Pope Denounces Jesuit Rites

1673

A papal decree began restricting the Jesuit missionary accommodation to Chinese rituals of ancestor veneration, the so-called Chinese Rites. The controversy would rumble on for decades and eventually end the brilliant Jesuit cultural synthesis at the Kangxi Emperor's court. Rome had mistaken its own certainty for universal truth, and the most promising bridge between European and Chinese civilization was slowly dismantled.