Enculturation is always an issue when a religion is introduced from one culture to another one, and Catholicism was no excep- tion. The enculturation of the Catholic Church in China covered many areas: seminary education, Chinese liturgy, Chinese Bible, the translation of many Catholic classics, and the training of na- tive Chinese priests. Certainly, this latter issue was the crucial one. The enculturation of the Catholic Church in China followed a long and tortuous path. During the first half of the 20th cen-
tury, the Catholic Church made some progresses in the enculturation process; yet, it did not go too far. The Church was mostly dominated by non-Chinese clergy and foreign powers, and most of Chinese clergy and lay people were powerless.
After the Opium War, though only a few Chinese priests were in charge of church affairs, helping to solve the cultural and political problems, as well as the conversion of the people, they all did wonderfully well. According to the statistics, thenumber of priests was as follows: in 1903, there were 1,075 non-Chinese priests and 499 Chinese priests; in 1912, the ratio was1,469 to 729 ; from 1919-1920, 1,417to 863 ; in 1940, 4,552to 1,989; finally, in 1949, there were 6,024 non-Chinese and 2,155Chinese priests? Bishops were even rarer. For over 240 years,from when Matteo Ricci came to Guangdong in 1583, until 1926, there was only one native Chinese Bishop, Luo Wen Cao, and the remainder were all foreigners.
Though some hierarchy within the church were not in favor of Catholics being involved in the patriotic movement, and re- sisted the Church"s enculturation, it was, in fact, unstoppable. The percentage of the native Chinese priests was increasing: in1924, there were 834 Chinese priests, which was 35% of thetotal number, and in 1923, there 1,088 or 41%, and this percent- age remained in 1926. Many people in the Mongolia and Hankou dioceses began to sing the psalms to Chinese melodies when they attended Mass. During the period from 1920 to 1924, many Apostolic Vicariates began to name the dioceses by using the local cities‘ names, such as Tianjin Diocese.
A Chinese hierarchy was officially established in 1946 and the Catholic Church in China came under the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith. China was divided into 20 prov- inces and each province had an archbishop. Among those 20 archbishops, there were 17 non-Chinese and three native Chi- nese. Those three were Tian Gengxin, Archbishop of Beijing Diocese who was named as the first Cardinal in February 1945, Archbishop Yu Bin of the Nanjing Diocese and Archbishop Zhou Jishi of the Nanchang Diocese. Under the provinces, there were135 dioceses with only 14 native Chinese bishops. The ratio of native Chinese priests was no better either, for, although the num- ber kept increasing, it never reached 50 percent of the total. From1928 to 1929, there were 1,536 Chinese priests and there 2,015 non-Chinese, or 43%? In 1936, when the number of Chinese priests increased to 1,835, there were 2,717 non-Chinese for a lower ratio of 40%?