當代中國北方農村天主教徒的信仰理解－獻縣／寶坻縣調查

An Interpretation of The Catholic Religion in Northern Rural China- An Investigation of The Catholic Community in Xianxian and Baodi County

範麗珠(Fan Li Zhu) ； R. Madsen

《道風：漢語神學學刊》 7期 (1997/07) Pp. 211-227+299-300

並列摘要

Since the late 70's, the Catholic religion started to revive in China. The revival of the Catholic church in China was not only caused by Den Xiao-ping's policy of openness toward religious belief and practice, but also due to the people, which had very strong intention to rebuild their faith. In this paper we discuss some results of investigation and interviews in the Catholic villages in Xianxian and Baodi county. We tried to explore the life attitude and choices of the Catholics as well as the influence of the local religious leaders in order to understand the Catholic community in northern rural China. Catholic churches have been rebuilding for more than a decade. The Catholics in rural areas have been reorganized by local influential people who are very important to the Catholic community, because of the lack of priests. Belief's within the Catholic community are quite simple. Most people pay most attention to church rebuilding and day-to- day praying, but hardly pay attention to theological issues. There is a conflict between Catholics about belief. The senior Catholics still keep the old tradition, and think the ritual practices are the most important operation of their belief. The younger generation, who have only a very sketchy knowledge of the principal Catholic doctrines, are challenging the old generation's belief. Catholic identity is becoming a basic controversy between ＂lax Catholic ＂ and ＂true believer＂. As we know the Catholic are involved in Chinese economic reforms, as are most Chinese people. Obviously, in the conflict between religious morality and secular life attitudes in an economic developing area like Baodi, are different from those in Xianian where the economy is still backward. Catholic belief in these rural areas is being challenged by the new commercial, economic and living style of modernization. Chinese Catholicism provides cultural resource and the institutional context for a variety of forms of community life, insofar as Chinese Catholicism still stands for pre-modem forms of aristocratic hierarchy and for the values of static agrarian communities, and insofar as it is dependent on state control. How to improve Catholic belief in order to lead rural life to participate in modernization? Can Chinese Catholic contribute to the reconstruction of a new spiritual civilization? It is questions such as these with which we are concerned.