The American Benedictine Monks Establish a University in Beijing

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The Benedictines in China

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By

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Fr Jeremias Schröder, OSB
Archabbot of St Ottilien, Germany

A Catholic University for China

The Benedictine spirit penetrated China for the first time in 1883, with the installation of the Trappists at Yang Jia Ping. The Bishop of Peking had invited the Trappists of the French Abbey of Sept-Fons to found in the region of the Chinese capital a monastery intended to serve as a place of spiritual retreat for the diocesan clergy, and as a counterweight to Buddhist monasteries. Despite, or perhaps thanks to, their strict isolation from the world and their ascetic life-style, they soon achieved such an influence that in 1897 they were able to establish the monastery of Hokkaido in Japan.

Besides this essentially peaceful expansion, in the background was beginning a project which was to become a glorious page in Benedictine history. During the colonial period, and especially after the Boxer Revolt in 1900, the Protestants were involved in intense activities, particularly in education. They founded schools and universities, completed two translations of the Bible and produced an abundant literature, especially helped by financial help from America. In this way they had access to cultivated and influential sectors of society. By contrast, the Catholic Church was virtually cut off from cultural and educational sectors of Chinese society, except for the Jesuit University of Tianjin and the vicariate of Shanghai. It was considered the Church of illiterate peasants. For this reason the great Catholic Chinese writer Vincent Ying saw the foundation of a Catholic university at Peking as an indispensable condition for the contact of Christianity with Chinese culture, and for the enculturation of the Christian religion in China. In a letter addressed to Pope Pius X in 1912 he wrote, ‘Therefore we ask you, dear Father and Master, to send us virtuous and cultivated missionaries to found in our great capital a university open both to pagans and to Christians. This university must be a model for our whole nation. It must form an intellectual élite among Catholics and shine the true light on the pagans.’

Ten years later, in 1922, the project took form, when the Cardinal Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith addressed an invitation to the American Cassinese Congregation of the Benedictines to found just such a university. In this letter the Cardinal Prefect Van Rossum made it clear that the choice had fallen on the Benedictines deliberately, since they had always been promoters of culture and therefore of enculturation. These qualities were all the more necessary because China found itself in a situation comparable to that of the Roman Empire in its state of decadence at the time of St Benedict. In August 1923 the American Cassinese Benedictine Congregation accepted the invitation and entrusted the mother-house, St Vincent’s, to found the university. Two monks of St Vincent’s set off for Peking, Fr Ildephonsus Brandstetter, OSB, prior of the new monastic community, and Fr Placid Rattenburg, OSB. In March 1925, thanks to the help of many benefactors in America and China, they were able to buy the winter palace of Prince Tsai Tao, uncle of the previous emperor. The buildings in the traditional Chinese style were adapted for the monastic community and for teaching: conference halls and refectories, study-rooms and laboratories, and part of a conventual cloister.

On 1st October, 1925, the Catholic University of Peking opened its doors as ‘Fu Jen She’ or ‘The MacManus Academy of Chinese Studies’. The financial support of the American industrialist MacManus made it possible to enroll as deans four of the most renowned of Chinese scholars. Twenty-three students passed the entrance exam and constituted the first year-group. The first Chancellor of the University was the Archabbot of St Vincent’s Aurelius Saintele, OSB, and the President of the University was Vincent Ying. The teaching program of the University of Fu Jen spread rapidly, and other Chinese scholars were able to be enrolled for the new university. Several professors from European universities were also recruited. In 1927 a novitiate was set up. In the same year the Academy received provisional official recognition of its status as a university, thanks to its Faculty of Liberal Arts, which at that time was unique. It took the official Chinese name of ‘Fu Jen Da Xue’ (University of Fu Jen).The years 1927-1929 were dominated by student unrest linked to the political quarrels and conflicts between the armies of North and South China. The rebellious students demonstrated against foreign universities. In this context of strife Fu Jen for a time lost its title of university. The title was returned to it as early as 1929, after the creation of two new Faculties; the University of Fu Jen then comprised three Faculties, liberal arts, natural sciences and education.

In September 1930 six American Benedictine nuns arrived in Peking. They set up the foundation of a college for girls, to be annexed to the college for boys created in 1929. In 1931 Fu Jen was granted definitive official recognition as a university. For the academic year 1932/3 it counted 605 students, of whom 48 obtained a university degree. The length of study to diploma level (baccalaureate) was four years.

In February 1933 the secretary of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith made it known that the direction of the Catholic University of Peking must be transferred to the Society of the Divine Word. This was a severe blow to the Benedictines of the monastery and of the university, and equally to the Benedictine nuns of the girls’ college. Many of them had taken part in the creation of a university at a difficult moment and in a strange environment at the price of considerable sacrifice and considerable effort. Despite all the difficulties, this development came to many of them as a bombshell. The world economic crisis principally explained why an isolated monastery like St Vincent’s was no longer in a position to provide sufficient financial resources to the Catholic University of Peking despite the commitment of a circle of friends scattered all over America. In such a situation the Benedictine structure was also perceived as a complication: although the foundation of the university had been confided to the American Cassinese Benedictine Congregation, nevertheless from the beginning St Vincent’s had been legally responsible for it. Because of the financial crisis the other monasteries of the Congregation were no longer able or disposed to lend their financial support to Fu Jen. Finally, daily life in a culturally foreign environment, an unstable political situation and constant tension between monastic life and that of management created challenges both on the campus and in the heart of the monastery for which many were not prepared. In April 1933 the Catholic University of Peking was transferred to the Society of the Divine Word.

Nevertheless, the innovative and pioneering work of the Benedictines endured and bore fruit: the university developed, other faculties and departments were created, the number of students grew continually. A large number of them were baptized. Beside the colleges for boys and girls a third college was founded, intended for Chinese priests; important books were published in liaison with Fu Jen. 1935 saw the establishment of the Art School of Peking, a famous school of painting which transcribed Christian motifs into Chinese ideograms, another sign and means of enculturation. The development of a vaccine against typhus in the microbiological laboratory of Fu Jen must also be mentioned. Its author, Dr Weigl of Lwow (Lemberg), directed the production of this serum which delivered North China, Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and Korea from a devastating plague.

In 1951 the communist regime integrated Fu Jen into the National University of Peking, which marked the end of the Catholic institution. The year 1960 saw the new foundation of Fu Jen at Taipei in Taiwan, where it is today numbered among the great universities of the land. While it concentrates on the imparting of knowledge in the faculties of natural sciences and social sciences, it nevertheless gives priority to the transmission of Christian values and the total formation of the young people. It numbers among its teachers missionaries and religious: Divine Word missionaries, Jesuits, Dominicans and also Benedictines.

When the University of Fu Jen was handed over to the Divine Word missionaries three of the Fathers were allowed to remain in China. They moved to Kaifeng, and in 1936 were put under the authority of the Abbey of St Procopius in the United States. In consequence of a disagreement with the bishop they decided to move once more, but, as American citizens, were forcibly assigned a place of residence from 1941 onwards. After the end of the war the communist take-over put paid to a new foundation. The American Benedictine nuns had also hoped to be able to continue to work in China. Like their American brothers, they had been assigned a place of residence and were compelled to leave the country in 1948. Both groups were finally installed in Taiwan, where St Procopius founded a small priory, of which the former Chancellor of the University of Fu Jen became the first prior.

The Archabbey of St Vincent’s, which had formerly borne the burden of the university, also took part in the creation of the new University of Fu Jen in Taiwan, and built a priory on the campus where two Benedictine professors still live today.