A few years ago, I was invited to meet an old Irish priest on vacation from America. He had read my book on the dark side of the papacy and wanted to know if there were any decent popes in earlier ages.I mentioned Clement XI who, in 1715, saved the world. For nearly 200 years the Jesuits had been working in China.
The greatest of them was Matthew Ricci.
In 30 years, he opened 300 churches, one in Beijing itself.
In 1692, his successors received the extraordinary permission from Emperor Kang Hi to preach the gospel of Christ throughout the kingdom.
Clement XI was then pope. Dominicans whispered in his ear that Jesuits in China were allowing their converts to remain idolaters.
They convinced Clement, despite the Emperor's solemn word, that the Chinese believed that the souls of the dead were in the tablets of their ancestors.
The pope wrote his encyclical "Ex Illa Die". It was the most momentous ever. It brought the conversion of China to a dead halt.
The Emperor's aides persuaded him that Catholic missionaries should be banished, their churches torn down, their converts forced to renounce their faith in Christ.
The old priest was puzzled. How had Clement XI saved the world by such stupidity?
But for him, I answered, Rome's sexual ethics would have meant there would now be three to four billion Chinese Catholics and there would be absolutely no hope for the world.
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