The Ancestors'' Rites in the Taiwanese Catholic Church
Date Issued
2008
Date
2008
Author(s)
Marco, Lazzarotti
Abstract
Ancestors are considered one of the most important points in Han (漢) culture, every family, every Chinese must pray for his ancestors. This concept permeates all the complex and deep Han culture, and it is very present in the everyday life of most Han people.any anthropologists who have studied the religion of the Han people in Taiwan and in China have met this cultural phenomenon. Since Freedman (1958) and Francis Hsu (Hsu 1967), anthropologists have continued to research and study the worship of ancestors among Han people. In Taiwan, the research of the last decades was performed by many distinguished anthropologists. I will only cite Ahern (1973), Wolf (1974;1976), Feuchtwang (1974) Harrel (1974), Li Yih-Yuan (1976), Wang Song-hsing (1976), etc. The studies of these have already helped us deeply comprehend the phenomenon of Han’s ancestors worship, and the relation between the ancestors'' worship and geomantic omen, lineage, kinship, family division, and so on.y research will mainly focus on how Taiwanese Catholics honor their ancestors and how these rites represent a link between the two cultural systems, the Han popular religion and the Catholic one. In most Taiwanese Catholic homes, it is quite common to find ancestors altars in the living room, or at least, pictures representing familiar ancestors. During the Chinese New Year, Taiwanese Catholics burn incense, offer food and wine at the ancestor’s tablets, and inside the churches particular ceremonies are performed in honor and remembrance of the ancestors. These are considered ways of venerating the dead.aiwanese Catholics, especially if freshly converted, often wonder whether ancestor-veneration (as a priest told me, ancestor-worship is a misnomer) is compatible with the Catholic faith. It is a question with a history that has very deep roots, which dates back four centuries ago, to the beginnings of the time of Matteo Ricci (limadou利瑪竇). Actually, in the course of history, these kinds of practices have been the most controversial point inside the Chinese Catholic Church, raising a debate which protracted itself for centuries. Even today, if these kinds of rituals have been allowed by the ecclesiastic authorities, the dispute, although in different ways, is still continuing.s we will see the so-called cult of ancestors had a significant influence not only within the Catholic Church, but it also raised a long discussion inside the Christian Protestant Church (Addison 1925). Looking outside the Christian contest, these practices and their cultural implications also deeply influenced the religious symbols of the Buddhist tradition (Teiser 1996; Chun-Fang Yu 2001; Batairwa 2006).
Subjects
天主教祖先儀式
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