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A Jesuit priest and Santa Clara history professor tells tales of espionage and blackmail in an acclaimed new book

The storytelling and exhaustive research abilities of Professor Paul Mariani, S.J., are at their height in his latest book. Named one of ,  “China’s Church Divided: Bishop Louis Jin and the Post-Mao Catholic Revival” traces the Catholic Church’s reemergence in China following the Cultural Revolution’s outright banning of religion. 

Following Jin’s imprisonment during the communist government’s crackdown on religion, he is asked to lead China’s state-sanctioned church as tentative reforms emerge in the country. If he refuses this offer, it likely means more prison, or worse. But taking a role as bishop for a church without the approval of the Vatican puts him at odds with the religious institution to which he has devoted his life. Amid tales of espionage and blackmail, the question emerges of Jin’s ultimate loyalty: the state, the church or his own self-preservation.

We asked him about his book, a recent trip around the world, and his next research project. Here are excerpts:

What can readers expect from “China’s Church Divided?”

Paul Mariani, S.J.:  Well, I think a gripping narrative, right? Even if the history of the Catholic Church in China seems somewhat removed from your ordinary life, I challenge people to just read the first page or two and see if they’re pulled in. China’s policy toward religion put people into extraordinary circumstances that deeply tested their character, their faith, and their courage. I really made every effort to make it as readable and interesting as possible to highlight the human-interest angle.

So, for example, I start the book with the chief protagonist, Bishop Luis Jin, who was the Bishop of Shanghai for some decades, yet prior to this, he had been put in prison and labor camps because of his resistance to government policies. Now, in this new era of the 1980s, as China is opening up, the government makes him an offer to become their bishop of the state church, without papal approval. While he has issues with this, he finally comes around to thinking that he can maybe heal any wounds from the decades of harsh religious oppression in China and build up the church. And if he doesn’t, there’s a chance he could die in prison.

What was it about the character of Jin that drew you in?

PM:  I think he acts as a window into how the church in China operated at that time in a new moment where China is opening up, allowing new freedoms. Yet there are kinds of hard stops on how much freedom. There will not be full religious freedom. The government will make it look like there is, but really the government is in the driver’s seat.

What makes him compelling is the idea that he’s sort of a bundle of contradictions. He was both very traditional but progressive. Wary of his own government, but also very skeptical of imperialist behavior from other countries. He studied in Rome when he was younger, was worldly, and spoke multiple languages, but all of those qualities made him a target during the Cultural Revolution and led to his imprisonment. Then it’s those very experiences that the government embraces later.  

It gets back to the question of who’s using who, right? The government’s using him to say, we can have an independent Catholic church free of the Vatican, and he’s kind of using the government to go abroad and raise money for seminaries in China to provide a future for the religion.

What are some misconceptions about Catholicism in China?

PM: At this point, the church was forced into somewhat of a political situation, so that might be a surprise to some people who see the church simply as a divine institution. On the other hand, if you’re completely cynical, you’ll be surprised to see the sanctity and heroism demonstrated by people with firm adherence to firm principles.

The church in Shanghai alone goes back 400 years, so it has had a long period to sort of adapt in very interesting ways and yet it still maintains a universal connection to the rest of the Catholic Church.

The liturgical forms, the belief system, the leadership would’ve been very recognizable to any Catholic. And then the differences would be certain traditions that were entirely unique to China. One small example, even if you go to China to this day, and you hear some of the old timers, they will chant the rosary. It almost sounds like a Buddhist prayer.

You’ve had an eventful year. You held the Gasson Chair for distinguished Jesuit scholars at Boston College and took a literal trip around the world. What can people expect from your adventure?

PM:  I’m on a research sabbatical this year and will pick up teaching again at Santa Clara in September. It’s great to be back. I’m currently working on a project that is slowly coming together, but it will be more on the global church. My trip took me from Boston to Paris and then into Ethiopia and Kenya, then to India, and then to Southeast Asia. So basically Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and, finally, Japan.

I put my ear to the ground and tried to learn as much as I could about the local expressions of Catholicism. For example, in Kenya, there were Masses just for children because the demographics skew so much younger. Meanwhile, in rural India, even though the church was viewed with some skepticism, I saw something familiar as parents worked hard to get their children admitted into Catholic schools. So I did see a broad view of the Catholic church in those areas, and in some places the church really was a kind of marginal phenomenon; in some places it fills a role closer to an NGO than a strictly religious institution. You know, Pope Francis had talked about being at the margins, being “the church of the margins.”

Then I followed up that trip with three months in Rome, so I was able to be at the center. At the end of the day, I experienced both center and periphery, both periphery and center. I felt I had kind of triangulated both. I had seen both realities. By no means did I exhaust the whole mystery of the worldwide church! But I have a much broader view of it.

Did the trip inspire any other reflections?

PM: I would say I’m more and more of a believer in story and narrative. I think it’s telling that one of Jesus’s main devices is the parable, right?  Stories stick with us. The story I want to tell is part of the story of the church, because there’s a way of talking about the church that can be sort of eviscerated or distant. And I want to tell the story about flesh and blood human beings working their way through the world. Many of my stories emphasize politics, which are important, but almost always, something that goes further is the common humanity. How do we negotiate stress? How do we make friends? How do we love our friends or our enemies? How do we find joy and meaning? I think these are things that are common touchstones.