Chinese context because he took recourse to Christian humanism. The Pope contended that this kind of humanism “considers the person inserted in his context, cultivating the moral and spiritual values, making use of all that is positive in the Chinese tradition and offering to enrich it with the contribution of the Western culture but, above all, with the wisdom and the truth of Christ”.

In a very intriguing article entitled Matteo Ricci: Shaped by the Chinese, Professor Nicolas Standaert, a specialist in the Sino-European cultural contacts in the 17th and 18th centuries, offers four vital characteristics which greatly shaped Ricci and his Jesuit companions through their constant interaction with the Chinese populace. First, accommodating Chinese culture. The most obvious example of the interference of the Other in the field of accommodation is the shift from a policy of adaptation to Buddhism to a policy of adaptation to Confucianism. Second, the propagation ‘from the top’, in which the role of the Other can be thoroughly demonstrated. Ricci’s meeting with the Emperor and the corollary encounters with local magistrates and literati amply showed the importance of establishing personal relationships (guanxi). Ricci’s originality was that of recognising and acquiring some common attributes such as acting like their Chinese literati, and the concomitant establishment of a network founded on common Christian rituals. Third, the employment of science in the service of the propagation of faith, as evidenced in the writings of the Jesuits and their converts. The presentation of European science, the desired translation of works on mathematics and astronomy by the Chinese intelligentsia and the absence of pre-printing censorship in China were surely decisive. Fourth, tolerance of Confucian rites. Due to the considerable power of influence that Confucianism had in China, Christianity as a marginal religion had to accept the state orthodoxy and the ritual traditions of Confucianism.

The key virtue, which made Matteo Ricci the great “Apostle of China” and a balanced inculturator, was his perseverant loving patience that constantly animated his arduous, complex, delicate and important evangelising mission.