This article treats catholic missions with the 16th century and the 17th century , period known as of employers .

It is about the second of a whole concerning the expansion and the diffusion of the Christianity, which includes/understands:

1. Expansion of the Christianity of Ve century in XVe century which stops at the 15th century.

2. Catholic Missions at the 16th century and the 17th century.
3. catholic Missions of 1622 at the end of the XVIIIe century, (pontifical missions, 1st part)
4. catholic Missions at XIXe and the XXe centuries (pontifical missions, 2nd part)
5. History of the Protestant missions

The organization of the division of the world (1494-1514)

1492 are the year when Christophe Colomb discovers what will be America. In spite of the catch of Grenade, this same year the Spaniards, the expansion of Christianity remains blocked by Islam in the South of the Mediterranean basin and the East of the Volga.

What one calls the great discoveries will be the occasion of a new phase of this expansion of Christianity in the nations which pass under the domination of these two major maritime powers which became the Portugal and the Spain. More largely, this dash missionary extends in all the regions which progress of navigation makes now accessible to the Western navigators.

The Portuguese had undertaken the exploration of the coasts of Africa since the beginning of the 15th century. Dice the return of Christophe Colomb in 1493, the two Iberian nations require the arbitration of the pope Alexandre VI to divide the world. The treaty of Tordesillas, signed on June 7th, 1494 institutes a dividing line which passes to hundred miles to the west of the Azores. This delimitation of sovereignty is extended, a few years later, with the missionary activity: In 1508, by the bubble Universalis Ecclesiae , Spain obtains the monopoly of the missions in the zone which had been allotted to him against the commitment to send missionaries of sufficient number, of getting the free passage to them, of building churches etc In 1514, a symmetrical statute is granted to the Portuguese. They is acted in fact of a regularization, because the latter had been already ensured, in the middle of the 15th century, of exclusiveness missionary in the whole world, time when they were the only maritime power. The Holy See which has neither clean financial means, nor structure centralized missionary, thus sub-contracted the organization of the missions to the catholic sovereigns.

Spanish missions in XVIe century

The Spanish America

The missionary presence forms integral part of the conquest of the Central America and southernmost: the Spanish do not conceive the installation of a Spanish administration without including the clerical institutions there. Legions of Spanish missionaries unload in America: secular , but especially of the regular (see Regular and secular). It is about franciscains in 1502, then of Dominican in 1510, Mercédaires in 1519, Augustins in 1533, finally of Jesuits in 1568. All these orders are organized in provinces, according to their rules. Bishops are named among the regular ones.

The first organization missionary itself was that of Mexico (the Spain News) where the Cortes was unloaded in 1521. As of 1523 of the missionaries franciscains whose Pierre of Ghent unloads there then in 1524,12 Spanish missionaries. Évêché of Mexico City is created in 1528, with the first bishop: the franciscain Juan de Zumarraga. In 1548 in Mexico City the first province franciscaine New World is created.

The second bishop of Lima, Turibio de Mongrovejo, chairs in 1583 a council which defines the broad outlines of the pastoral missionary and the organization of the Church in the Spanish possessions of South America. One decides there to translate catechism into Quechua and Aymara. This catechism is in fact declined in three more or less developed levels. To facilitate religious teaching, the council recommends a squaring of the country by the clergy: a priest for thousand inhabitants, and regroupings of the villages of less than thousand inhabitants.

The former beliefs, animists, do not seem to pose of problem to the Spanish missionaries who propose with their Néophyte S a worship rich in great external demonstrations, ceremonies and processions, at the same time as they prohibit to them any return to their old practices " idolâtriques". One spoke about policy of clean slate to mean that the Spanish missionaries at the same time were unaware of and éradiqué any religious demonstration former on their arrival. Completely integrated into the Spanish conquest of the new territories, certain missionaries also play a part of counterweight with respect to the civil and military administration and take the defense of the Indians victims of spoliation or oppression. Most famous is Bartolomé de Las Put: simple priest in 1512, then bishop of the Chiapas in 1545, it opposed the exactions of the colonists with respect to the Indians since 1514.

