Navarrete, Fernández Domingo

NAVARRETE, FERNÁNDEZ DOMINGO. - Spanish Dominican missionary, writer and archbishop, b. at Peñafiel (Valladolid) ca. 1618, d. at S. Domingo (in the Antilles) in 1689.

He made his religious profession in the convent of his city on 8 Dec. 1635. After some years of teaching at Valladolid, in 1646 he spoke in favor of the Dominican missions overseas. He stayed in Mexico for some time, then went to the Philippines to teach at Manila (1648). In 1659, while returning to Spain for reasons of health, having landed in China, he stopped in those Dominican missions, over which he was placed in 1664. During the persecution (1665-69), among the Catholic missionaries interned, especially at Canton, the controversy arose over the Chinese rites, of which N. was a tenacious opponent. At the beginning of 1673 he was in Rome to report on the missions of China and on the question of the rites. It was then thought to place him at the direction of all the Catholic missions of the Chinese Empire, which he managed to avoid; he could not, however, later refuse the archbishopric of S. Domingo (1677). During the twelve years of his episcopate he distinguished himself for zeal and supported the mission of the Jesuits of the Island, demonstrating that his tenacious opposition to the Chinese rites had no other motive than the conscious defense of the truth, since he had by no means diminished his charity and esteem toward the fathers of the Society.

He left a great historical work on China, of which the first two parts were published: Tratados históricos, políticos, éticos y religiosos de la Monarchía de China... (Madrid 1676) and Controversias antiguas y modernas de la misión de la gran China (ibid. 1679). He wrote in Chinese various works on the Catholic truths, on ethics, etc.

Abele Redigonda