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SPECIAL REPORT
Vol. XVIII x No. 6 JULY 2006
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By Manuel Giraldes Journalist Exactly one year ago, UNESCO inscribed the Historic Centre of Macau on the World Heritage List. And explained why in just one sentence: “Macau provides a unique testimony to the meeting of aesthetic, cultural, architectural and technological influences from East to West.” Take a walk, and you’ll understand at once what it means: Go from the Barra Square, on the seashore, where the temple of the goddess A-Ma – protector of the fishermen and of all the city – is located, and cross Lilau Square – the first residential district of the Portuguese settlers – keep walking, watching an exotic combination of Catholic churches, European fortresses, Chinese buildings and temples. If you climb the highest hill, you will see along the skyline of the peninsula the Guia Lightouse, the oldest in all China. In fact, Macau is a very small peninsula strategically united by a thin “umbilical cord” to the mainland China, just in the middle of a big bay and surrounded by islands. Naturally, it was the conditions of the port that attracted the Portuguese, in the first place, because it was trade that brought them there, in the beginning of the second half of the 16th century. And it was trade that led the Chinese Mandarins to let them stay – a long stay that only ended in 1999, when Portugal delivered the scarce amount of land (less than 20,000 square meters, counting the islands) back to Beijing. No need to say that such a small territory depended entirely, even in the climax of power of the Portuguese sea empire, on the goodwill of its huge neighbor. “An ant cannot impose rules on an elephant. Nevertheless, an ant can tickle an elephant.” In a way, this is precisely the meaning of UNESCO’s final reason to recognize this “outstanding example” of cultural meeting between East and West: “Macau has been associated with the exchange of a variety of cultural, spiritual, scientific and technical influences (…) These ideas directly motivated the introduction of crucial changes in China, ultimately ending the era of imperial feudal system and establishing the modern republic.” Cultural heritage is not just a pile of stones, even of very old stones. When they departed, the Portuguese left democratic rules, traditions and, above all, a law that forbids the death penalty – something that the world would like very much to see applied in all China. Some say that the rules are not much respected, that traditions are disappearing or already in a state of decay. Fake folklore to attract tourists, fake “historical” buildings to promote the omnipotent and omnipresent “monoculture” of gambling are not, of course, culture. If Macau loses its soul, the stones of Macau will be dead stones. One way of preventing this to happen is to keep the city a meeting point between East and West; a fertile melting pot, as it has been for almost 450 years. This is the real heritage of Macau – for China and the world. <WM
Macau, founded in 1577, was the doorway to the East for many centuries. Thanks to the support of this Portuguese concession, the Church grew in Japan, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Timor. By António Vale Histotian
The city of Macau, founded in 1577, came about as a result of the expansionist movement, led by the Portuguese, in the Asian continent in the first half of the 16th century. The objectives of this expansion were summarized by Vasco da Gama, the commander-in-chief of the first Portuguese expedition to India, who, on being asked by the Samorin (king) of Calecut what had brought him to such distant lands, answered that he was looking for “Christians and spices.” He was not distorting the truth because, in the medieval Europe, there were frequent references to the Christendom in India as a result of the evangelizing work of St. Andrew; however, those Christians eventually became isolated from other Christian communities of the Near Orient due to the progress of the Islamic expansion. So true was this conviction among the Portuguese explorers led by Vasco da Gama that they thought the Hindus they found in Calecut were part of that group of Christians. They interpreted the differences they noticed in their religious practices from those in Europe as natural deviations of a community that, with no communication with other Christians, had moved away from the original doctrine. It was, therefore, necessary to bring those Christians to the true Christian way, and this was the task of the Franciscans sent by King Manuel I at the very beginning of the 16th century. The endeavor of the Jesuits The Portuguese, more concerned about the spices than about the Christians, settled in Goa and conquered the city of Malacca, thus creating the conditions to increase their trade with the Far East. It was in Malacca that, for the first time, they met Chinese people and gathered information from them about the