“Rather than confining Chinese Catholicism to its linguistic world and internal issues, Jin Lu considers Chinese Catholic intellectuals as polyglot actors inserted into the epochal change that Catholicism has experienced during the twentieth century. Such a shift of perspective makes this work significant from the start.” —Benoît Vermander, author of The Encounter of Chinese and Western Philosophies

"Translingual Catholics narrates the overlooked contributions of Catholic intellectuals of twentieth-century China, correcting the unbalanced nature of scholarship on Chinese Christianities, which has hitherto been preoccupied by the Protestant story. Drawing on French, English, and Chinese sources, this book offers a glimpse into World Christianity as seen through the eyes of translingual Chinese Catholics—beyond the limits of the 'Sino-Foreign Protestant Establishment.' Jin Lu has done us a tremendous service." —Alexander Chow, author of Chinese Public Theology

"Rarely does one encounter a “new work” that genuinely confronts entirely new research—Jin Lu’s Translingual Catholics is such a book. . . . Relying upon an impressive array of archival sources spanning the globe, adroit scholarly analysis, and trenchant intuition, Lu Jin’s Translingual Catholics is an essential work that shall, I hope, inspire a new generation of scholars to expose more details about the decisive influences that Chinese Christians have had upon the global Church." —Journal of Religious History

"Lu’s book is grounded in sound archival research, weaving a wide range of people, locales, and ideas into a magisterial narrative that pays due attention to both text and context. Her competence in both theology and history, and her mastery of both French and Chinese, make her uniquely qualified to undertake this unprecedented task, which she accomplishes with virtuosity. This is an impressive achievement that has broken much new ground in the study of Chinese theology and world Christianity." —Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

"As a richly researched study of a neglected period, Jin Lu’s Translingual Catholics marks an important contribution to research on Chinese Christianities and world Christianity more broadly. . . . Translingual Catholics is a touchstone work from which many others will hopefully draw inspiration, exploring this period and its translingual theologians in even greater depth." —International Journal of Asian Christianity

"Translingual Catholics both enriches and challenges the prevailing understandings of the Chinese intellectual landscape and of the globalization of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century. . . . The scholarship of the book is exemplary. . . . From now on, it will be impossible to deal with the history of modern and contemporary Chinese theology without referring to this volume." —Ching Feng

Jin Lu is a professor of French at Purdue University Northwest. She is the author of Éléments d’une enquête sur l’usage d’un mot au siècle des Lumières.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Republican-era Chinese Catholics at the Crossroads of History: Telling Their Stories to the World

2. Historical Lineage and the Making of Global Catholic Networks (1912-1927)

3. Home Away from Home: The Abbey of Saint-André as a Center for Global Chinese Catholic networks (1927-1949)

4. Paths to Faith: Chinese Catholic Conversion Narratives before Vatican II

5. From Pagan Virtues to the Salvation of Non-Christians: Father Wang Changzhi’s Contribution to Chinese Christianity

6. Chinese Exodus: François Houang (Huang Jiacheng) and Catholicism in France (1932-1965)

7. Chinese Catholicism’s Mystic Turn and the French Ressourcement Movement (1940s to 1960s)

Afterword

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index