Ultimately, the Spanish missionaries succeed in imposing Catholicism in the territories controlled by their country. The cities of the Spanish America, grouped around their churches, are perfect counterparts of the Spanish cities; but the attempts to constitute an indigenous clergy fail completely. Little by little, the Spanish settlement of the colonies becomes sufficient to fill the seminars created on the spot, but the recommendations of the council of Lima to frame the Indian population by the clergy remain partly dead letter.

examples of missions Jesuits in South America:

• Missions Jesuits of Bolivia
• Mission Jesuit of Paraguay

Philippines

With the Filipino , the situation evolves/moves more favorably. The Spaniards took foot in 1564 there, starting from Mexico, accompanied, as in Americas of their missionaries: Augustins dice 1564, then franciscains as from 1577, Jesuits in 1581 and Dominican in 1587. One estimates the populations Christian woman of 1614 at a million faithful. A catholic university is founded on this date by the Dominican ones, but especially, one very quickly sees appearing an indigenous clergy. Which are the causes of this success? Faster organization of the structures missionaries and stronger determination to form an indigenous clergy, or much better receptivity of the Filipino population? The question remains still open.

Portuguese missions in XVIe century

The case of Brazil

In Portuguese America (Brazil), the colonial capital is Bahia. The conditions of colonization are not very different from those of the Spanish America, but for reasons which are undoubtedly due to the conditions of settlement of Brazil, the Portuguese clergy which had unloaded with the first colonists remains more with those. The things will take another turning with the arrival of the Jesuits, in 1549. In 1600, they are yet only 63, but they have already a considerable radiation: They could form in their schools a great number of Indian catechists whom they send to évangéliser their compatriots. The Jesuits also intervene on the social plan, by sédentarisant nomads. They are the organizers and the chiefs of these new villages.

The Jesuits never completely overcame the linguistic problems because of multiplicity of the languages. They organize festivals and popular rejoicings of profane nature to compensate for the disappearance of the old pagan festivals. Most known of the Portuguese missionaries in Brazil are Manuel da Nobrega, Jose de Anchieta and Ignace d' Azevedo, béatifié in 1864.

Portuguese missionaries in Asia

Put aside Brazil, the Portuguese who are hardly more than one million and half of people, is not able to populate the immense territories on which they radiate. Their empire extends from Brazil with Macao while passing by the turn of Africa and the South Asia. If one once more compares the position of the Spanish missionaries with that of the Portuguese, one will say that the power struggle is less favorable to the Portuguese: Starting from Goa, of Malacca and Macao, the people which they meet are numerous and of old culture. Their action however marks their contemporaries and leaves traces. Let us say from the start that many of these missionaries who work under the authority of the king of Portugal are not Portuguese: François Xavier (1506-1552), which will be then declared “owner of the missions”, is a Navarrese who had made his studies in Paris. He preaches and baptizes in India (1542) and in Japan (1549), the gift of the languages was sometimes lent to him, but the modern historians consider that he often used interprêtes. Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci which is the first Jésuites in China (1580) is Italian, as Roberto de Nobili which exerts its apostolate in India as from 1604. Alexandre of Rhodos which évangélise Vietnam is French.

Missions in India

One finds in India, of the Christians before the arrival of the Portuguese. They are the communities known as " of Thomas" Saint; with the Kérala and on the Coromandel dimension. They had, like the Nestoriens, lost any contact with papacy since centuries. It is towards these areas that go the effort of the first Portuguese missionaries shortly after 1500. In fact, the greatest successes are observed, initially, in the Portuguese territory of Goa, where the missionaries can be constant by the power of the State. According to the catholic encyclopedia of 1908 " the not-catholics often explain the first conversions by the fact that the Portuguese spread the fine words by the force, " with the point of the épée" , one says sometimes. This vision of the things is certainly exaggerated, and with many regards, false. Admittedly, there was a small number of case well where the physical force was used, for example, when captured pirates had of another alternative to only convert where to be precipitated in the sea. But such cases, in addition to which they were not approved by the religious authorities or civil, were in fact so rare that they should not be taken into account. In fact, at the beginning, the tendency was to show tolerance with respect to paganism while giving its chance to propaganda missionary… The methods adopted by the State consisted initially of the pitiless destruction of the pagan temples and the pollution of their crowned tanks when the civil capacity was fully places from there and that the fine words had been preached. And also by prohibiting the public exercise of any foreign religion in the Portuguese territories… " In other words, where the Portuguese control indeed territories, their persuasive force is not less than that of the Spaniards.

