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Is Catholicism a Western ideology or a universal religion? This is an important question if we are to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. St. Augustine Zhao Rong was one of 87 native Chinese, along with 33 foreign-born missionaries who were martyred between 1648 and 1930. He was a soldier assigned to escort a French bishop in China. St. Augustine was so impressed by the priest and his patience he converted and soon became a priest. However, Catholicism was seen as a foreign religion and a threat to Chinese culture. Shortly after his ordination, St. Augustine Zhao Rong was “jailed, tortured, and left to die in prison” in 1815. Many were martyred during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, one a nine-year-old. None of the martyrs were engaged in political activities, nor were they agents of Western colonial powers, although that was what the governments feared. They were living their faith in Jesus.
The word catholic means universal. We have been given a command by Jesus to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Mt. 28:19-20). To do so we must inculturate, or adapt to the local culture, the message of Jesus and the faith of the Church. That is what missionaries do and have done through the centuries! Some have been more successful than others, but the goal has never been to wipe out other cultures to supplant it with Western culture, although many in modern society have accused the Church of doing so. Thus, the destruction of statues of St. Junipero Serra! We are called to love, not destroy.
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