Vatican asked to honour Jesuit who tried to evangelise China

See on Scoop.itLe Marche Italy

The Vatican on Friday received a request to beatify an Italian Jesuit priest favoured by Pope Francis whose attempts to evangelise China in the 16th century were thwarted by the Church.

“The papers for the beatification process for father Matteo Ricci have been received by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints,” said Claudio Giuliodori from the Macerata diocesis in southern Italy, where the Jesuit was born in 1552.

Ricci, who died in Beijing in 1610, has been held up several times by the Jesuit pontiff as an exemplary evangelist.

“We must always ask forgiveness and look with shame upon the apostolic failures brought about by a lack of courage. I am thinking, for example, of the pioneering intuitions of Matteo Ricci which, at the time, were abandoned,” Francis said in a speech in November.

The Grotta dei Frati in the Fiastra Valley, Le Marche, Italy

The Fiastra Valley in Le Marche, Italyas seen from the Grotta dei Frati.

The Fiastra Valley as seen from the Grotta dei Frati.

The Fiastrone river has its source high in the Sibillini Mountains. The valley the river flows through has a number of caves in it, some of which are still accessible today. These caves have served as places of refuge for people, in particular monks, over the centuries. I am not a religious person but the stories behind these cave hermitages seemed fascinating from the human point of view; that men were so bound up in their religious belief they were prepared to live a life of absolute poverty, in cold and discomfort and against the contemporary rulings of the Church. It is interesting to get an idea of how they lived by visiting the cave but also to have some background knowledge of the situation at the time. Continue reading