Franciscains and the Dominican ones are the first orders on the ground, followed soon by the Jesuits and Augustiniens, and then, by the Théatines Carmelite nuns, the hospital ones of Midsummer's Day and the oratoriens. The Jesuit Roberto de Nobili arrives to India in 1604. Before him, the missionaries were real successes of conversion only towards the populations of low castes or even outcast. Robert de Nobili realizes that such a state of affairs would be likely to make the religion Christian ineluctably incompatible with the high castes. The nobility of its origins allows him to be presented without complex like a Rajah become sanyassi , it is--with-to say penitent, which enables him to discuss on a foot equality with the Brahmes, but it agrees to completely separate from the other Christians and Jésuites. This attitude starts a controversy in Rome which precedes future the Querelle of the Rites. In 1623, a bubble of Gregoire XV approves his method.

Missions in Japan

At the time of its first contact with Japan, in 1549-1551, François Xavier works out a line which should govern the forms that the Christian apostolate must take in Japan: To maintain good relationships with the daïmos, (i.e. lords), to treat the Japanese with honor and respect, to put themselves at their cultural high level and to recommend themselves of China which enjoys a great prestige to the country of the Rising sun. The Christianity develops slowly until 1579 when another Jesuit, Alexandre Valignano founds the college of Funaï in Japan. Several Japanese resulting from this college are then directed towards the noviciates of Macao or Goa and reach the Sacerdoce. Jean Guennou estimates at three hundred and thousand the number of baptized in 1597, the year when a wild repression falls down on the young Japanese church. This persecution proceeds at the same time as the closing of the country to the Westerners.

Missions in China

In China, the Jesuit Matteo Ricci understands that it made false route while being presented in the form of a " bonze chrétien". He takes the title of well-read man whom he can assume besides so much are large his intellectual abilities which not only enable him to control well the sciences and the mathematics known in occident, but also to assimilate traditional Chinese culture quickly. Ricci does not consider only the honors that the Chinese return in Confucius and to the ancestors are of nature idolatric. This vision ds things facilitates adhesion with the Christianity of well-read men and mandarins, among which certain Siu which has at the court the station very important To advise imperial. With died of Ricci, in 1610, one counts two thousand baptized, which is a small number, but the missions Jesuits in China live a long time in the belief which the conversion of the emperor is imminent and which it could make rock all the country.

End of employers

The system of the employers which was essential at the beginning of the 16th century comprised for papacy much advantages, in particular that to be able to discharge completely on the temporal powers, but it is hardly bearable long-term. In addition to it completely binds the apostolate to the colonial capacity, it is hardly compatible with the emergence of emergent maritime powers: France, England and Holland. One can regulate some of these contradictions by compromises: France is thus authorized in 1508 to cross the Atlantic, but with the proviso of not crossing Ecuador. Employers fissures itself when Portugal proves to be unable to make the effort missionary necessary to Brazil, in Africa and Asia and that the king Jean III is brought, as from 1558, to request reinforcements to the pope Paul III and from the founder of the Jesuits Ignace de Loyola. After the Council of Thirty, the government of the Church has all the reasons to want to take again its natural prerogatives. In 1622, by the bubble Incrustabili , the pope Gregoire XV establishes a centralized organization which one calls Congrégation of Propaganda Fide .

It is really only under the impulse of the French Jesuit Alexandre of Rhodos, which, of return of the Vietnam, pleads the urgency for the Holy See to send bishops who could devote indigenous priests, only means for the local Churches of existing in spite of a dubious presence of the missionaries who are subjected to a chronic persecution. As from 1658, the pope directly sends bishops in the countries of mission, under the name of apostolic vicars

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