possibility of starting commercial trade with Japan. In these Asian journeys, the Portuguese took some clergy with them, but their mission was to provide spiritual assistance to the ship’s crew, not to evangelize the peoples they would meet. In fact, the evangelization in India started only after the arrival of the Jesuits there in 1542, followed by the Dominicans in 1548 and the Augustinians in 1572. The first group of Jesuits, among whom was St. Francis Xavier, settled in Goa, but soon the ‘Apostle of the Indies’ understood the need to develop their missionary work beyond the territories politically dominated by the Portuguese. Taking advantage of the commercial journeys, he went to the Fishery Coast, in the South of India, to evangelize the Paravas, also known as fishermen of pearls, because that was their main work. From there, he left for Malacca with the goal to evangelize the Moluccan Islands, already visited by the Portuguese merchants. Ambassador in China It was in Malacca that St. Francis Xavier met the two Japanese who were baptized in Goa in 1548. Information gathered about Japan encouraged the saint to head for the Empire of the Rising Sun, where he would establish the first Christian community. In the first half of the 16th century, both merchants and missionaries who were going to Japan had their headquarters (where they were getting logistic support) in Malacca, but soon they needed to find a place nearer to the Japanese Archipelago, and so their attention turned towards China. Besides facilitating the journeys to Japan, having a base in China would help the merchants to develop their activities in the Middle Empire, and would help the missionaries to start fulfilling the dream to evangelize that vast Empire. Several missionaries took part in this project but one stood out – St. Francis Xavier, who offered himself to accompany the Portuguese group that went to see the emperor of China in 1552. Some controversies made it impossible for the ‘Apostle of India’ to fulfill his dream of entering the Celestial Empire. He died in Sancian Island in December 1552. However, the seed he planted remained and produced fruits after thirty years, as could be seen in the commitment of the Jesuits who followed in his footsteps. The bridge to Japan It was in this convergence of interests that Macau took the place of the city of Malacca as the support base to the Portuguese who were working in the Far East. The galleons (ships) that were operating between Goa and Japan started making a stop (to hibernate) in Macau while waiting for a favorable weather that would allow them to continue their journey. It was for this reason that the Jesuits who were working in Japan began going to Macau. They stayed in this city till they could continue their journey to their destination. Since they had to stay in Macau for several months, they decided to have a residence there to house the missionaries in transit. They stayed, for a time, in a house offered them by Pedro or Pêro Quinteiro, believed to be one of the founders of the city of Macau. Merchant and Jesuit Pêro Quinteiro, of Andalusia ascendancy, started his journeys to the East in Mexico, where he was the viceroy majordomo. Then he moved to the Moluccas in the expedition of Rui Lopez Villalobos. From there, he went to India together with other Spanish navigators and, at the end, he reached Macau, where he lived for more than forty years. He was a man of considerable wealth as a result of his trade activities, and became one of the generous benefactors of the Jesuits who supported their endeavors financially. Towards the end of his life, he joined them (The Company of Jesus) as a brother. He died in Macau in 1593.
Meanwhile, Christendom was growing steadily in Japan. The number of Christians was increasingly growing, and it was believed that 300,000 new Christians were baptized between 1549 and 1600. There was also a good number of Japanese Christians who manifested the desire to join The Company of Jesus. These good results demanded more and more missionaries, so the Jesuits decided to build their own residence in Macau in 1565. The ascetic bishop Three years later, in 1568, Msgr. Melchior Carneiro arrived in Macau as the Bishop of Macau and China. At that time, nobody was aware of the vast extension of such a diocese, which had been separated from the diocese of Malacca; this was not part of the concerns of either the missionaries or the civil and religious authorities. Msgr. Carneiro never went to Japan or mainland China; he remained in Macau till his death in 1583. His name remained linked to the foundation of the “Santa Casa da Misericordia”, which still exists today. He was famous for his ascetic life. According to traditional belief, he had a wooden shrine as cathedral; a small equally wooden house as episcopal residence, and the chalice he used to celebrate mass was made of lead. The diocese of Macau was created in 1576, more out of political than religious motivations. A new bishop was appointed, and he arrived