Charles Maillard de Tournon
The patriarch of Antioch whom Clement XI sent to China as commissary and apostolic visitor. He published Rome’s ruling against the Chinese rites there in a mandate of 1707.
Benedict XIV names him as Charles Thomas de Tournon, patriarch of Antioch, commissary and apostolic visitor in the kingdom of China, to whom Clement XI sent the Holy Office’s answers of 1704 so that he might see them observed. A decree of the Holy Office of 25 September 1710, which Benedict quotes, calls him cardinal and upholds the mandate on the rites that he had issued in China in 1707 (Benedict XIV, Ex quo singulari §§ 6 and 8, pp. 189–190). See the Chinese Rites Controversy.
In the timeline
- 1704 to 1742, firm dateThe Chinese Rites Controversy
Jesuit missionaries let Chinese converts honour Confucius and their ancestors as civil customs; others call the rites superstitious. Rome forbids them in 1704, 1715 and 1742, the Kangxi emperor says Westerners should no longer preach, and in 1939 Rome allows them as civil acts.