Note 7 — Chapter LVIII

Tournon was the papal legate sent to China for the settlement of the famous controversy regarding the “Chinese rites,” which had lasted some seventy years. The missions to China were entirely in the hands of the Jesuits until 1631, when Dominicans entered that country, and Franciscans in 1633. The new missionaries soon began to accuse the Jesuits of undue complaisance and conformity with heathen customs, and made complaint against them at Rome. For a time the Holy See permitted the practice of the Chinese rites, but frequent contentions arose on this subject between the Jesuits and the other orders, which were not definitely settled by Rome for many years. Finally, Clement XI sent Tournon (1703) to investigate the matter thoroughly, who condemned the rites in question as idolatrous and was therefore imprisoned by the Chinese emperor. He died in this captivity (1710), but his decision was accepted by the pope, and all Catholic missionaries to China were required to take an oath that they would resist those rites to the utmost. See full account of this controversy, with citations of authorities, in Addis and Arnold’s Catholic Dictionary (Meagher’s revision), pp. 926–928. For accounts of Tournon’s stay at Manila, and the dissatisfaction which he aroused there, see La Concepción’s Hist. Philipinas, viii, pp. 306–324; and Zúñiga’s Hist. Philipinas (Sampaloc, 1803), pp. 411–416.