The project develops an exhaustive study of the Early Modern theory and methodology of the Franciscan mission to China (late Ming and early Qing dynasties, cca. 1580-1660). Due to the cultural, historical, and spiritual idiosyncrasies of the Middle Kingdom, ecclesiastical authorities could not directly transfer their missiological methodology, employed in the Indies and other parts of the world, to the Chinese Apostolate. They had to design specific, unique and novel strategies; the problem is that several religious orders were operating in China in the first phase of evangelization, and they all developed fairly different and sometimes directly conflicting approaches toward the mission. Modern scholarship has devoted its attention almost exclusively to the policy of the Jesuit order, failing to recognize the importance of the mendicant orders in the evangelization of China. The project fills in this void: it focuses on the Franciscan order, and more specifically on the first 80 years of its presence in the empire, crucial for the China Apostolate. It thoroughly examines this Franciscan evangelization project, as developed in a body of theological and missiological documents, historical accounts, and epistles, written by the missionaries themselves. It explores not only the basic theological assumptions of the Franciscan evangelization strategy, but also its ideological, spiritual, and symbolical underpinnings. It analyzes how the Franciscan missionaries attempted to introduce Christianity to a civilization that was, in many aspects, alien to the Christian message, and in which ways they tried (or resisted) to reconcile Christian spirituality and doctrine to the specific Chinese spiritual and cultural idiom. The study of the Franciscan apostolic methodology, of its key assumptions, arguments, and also of its internal dilemmas and challenges, helps us to better understand the complex nature of the encounter between Western religious thought and the Chinese civilization and, by extension, provides relevant insights into dynamics that determine East-West relations till the present day.
