In Faith and Chaos, Passionist Father Robert E. Carbonneau presents the various and multi-faceted encounters American Franciscans had in China during the period 1900 to 1937. Setting out with the best of intentions, but restrained by the cultural prejudices and misconceptions of the era, the Franciscans sought to encounter the Chinese people and convert them to Catholicism. Establishing educational, medical, pastoral and charitable institutions, the Franciscan initiatives sought to care for the spiritual, intellectual, and physicals needs of the Chinese. The China they encountered was undergoing profound political, social, and cultural transformations, exacerbated by ongoing wars and natural disasters, resulting in what Carbonneau refers to as a time of "chaos" or what the Chinese called "luan." He presents the story of how participants in this U.S. Franciscan endeavor encountered and responded to this chaos, and how they fit themselves into what was for them, a new and very foreign world. Despite all the challenges confronted, they remained committed to sustaining relationships, fulfilling their mission to evangelize the Chinese, and offering to them what they considered their greatest gift--sharing in eternal life through faith and belief in Jesus Christ.
Franciscans were part of a much larger movement. In 1908, less than a decade after the Boxer Uprising had roiled China, the United States ceased to be a "mission country" under Propaganda Fide. U.S. Catholics responded enthusiastically to the call of the Holy See to join the Church's mission to evangelize and convert the world. By 1911, U.S. Catholics established their own mission society--the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, better known as the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers (and later Sisters). Other orders, including the U.S. Franciscans, joined readily. China held a special attraction for U.S. missionaries as they attempted to adapt an essentially Western faith to a new and ancient culture. In 1905, Father Sylvester Espelage, O.F.M. arrived in Wuchang, China, as the first U.S.- born Franciscan missionary; he evangelized China for the next thirty plus years, charting the U.S. Franciscan course and mission, and earning him the unofficial designation as a "grand mandarin." Franciscan Friars, Brothers, and Sistersjoined Espelage as did Lay people, Chinese Catholics, and an incipient Chinese Sisterhood. Mission efforts were bolstered and sustained by a variety of publications and pious societies that nurtured benefactors and lay support in the United States.
Faith and Chaos presents this story in all its breadth and detail.