in Macau in1581. Actually, the diocese continued to have the same title of bishopric of Japan and China, and the bishops were considered governors of the bishopric till 1690. In theory, both Msgr. Melchior Carneiro and his successor, Msgr. Leonardo de Sá, should have had committed themselves to the reorganization and strengthening of the missionary activity in Japan and to support the initiatives being done to enter China. However, for various reasons, this task was left to the Jesuits, particularly, to Fr. Alessandro Valignano, who was sent from Rome as Apostolic Visitor of the Jesuit missions in the East. It was this outstanding son of St. Ignatius who saw the need to establish a college for the formation of future Jesuit missionaries, as he noticed that many Japanese wanted to join his congregation. Due to the political instability of Japan at that time, it was necessary to find a place where the students could go through the formation program undisturbed and, yet, be in touch with an Occidental Christian community in order to be enriched by their faith and religious practices. In these circumstances, Macau appeared to be the ideal place for the establishment of such a formation structure. The first university Against the opinion of some preeminent members of The Company, Valignano, a strong-minded man, decided to transform the small school, created by the Jesuits in 1572, into a college which would later become the first university of the East, named St. Paul College. Besides catering to the formation of both clergy and laity, the college became the headquarters of the Province of Japan, which already included, in the 17th century, Tonquin and Conchinchina, today’s Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. After the expulsion of The Company of Jesus, this ancient building was taken by the state and was transformed into an army campsite; subsequently, it was damaged by several fires. Today, only the façade of the Church of the Mother of God remains standing, which still is the ex-libris of Macau and continues to witness its connection with Japan, because many Japanese Christians, who settled in Macau at the beginning of the 17th century, worked in its construction. While Valignano was reorganizing the missionary activity in Japan, he was also looking for opportunities to send the first missionaries to China. The first attempts had been fruitless mainly because the missionaries had no sufficient knowledge of the Chinese language. Valignano followed the suggestion of St. Francis Xavier, who had underlined that the missionaries sent to China should know the language, and have a good knowledge of philosophy and other sciences like astrology and mathematics, so that they could have an at-the-same-level dialogue with the Mandarins. The founders of the mission From the forty missionaries who had left for India with him, Valignano chose Michelle Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci to be the founders of the Chinese mission. He called them from India to Macau to study the Chinese language. The establishment of the missions in the Middle Empire was not an easy task, but Ricci, with his keen knowledge and diplomatic ability, was able not only to found the first missions in Chinese territory, but also achieved a notorious fact – he was accepted to work in the Imperial Court. The method Matteo Ricci adopted was applauded by some and criticized by others. Among the criticisms, there were the facts that Ricci had adopted the dress and attitude of Chinese learned personages; had involved himself in philosophical discussions with Chinese intellectuals instead of limiting himself to the proclamation of the Good News; and, worse, he had entered the Imperial Court to serve a pagan sovereign. Despite the criticisms that Matteo Ricci received, his strategy followed the method accepted in Europe since the time of Emperor Constantine – the conversion and baptism of the King was followed by his followers. The situation was different in China; they did not know then the meaning of the title of Son of Heaven attributed to the emperor. But, there was, no doubt, the presence of the missionaries in the Imperial Court was of great benefit to the Chinese mission until the beginning of the 19th century The Philippine incursion In spite of the polemics and rivalries among the Portuguese and Spanish missionaries and also, later on, among the French, the work of evangelization was progressing well, and from Macau the dioceses of Funai in Japan, and of Nanquin and Beijing, in China, were created. The Jesuits who were working in China, like those in Japan, had their headquarters in the St. Paul College in Macau but, in 1728, when the mission in China was facing serious problems, the College of St. Joseph was founded and became the headquarters of the Jesuit vice-provincial in China. Abolished in 1762 with the decree of Marquês de Pombal, it was transformed into a seminary, where a great part of the clergy working in the Portuguese missions in China and