Catholic Church in China

The Catholic Church (Chinese: 天主教; pinyin: Tiānzhǔ jiào; lit. 'Religion of the Lord of Heaven', after the Chinese term for the Christian God) first appeared in China upon the arrival of John of Montecorvino in China proper during the Yuan dynasty; he was the first Catholic missionary in the country, and would become the first bishop of Khanbaliq (1271–1368).

The Jesuit Matteo Ricci was successful in Catholic missionary work in China. His approach viewed certain Confucian and Chinese folk practices as non-religious in nature and therefore compatible with Catholic practice. Other missionaries objected to this approach and after the hundred year long Chinese Rites controversy, the Vatican ordered the Jesuits to abandon the culturally accommodating approach Ricci had developed.

After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) won the Chinese Civil War, Catholic and Protestant missionaries were expelled from the country. In 1957, the CCP established the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) in Beijing, which rejects the authority of the Holy See and appoints its own preferential bishops. In September 2018, China and the Holy See reached a provisional agreement giving the Pope the power to veto any bishop which the Chinese government recommends. The parties have extended the provisional agreement twice, most recently in October 2024.

Terms used to refer to God in Chinese differ even among Christians.

Arriving in China during the Tang dynasty, the earliest Christian missionaries from the Church of the East referred to their religion as Jǐngjiào (景教, literally, "bright teaching"). Originally, some Catholic missionaries and scholars advanced the use of Shàngdì (上帝, literally, "The Emperor from Above"), as being more native to the Chinese language. Other Catholic missionaries coined the neologism Tiānzhǔ (天主, literally, "Lord of Heaven") which became the dominant usage. Within the Catholic Church, the term 'gōngjiào' (公教, literally "universal teaching") is not uncommon, this being also the original meaning of the word "catholic". When Protestants arrived in China in the 19th century, they favored Shangdi over Tianzhu. Many Protestants use Shén (神), which generically means "god" or "spirit" (although Catholic priests are called shénfù (神父, literally "spiritual father")), or Yēhéhuá (耶和華, a transliteration of Jehovah). Meanwhile, the Mandarin Chinese translation of Jesus, used by all Christians, is Jīdū (基督).

The modern Chinese language generally divides Christians into two groups: adherents of Catholicism, Tiānzhǔjiào (天主教), and adherents of Protestantism, Jīdūjiào (基督教) or Jīdū Xīnjiào (基督新教—"New Religion"). Chinese speakers see Catholicism and Protestantism as distinct religions. Thus, in Western languages, the term "Christianity" can subsume both Catholics and Protestants (i.e., Christians as opposed to, for example, Hindus or Jews). In Chinese, however, there is not a commonly used term that can subsume the two (but today in Chinese Catholic literature, the term "Jīdū zōngjiào" (基督宗教) is used to signify all Christian sects, as the term in Chinese means "religion of Christ"). Eastern Orthodoxy is called Dōngzhèngjiào (東正教), which is simply a literal translation of "Eastern Orthodox Religion" into Chinese.

The Catholic Church first entered China during the cosmopolitan Tang dynasty era, although it had few native Chinese followers until the 16th century in the Ming dynasty.

A series of reports about the Far East reached the Catholic West in the mid thirteenth century.