Catholic missions

Missionary work of the Catholic Church has often been undertaken outside the geographically defined parishes and dioceses by religious orders who have people and material resources to spare, and some of which specialized in missions. Eventually, parishes and dioceses would be organized worldwide, often after an intermediate phase as an apostolic prefecture or apostolic vicariate. Catholic mission has predominantly been carried out by the Latin Church in practice.

In the Roman Curia, missionary work is organised by the Dicastery for Evangelisation.

During the Middle Ages, Christian monasteries and missionaries (such as Saint Patrick and Adalbert of Prague) fostered formal education and learning of religion, beyond the boundaries of the old Roman Empire. In the seventh century, Gregory the Great sent missionaries, including Augustine of Canterbury, into England. The Hiberno-Scottish mission began in 563 CE.

In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, Franciscans (such as William of Rubruck, John of Montecorvino, and Giovanni ed' Magnolia) were sent as missionaries to the Near and Far East. Their travels took them as far as China, in an attempt to convert the advancing Mongols to Christianity, especially the Great Khans of the Mongol Empire. (See also Catholic Church in China.)

During the Age of Discovery, the Catholic Church established a number of missions in the Americas and other colonies through the Augustinians, Franciscans, and Dominicans in order to spread Catholicism in the New World and to convert the indigenous peoples of the Americas and other indigenous people. At the same time, missionaries such as Francis Xavier as well as other Jesuits, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Dominicans were moving into Asia and the Far East. The Portuguese sent missions into Africa. These are some of the most well-known missions in history.

In the empires ruled by both Portugal and Spain, religion was an integral part of the state and evangelization was seen as having both secular and spiritual benefits. Wherever these powers attempted to expand their territories or influence, missionaries would soon follow. By the Treaty of Tordesillas, the two powers divided the world between them into exclusive spheres of influence, trade, and colonization. The Catholic world order was challenged by the Netherlands and England. Theoretically, it was repudiated by Grotius's Mare Liberum. Portugal's and Spain's colonial policies were also challenged by the Catholic Church itself. The Vatican founded the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in 1622 and attempted to separate the churches from the influence of the Iberian kingdoms.

While missions in areas ruled by Spanish and Portuguese, and to a lesser extent, the French, are associated with cultural imperialism and oppression, and often operated under the sponsorship and consent of colonial governments, those in other portions of the world (notably Matteo Ricci's Jesuit mission to China, and the work of other Jesuit missionaries in the Nagasaki region in Japan) were focused on the conversion of individuals within existing social and political structures, and often operated without the consent of local government.

John of Monte Corvino was a Franciscan sent to China to become prelate of Peking in around 1307. He traveled from Persia and moved down by sea to India in 1291, to the Madras region or "Country of St. Thomas". There he preached for thirteen months and baptized about one hundred people. From there Monte Corvino wrote home, in December 1291 (or 1292), giving one of the earliest noteworthy accounts of the Coromandel coast furnished by any Western European. Traveling by sea from Mailapur, he reached China in 1294, appearing in the capital "Cambaliech" (now Beijing).