Timor were formed. At the close of the 16th century, once the attempts of the Spanish missionaries in the Philippines to go to China failed, the Dominicans, Franciscans and Augustinians went to Macau with the purpose of entering China. They made this move taking the opportunity of the unification of the Iberian Peninsula under the crown of Philip II in 1580. However, these Spanish missionaries, leaving the Philippines, founded their monasteries in Macau without the previous authorization of the King. The Jesuits contested because Philip II had promised to respect the laws of the ‘Padroado’, and because there was a tacit agreement among the Portuguese missionaries in the East that the missions of the Far East were entrusted to The Company of Jesus. Philip II accepted the demands of the Portuguese, and ordered the Spanish missionaries to leave Macau and hand their monasteries to their Portuguese confreres in Goa. It was for this reason that the Dominicans, Franciscans and Augustinians settled in Macau. Curiously, the place in Macau known as St. Francis is known among the Chinese as the place of the Spaniards; an obvious reference to the presence of the Spanish missionaries coming from the Philippines. The antechamber of China Apart from the Dominicans, who were passing through Macau on their way to their missions in Timor, the Portuguese branch of the other two religious congregations never had any missionary activity in the Far East. However, their convents were support bases for the Spanish missionaries who, driven out of China by a decree of the emperor (1723-1735) in 1732, continued to enter China clandestinely through Macau. Besides the Spanish missionaries from the Philippines, the French of the Foreign Missions of Paris and of the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent of Paul also used Macau as a support base for their activity in China till the foundation of Hong Kong in the middle of the 19th century. Through Macau, there passed not only the delegations sent by the Portuguese king to the emperor of China in 1726 and 1752, but also the apostolic envoys, Cardinal Carlo de Tournon (1702-1710) and Patriarch Carlo Mezzabarba (1720-1725), who were sent to the Chinese Imperial Court by the Holy See in the first half of the 18th century. Both had the task of smoothing out the obstacles raised in the Middle Empire to the missionary activity. After the extinction of the Japanese mission, the Jesuits dedicated themselves more intensely to the evangelization of Tonquin and Cochinchina (Southern Vietnam), where some Japanese Christian communities settled after they had abandoned their country. They belonged to the diocese of Macau until the arrival of the French missionaries at the end of the 17th century. It was, generally speaking, with the support of Macau that the growth of the Church took root in Japan, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Macau also participated actively in the missionary activity in Timor, especially from the beginning of the 19th century. <WM THE MISSION IN JAPAN
Dioceses of the Portuguese ‘Padroado’ in the East
ST. JOSEPH COLLEGE OF MACAU
Matteo Ricci was born at Macerata (Italy) on October 6, 1552. He was the first born of Giovanni Battista and Giovanna Angiolelli. He had 9 brothers and 4 sisters. His father, though from a noble family, was a pharmacologist, but he had also performed political duties in the Pontifical States. The first teacher of the small Ricci was Niccolo Bencivegui, who decided to join The Company of Jesus when his disciple was only 7 years of age. In 1561, the Jesuits opened the College of Macerata, where Ricci enrolled. At 17, his father sent him to Rome to study Law in order to get prepared to work in the Apostolic See. At that time, he became a member of the “Confraternita dell’Annunziata” that the Jesuits had in Rome and, through those contacts, Matteo Ricci’s intention, which was already manifested in Macerata, to take up religious life deepened. On August 15, 1571, at 19, he entered the Jesuit Novitiate in Rome. His father, who dreamt of a different future for his son, did not approve of his decision. From Macerata, the father went to the Eternal City to take Matteo out of the Novitiate. When he reached Tolentino, he reconsidered his attitude and returned home, leaving his son free to continue the life he had chosen. With no paternal obstacles, Matteo Ricci made his first profession on May 25, 1572, and continued his studies of Philosophy, Rhetoric, Physics and Mathematics in Rome. The passage to Rome of Fr. Martinho da Silva, procurator of the missions of India, awakened in him the desire to dedicate his life to the evangelization of the peoples of the East. It was to pursue this goal that he went to Lisbon on May 18, 1577, and from there left for Goa on March 24, 1578, together with other 13 Jesuit missionaries. Matteo Ricci arrived in India in September 1758, and continued his studies while he was also teaching in Goa and Cochin. He was ordained priest probably on July 25, 