Juan Bautista Morales

Juan Bautista Morales (c. 1597 – 17 September 1664) was a Spanish Dominican missionary in China.

Life

Born c. 1597 in Écija, Morales entered the Order of St. Dominic at a very early age, and after devoting some years to missionary work in the Philippine Islands, accompanied in 1633 a band of Dominican missionaries to China, taking up their work in the province of Fujian. Here he took an active part in the Chinese Rites controversy, between the Jesuits on the one side and the Dominicans and Franciscans on the other. The latter maintained that the Jesuits, to make converts, tolerated to a certain extent the cult of Confucius and of ancestors.

They despatched Morales to Rome in 1643, and on 12 September 1645, obtained from Pope Innocent X a decision condemning the methods of the Jesuits. The latter also appealed to Rome, and obtained from Pope Alexander VII a contradictory decree. In 1661 Morales again called the attention of the Holy See to the matter, and in 1669, five years after the death of Morales, Pope Clement IX issued a new decree deciding against the Jesuits. About the same time the Dominicans discovered an enemy in their own ranks in the person of the Chinese friar, Luo Wenzao, Bishop of Basilea, who sent to the Holy See a memorandum favourable to the Jesuits.

While in Italy he recruited Vittorio Riccio, who would conduct extensive missionary work in Manila and south-east China.^[1]

He died on 17 September 1664 in Funing.

Works

Among Morales' works are:

Quaesta xvii a Fr. J.B. de Moralez, missionum sinarum procuratore, proposita Romae 1643 S. Congreg. de Prop. Fide (Rome, 1645)
Tractatus ad explicandas et elucidandas opiniones et controversias inter Patres Societatis Jesu et religiosos S. Ord. Praed.
Commentarium super Litanias B. Virginis lingua sinica
Tractatus ad Dei amorem in voluntate excitandum, lingua sinica

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Juan Bautista Morales — Missionary, b. about 1597 at Ecija in Andalusia, Spain; d. Fu-ning, China, 17 Sept., 1664. He entered the Ordor of St. Dominic at a very early age, and after devoting some years to missionary work in the Philippine Islands, accompanied in 1633 a band of Dominican missionaries to China, taking up their work in the province of Fu-kien. Here he took an active part in the controversy between the Jesuits on the one side and the Dominicans and Franciscans on the other, regarding Chinese customs (see CHINA). The latter maintained that the Jesuits, to win over more easily the people to the religion of Christ, tolerated to a certain extent the cult of Confucius and of ancestors; and, seeing in this alleged condescension to heathen customs, a jeopardy to the purity of the faith, they despatched Morales to Rome in 1643, and on 12 Sept., 1645, obtained from Innocent X a decision condemning the methods of the Jesuits. The latter also appealed to Rome, and obtained from Alexander VII a contradictory decree. In 1661 Morales again called the attention of the Holy See to the matter, and in 1669, five years after the death of Morales, Clement IX issued a new decree deciding against the Jesuits. About the same time the Dominicans discovered an enemy in their own ranks in the person of the Chinese friar, Gregory Lopez, Bishop of Basilea, who sent to the Holy See a memorandum favourable to the Jesuits. Among the works of Morales the following are the most important: (1) "Quaesta xvii a Fr. J.B. de Moralez, missionum sinarum procuratore, proposita Romae 1643 S. Congreg. de Prop. Fide" (Rome, 1645); (2) "Tractatus ad explicandas et elucidandas opiniones et controversias inter Patres Societatis Jesu et religiosos S. Ord. Praed."; (3) "Commentarium super Litanias B. Virginis lingua sinica"; (4) "Tractatus ad Dei amorem in voluntate excitandum, lingua sinica."

QUETIF-ECHARD, Script. Ord. Praed., II, 611, TOURON, Hommes illust. de l'ordre S. Dominique, V. 627, 628, 630; HUC, Le Christianisme en Chine, III (Paris, 1857). 11-19.

References

Back to citation Wiltgen, Ralph M (1979). The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania: 1825 to 1850. Canberra: ANU Press. p. 170. ISBN 0708108350.

Bibliography

Attribution

- QUETIF and Jacques Échard, Scriptores ordinis prædicatorum recensiti, notisque historicis illustrati ad annum 1700 auctoribus, II, 611,
- TOURON, Hommes illust. de l'ordre S. Dominique, V. 627, 628, 630;
- HUC, Le Christianisme en Chine, III (Paris, 1857). 11–19.

[1] Back to citation Wiltgen, Ralph M (1979). The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania: 1825 to 1850. Canberra: ANU Press. p. 170. ISBN 0708108350.

[1]