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China's Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society, 12)

China's Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society, 12)

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Detailed, first-hand revelation about China's Catholics
Review: Richard Madson¡¯s book delves into China¡¯s Catholic society on the assumption that Catholicism, being something imported from the West, would provide a better angle for Western readers to understand the Chinese society and seem to have more promise of contributing to an emerging civil society in China.

But the case turned out to be contrary. The Catholic societies Madson examined in rural China are quite different from what readers in the United States would expect and most of them even resume a quasi-ethnical identity. Due to the interference and repression of the Communist government as well as the internal conflicts of Vatican, Catholic churches in China are marked with Counter Reformation nature, internal conflict and fractionism.

While the author concluded that China¡¯s Catholics can hardly play a role in constructing a civil society, it nevertheless asserts that by learning from Catholic societies in Taiwan and Hong Kong and appealing to China¡¯s emerging middle class, it might exert some, although limited influence, on the changing society.

The book, focused on the rural Catholic societies in North China, provides detailed, first-hand revelation about underground Catholic societies in China¡¯s villages, which former researchers in this field have little access to. But its focus on the northern part of China, backward in economic development and commercialization and in the powerful control of the central government, might cast a biased view of the whole picture.


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