1580, in Cochin. In 1582, his Provincial Superior told him to leave for Macau, where he would join Fr. Ruggieri in the study of the Chinese language and customs in order to prepare himself to start the missionary work in China. He arrived in Macau on August 7, 1582 and, on September 10 of the following year, he entered China, together with Fr. Ruggieri, to open a mission in Zhaoqing, in Canton province. His rich culture and dialoguing capacity were of fundamental importance for the great success of the Jesuit mission in China. It was Ricci who, overcoming many adversities, went on opening new missions in the North of Canton with the view of reaching Beijing, where he wanted to settle down and get the approval of the emperor and his protection for the work of the missionaries. He arrived in Nanquin in 1598, and tried to enter Beijing. However, Matteo Ricci decided to go back to Nanquin, and wait for a better opportunity to fulfill his dream. The opportunity came in 1601, when the emperor sent for him asking to see the watch he had mentioned to him before in a memorandum. He finally, saw the realization of his wish and of Valignano’s dream for many, many years. In the Imperial Court, he continued to pursue his work in favor of the mission in China until he died there in 1610. <WM / AV
Alessandro Valignano was born in a town near Naples on February 20, 1539. He entered The Company of Jesus in May 1566, and was ordained priest on March 25, 1570. In 1573, he was appointed Apostolic Visitor of the missions in the East and, as such, went to Portugal to prepare for his journey to India. In Lisbon, he came to get acquainted with King D. Sebastião. He left for Goa on May 21, 1575, as the head of a group of 42 Jesuit missionaries that was going to the East. After visiting the missions in India, he left for Macau and arrived there in September 1578. He then started preparing the conditions to begin the evangelization of China. He called Fr. Michele Ruggieri from India, and later called also Fr. Matteo Ricci to start studying the Chinese language in Macau. In July 1579, he left for Japan where Christendom was growing well and fast. Taking advantage of the favorable acceptance of Christianity, he founded a new college in Funai, built seminaries in Arima and Azuchi, and prepared a group of Japanese youth to go to Rome to visit the Pope. The group left Nagasaki towards Goa in 1582, but Valignano could not continue to join the young people to Rome because, meanwhile, he had been appointed Provincial of India, a responsibility he carried out till 1587. Valignano returned to Japan with the youth group, that was returning to their country after a tour around Europe. In 1595, Valignano resigned from being Apostolic Visitor of the missions in India, but kept the same title for the missions of Japan and China. Between 1598 and 1603 he remained in Japan and witnessed the vicissitudes that were starting to affect the Japanese Christendom. He returned to Macau in 1603 and died there on January 20, 1606. <WM / AV THE POWER OF THE CLOCKS In 1581, the viceroy of Canton, trying to get some goods that had arrived from Europe, ordered the Bishop of Macau, Msgr. Leonardo de Sá, and Macau City Mayor D. João de Almeida to appear before his court in Zhaoqin – the capital of the two Guangs: Guangdong and Guangxi. The people of Macau did not want their two city authorities to go, so they sent, instead, Matias Panela (a civil servant) and Jesuit Michelle Ruggieri, who was studying Chinese in order to enter China. Among the presents that these two delegates offered the viceroy was a “clock on wheels”, that left the Mandarin completely enthralled. In turn, he handed the Macau delegates a good amount of silver to buy some Europeans goods he wanted to have. When time came to take the goods to the Mandarin, Matias Panela went alone because the Jesuit priest was sick. When the Macau delegate arrived before the viceroy, he explained the absence of Fr. Ruggieri and announced the presence in Macau of another priest (Matteo Ricci) who had brought a wonderful clock from Europe (that struck every hour). That was enough for the Mandarin to send for this priest and to bring him the wonderful clock from Europe. On December 27, 1582, Ruggieri and his confrere Passio appeared before the viceroy who, amazed at the clock, gave them permission to build a house in Zhaoqin. Before such a success, Fr. Ruggieri asked his superiors in Rome to send him “a golden iron clock, the size of a palm that has a pendulum, to be offered to the King of China.” As a way to overcome the obstacles that he had to face between 1594 and 1601 to enter Beijing and to be received by the emperor, Matteo Ricci managed to let the emperor know in June 1600 that he had several clocks of different sizes to offer him. Seven months later, the emperor ordered that the foreigner who had “bells that struck alone” be brought to his presence. Ricci, who had been held near the capital, with no permission to enter it, could then go before the emperor