Wisdom from a prime minister of China who became a Benedictine monk

“The ordinance of heaven is termed the natural law; the principle which directs us to conform our actions to the natural law is called the rule of moral conduct; or the right path; the organized system of rules of moral conduct which puts us on this path is called the doctrine of duties or of institutions.”—Confucius

Recognizing China’s status as a rising power does not mean glossing over the distasteful or even dehumanizing practices of the Chinese Communist Party. Nor does it mean we should remain indifferent to the CCP’s suborning of disloyal American elites, or of the challenge which Chinese trade policies pose to America’s working class. It does mean that we had better to try to understand the essential Chinese identity and always keep in mind that China’s majestic civilization both precedes and transcends Beijing’s nationalist variant of socialism.

Thus in editing and translating for us Ways of Confucius and of Christ, Michael Derrick and Joshua Brown are to be doubly commended, for this reflective autobiography by Chinese Catholic statesman Lu Zhengxiang (1871-1949) not only acquaints us with China’s Confucian heritage, it also makes us think about how said heritage might fruitfully be brought into relation with the Church.

Born in 1871 in Shanghai to a Protestant household, Lu joined the diplomatic corps, serving first at the court of the Russian tsar and later at the peace conference, which produced the Treaty of Versailles. In this last capacity, he distinguished himself as the only delegate to withhold his signature from that ill-starred document. His mentor was beheaded because of the Boxer Rebellion, but not before exhorting Lu to explore the roots of Christianity. Along with his marriage to a much-beloved Belgian Catholic, Lu’s exploration of Christianity’s roots eventually led him into communion with Rome.

By the end of his life in 1949, he had served as a foreign minister and prime minister of the short-lived Chinese republic—and received ordination to the priesthood as a prelude to entering a Benedictine monastery. At his passing, he had seen not only World War II but also the beginnings of Communist ascendance over his country, yet he retained a spirit of quiet hope.

That hope stemmed in part from his vision of Christian unity. Neither a xenophobe nor a ninny infatuated with everything exotic and foreign, Lu was convinced that bridging the gulf between East and West was essential for the proper spiritual elevation of both worlds. It is worth noting that when he exhorted the East to familiarize itself with the West, Lu emphasized not Western technology, nor Western political ideals, but the classical patrimony which lies at the heart of Western civilization and the Church.

Those upset by efforts to divest the faithful of their Latin patrimony will be especially struck by Lu’s numerous tributes to classical culture:

Greek and Latin patristic literature is an incomparable treasure. Catholic theology borrowed from Greece the philosophical foundations of her spiritual edifice, and the terrestrial government of the Church found in Rome the juridical concepts that form the framework of her hierarchy and of her admirable organization […] All these good things have a value that is inestimable […] it is important that our clergy, far from diminishing their studies in Greco-Latin culture, shall develop them still more …

Lu’s truly catholic appreciation of the Greco-Roman tradition contrasts sharply with the shallow indifference exhibited by many Catholic American educators of today. Leadership in pursuit of the good life requires not just know-how, or lofty ideals, which can too often be reduced to catch-phrases. It requires the deep, wide knowledge which comes from the study of history, languages, philosophy, art, and culture—particularly the history, languages, philosophy, art, and culture of the Christian civilization which gave us the privileges and luxuries we take for granted. Whether in China or America, dystopia is the inevitable result when a society tries to seize upon Western gifts without understanding where they came from.

Of course, Westerners should not read Lu simply to reaffirm the value of Greek and Latin, but to gain Eastern insight into our own predicament. As a Confucian Christian, Lu was especially aware of something the West has almost entirely lost—the virtue of pietas. Where Catholics in the West are too often wont to associate “family values” with short-term, Hallmark greeting-card sentimentality, Lu explains that Confucian thought and Christian faith both conceive of the family as an expression of the natural law:

The bond of family life is filial piety. It is the fruit of the indissoluble affection that parents bring to each other and of that which they together bring to their children. Through that bond, the family attains its perfection. Filial piety gives to man the consciousness of his filiation, of what he receives at his entry into life, of what life is for him who receives it, and whose duty it is to transmit it […] Through it we bind ourselves to all the generations that have preceded us. We enter into what they are. We enter into what they have made us, and we enter into ourselves. In knowing our fathers, in understanding them, in loving them, we know our children, we become able to open the future to them, and we fashion that future.

The man who neglects filial piety “breaks himself away from his own roots,” and “is an anonymity,” Lu explains. “He who ‘frees’ himself from filial piety is a dead man.” Probably as good an explanation as any for the insanity plaguing American life, the decline of Mass attendance by Catholics, and the persistence of abortion. A culture of death is the logical result of an absence of gratitude. By its nature, pietas is not confined to the immediate family, but extends outward to one’s extended family, to one’s nation, and ultimately relates us to the rest of mankind. Lu’s pride in China as one of “the great non-European cultures of the world” in no way precluded him from honoring other peoples and befriending them.

Other themes in this book include the fascinating history of missionary work in China, the tragic struggle to forge a true Chinese republic, and Lu’s meditations upon the relationship between Protestantism and Catholicism in a majority pagan country—with this last topic being of special relevance to American Catholics as their own country’s traditional religious ethos declines.

Even more relevant, perhaps, is the example Lu provides of a thoughtful man of faith who trusted Providence through an era of upheavals, wars, and atrocities. As for Lu’s beloved native land, let us remember that “the People’s Republic” and China are not one and the same thing.

Ways of Confucius and of Christ: From Prime Minister of China to Benedictine Monk
By Dom Pierre-Celestin Lu, O.S.B.
Translated by Michael Derrick, with Introduction and notes by Joshua R. Brown
Ignatius Press, 2023
Paperback, 205 pages