From the 17th to the 18th centuries, Catholic Europe was consumed by the controversy over the Chinese Rites to Confucius and the ancestors. In China, the Jesuits had decided that these were civil rather than religious and could therefore be 'accommodated'. In 1704, however, Pope Clement XI had declared them as superstitious and therefore incompatible with Christianity, a decision which the Jesuits fiercely contested. The Lazzarist, Teodorico Pedrini (1671-1746), was sent by Propaganda Fide to enforce Catholic orthodoxy. Almost 2000 pages of his correspondence reveal the extraordinary lengths...
From the 17th to the 18th centuries, Catholic Europe was consumed by the controversy over the Chinese Rites to Confucius and the ancestors. In China, ...