with his clocks on January 24, 1601. Since the Chinese did not know how ‘those machines’ worked, the emperor ordered that Ricci stayed in the Court to teach the eunuchs to take care of such precious objects. Because of his great fame as the “clockman,” the image of Matteo Ricci, in Buddha style, could now be found in clock shops in Macau. <WM / AV Manuel Teixeira, Macau e a sua Diocese. A Missão da China, 1977, Macau, Tipografia da Missão, pp. 146-149. CRUCIFIED JAPANESE During the persecutions against Christianity in Japan, between 1614 and 1650, about 2,128 Christians were killed. One way to carry out the death sentence was by crucifixion, with piercing of the body. Twenty six Christians died in this way in Nagasaki in 1597. However, the most common ways were decapitation and burning of the body tied to a pole. According to written documentation of that time, when someone was condemned to death by burning the body, it would be announced on the eve of the day so that the residents of the houses near the place of martyrdom could offer pieces of wood, according to the number of the condemned, to build a fire. There would be as many poles as the number of Christians to be killed, and the pieces of wood would be placed around the poles, covering a circle of some three meters wide. The condemned would be tied up to the pole with ropes by the hands and feet. The wood would be lit on all sides until the condemned dies either from suffocation or burning. It would always be a slow death. Some preferred to renegade their faith than to go through such a suffering. In fact, the slow death was to provoke apostasy. The courage and enthusiasm with which many Christians faced martyrdom disturbed the authorities. Frequently, they faced martyrdom with joy, raised their eyes to heaven, and affirmed that God was seeing them. To avoid such attitude, a kind of umbrella was built above their heads so that they could not see beyond. However, this method did not work out well because the umbrella would fall on them, making them die faster. In Shimara peninsula, in the Unzen Mountain, there exist fountains of hot sulfuric waters that were used in the torture of Christians in the 17th century. The condemned were led to the peak of the mountains, and were threatened to be thrown down into those waters if they did not renegade their Christian faith. Between 1629 and 1632, huts full of dirt and manure were built on top of those precipices to produce a pestiferous environment. The condemned were kept in those huts till they were completely exhausted or apostatized. To make their suffering even worse, boiling sulfuric water was poured upon them. Many died from this kind of torture, but measures were taken not to let them die fast, since the objective was to bring them to renegade their Christian faith. <WM / AV Valdemar Coutinho, O Fim da Presença Portuguesa no Japão, 1999, Lisboa, SHIP, pp. 64-69.
By João Aguiar Writer In the city and territory of Macau – a special administrative region of China since 1999 – a little mystery persists in spite of its progress and transformations to modern life that have taken much of the city’s old enchantments. The disappearance of ancient houses and narrow streets is one of them. What consists this little mystery? More and more, Macau is turning into a gambling paradise. More and more, the profile of the city and its adjacent islands, Taipa and Coloane, is changing with the growing constructions of hotels and casinos. Small traditional businesses are increasingly disappearing and, seemingly, the people’s main occupation/preoccupation has turned to gaining money either through gambling or working in various structures that have something to do with gambling. A very materialistic environment, therefore, prevails in Macau. Nonetheless, if there were spaces that have been kept untouched despite the construction boom of skyscrapers (which dwarfed all the other structures around), they are what we call the “sacred spaces.” Those are the spaces reserved for religious groups, particularly and expectedly, the Buddhists and the Christians and, in this case, especially the Catholics. Concerning the latter, perhaps one of the sources of this spiritual “resistance” is the Filipino community. In Macau, the Filipino community is somehow significant – discreet yet visible. The majority of the women are domestic workers, while many of the men work for security companies. There are also numerous musical groups composed of Filipinos, performing in hotels, night clubs, restaurants, etc. Thus, in this small Chinese territory, which was under the Portuguese for about 500 years, the Filipino presence is very perceptible. The community has, obviously, its spiritual needs. And it is not difficult to believe that if, on one hand, the Filipinos used the Catholic space and benefited from it, on the other, they gave new strength and dynamism to the Catholic community which contributed to the vitality of the “sacred space.” Macau offers the Catholic community some truly precious