Catholics and Everyday Life in Macau
Catholicism has had an important place in Macau since the earliest days of Portuguese colonization in the sixteenth century. This book, based on extensive original research including in-depth interviews, examines in detail the everyday life of Catholics in Macau at present. It outlines the tremendous societal pressures which Macau is currently undergoing sovereignty handover and its consequences, the growth of casinos and tourism and the transformation of a serene and somewhat obscure colony into a vibrantly developing city. It shows how, although the formal structures of Catholicism no longer share in rule by the colonial power, and although formal religious observance is declining, nevertheless the personal piety and ethical religious outlook of individual Catholics continue to be strong, and have a huge, and possibly increasing, impact on public life through the application of personal religious ethics to issues of human rights and social justice and in the fields of education and social services.
Chen Hon-Fai is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
Routledge Religion in Contemporary Asia Series
Series Editor
Bryan S. Turner
Professor at the City University of New York and Director of the Centre for Religion and Society at the University of Western Sydney
1 State Management of Religion in Indonesia
Myengkyo Seo
2 Religious Pluralism, State and Society in Asia
Edited by Chiara Formichi
3 Thailands International Meditation Centers
Tourism and the Global Commodification of Religious Practices
Brooke Schedneck
4 Digital Culture and Religion in Asia
Sam Han and Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir
5 Being Catholic in the Contemporary Philippines
Jayeel Serrano Cornelio
6 Catholics and Everyday Life in Macau
Changing Meanings of Religiosity, Morality and Civility
Chen Hon-Fai
Catholics and Everyday Life in Macau
Changing Meanings of Religiosity, Morality and Civility
Chen Hon-Fai
First published 2017
by Routledge
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2017 Chen Hon-Fai
The right of Chen Hon-Fai to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Names: Chen, Hon-Fai, author.
Title: Catholics and everyday life in Macau : changing meanings of religiosity, morality and civility / Chen Hon-Fai.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge religion in contemporary Asia series; 6 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016045396| ISBN 9780415715935 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315880419 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: CatholicsReligious lifeChinaMacau. | Catholic ChurchInfluence. | Community lifeChinaMacauHistory21st century. | Christianity and cultureChinaMacauHistory21st century. |
Macau (China)Social conditions21st century.
Classification: LCC BX1666.M33 C49 2017 | DDC 282/.5126dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016045396
ISBN: 978-0-415-71593-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-88041-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
A lot of valuable work about the history of Macau and the conflicts in civil society over corruption and the authoritarian system...brings out the complexity of the city/state and the role of the church.
Bryan Turner, Australian Catholic University and
Potsdam University, Germany
Contents
I have to express my most sincere gratitude to Bryan Turner, who offered me this invaluable opportunity to contribute my study on Macau Catholicism. As always, I am thankful for his trust, patience and guidance. The comments made by anonymous reviewers were very helpful for my preparation of the book proposal and revision of the manuscript. This study would be impossible without the generous and unceasing support of Fr. Pedro Ng and Sr. Victoria Lau. They were always eager to refer Church members for interviews and share their inside perspective on church development in Macau. Sr. Beatrice Lau reminded me of the necessity of putting Macau Catholicism in the broader context of the Churchstate relationship. Peter Baehr, my mentor and colleague at Lingnan University, offered me useful advice on method and style at the beginning of the research.
Before the idea of this book took shape, I was involved in a comparative study, Catholicism and Civil Society Building: Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, commissioned by the Center on Religion and Chinese Society of Purdue University in 2012. I benefited greatly from the summer workshop held at Renmin University of China, and the numerous exchanges and discussions with religion scholars from Greater China, the United States and elsewhere. I learned most from my former collaborators, Chan Shun Hing, Hao Zhidong, Kuo Wenban and Li Xiangping. In certain ways the present work is an attempt to perpetuate the dialogue initiated by these scholars, though its analytical framework and substantive arguments were articulated after I had finished my part in that earlier project.
The funding support for the research and writing of this book came from an internal grant from Lingnan University. Parts of my findings were presented on the following occasions: Hundred Years of Time: The Perpetuation and Development of Chinese Catholic Communities, a conference jointly organized by the Macau Catholic Diocese and Macau Polytechnic Institute in 2014; the Eighth International Convention of Asia Scholars organized by the University of Macau in 2013; Catholicism: A Comparison between Hong Kong and Macau, a public forum jointly organized by the Hong Kong Sociological Association and Hong Kong Joint Publisher Company in 2013.
I am grateful to all my interviewees for their willingness and enthusiasm in sharing their religious and social lives in meticulous detail. Cherrie Lee, Rita Lo, Black Ma and James Mak contributed significantly to this study by establishing contacts and arranging interviews. Jaylia Law, Yan-Yan Ng, Leo Sui, Corex Tang, Leo Tang and Joanne Tsang performed a great service in producing full transcripts of the interviews. I owe a great deal to Flora Lo and Joanne Tsang, who collected and organized relevant materials on social issues and social change in Macau.