works of art. If the Cathedral and the Penha Church, for instance, are thought to be vulgar under the architectonic point of view, the São Domingos Church is an authentic jewel, resplendent in an unusual baroque because, there, golden wood carvings have been replaced by white stuccos. The small church of St. Francis Xavier in Coloane, in all its simplicity, is another monument of great beauty. If the Filipinos have churches for their celebrations, the Tai and Chinese Buddhist migrants have also their sacred places. As a matter of fact, a nice and monumental statue of goddess Kun Iam (Kuan Yin, in Mandarin), which completed the ecumenical centre built under the Portuguese administration, dominates the city center. Kun Iam is remembered as the goddess of mercy. Thus, in an imperial China where Christianity had just entered then, she was thought to resemble Our Lady. Kun Iam is housed in two temples in the city, while another goddess, A-Ma, can be found in the famous Pagoda of Barra and in the newest and enormous temple in Coloane. No, faith hasn’t died in Macau – in spite of its roulettes… <WM MACAU INSTITUTE THE FUTURE OF A GLORIOUS TRADITION Inheritor of a glorious tradition (the first Eastern University was established in Macau in 1594), the Inter-University Institute waits for the agreement of Beijing to start the preparation of candidates for ordination or religious life. And is already planning the building of a new campus that is able to attract students from all over the world. By Ruben de Freitas Cabral Rector of the IIUM The Macau Inter-University Institute (IIUM, derived from its Portuguese acronym of Instituto Inter-Universitário de Macau) was established in 1996 as an institution of higher education connected, by structural, academic, and social bonds to the Special Administrative Region of Macau, to Portugal and to mainland China. The University has moved adroitly in these three relational areas because it is a private institution designed to be highly flexible, capable of responding quickly to new developments and drawing on the knowledge of its competent and diverse world network. IIUM functions as a proficient, useful, and flexible partner to the civic, business, and governmental institutions of the Pearl River Delta region engaged as it is in a process of development of enormous proportions and complexity. The Institute opened under the leadership of Fr João Lourenço, a former Dean of the School of Theology of the Catholic University of Portugal, and one of its current Vice-Rectors. In October 2003, a new Rector was appointed by the Chancellor, Cardinal José Policarpo, Patriarch of Lisbon, to lead the organization into the next phase of development. Some of the strategic decisions made then included the initiation of undergraduate programs of studies; the broadening of the academic portfolio of degree courses offered; the development of ties with universities in mainland China; the decision to remain as a small university with a combined (Undergraduate and Graduate) population of around 1,400 students; and the development of strategies to attract and recruit students from all over the world. A bridge to mainland China Efforts had already been underway to strengthen the relationship with China, and in October 2003, at the behest of the government in Beijing, a cooperative agreement was signed between Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, the Catholic University of Portugal and IIUM. Some other initiatives are well underway. At the end of 2005, the academic component of the Macau Institute for Social Work, an institution of more than 25 years' standing, was integrated into IIUM; IIUM hopes to offer a Licentiate and a Master's in Social Work as a forthcoming priority. As a university of the Church, its primary focus is the preparation of candidates for ordination or religious life. IIUM expects, in the very near future, to be the first university to offer such courses with government approval (and at the government's request). All degrees are jointly awarded by the Catholic University of Portugal and by the Macau Inter-University Institute. The University is fully international, with 90% of the faculty coming from the USA, Australia, Europe, and from the Region. It enjoys a reputation for academic rigor, creativity and innovation, and sound student support. The current greatest and pressing challenge is easy to define: a NEW CAMPUS! Preliminary work has already been done by architects from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and some pledges of financial support have already been received, though more are needed. We have inherited a glorious tradition, which goes back to December 1, 1594 when Alessandro Valignano established in Macau the first Eastern University. We are conscious of this responsibility and are eager to fulfill our mission. <WM Copyright©2003-2006 World Mission Magazine |
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The
meeting point
The
strategist of the mission
THE
"MYSTERY" OF MACAU