PROTECTORATE. -
I. NATURE AND ORIGIN
The religious or missionary protectorate consists in an agreement by which Christian powers protect Christians or Christian institutions in non-Christian countries. Its scope is not always the same and may extend only to the missions of the protecting State, or to all missions regardless of nationality, or finally also to all Christians in the respective non-Christian country. Juridically, therefore, the protectorate is a form of state servitude, which gives the protecting State the right to intervene in favor of the persons and objects under protection, such as religious buildings, convents, charitable institutions, schools, and missions. The missionary protectorate originated as a result of agreements or customary law and, generally, because of deficient administration of justice in certain countries or the need to protect the Christian religion.Although the missionary protectorate may give rise to easy abuses, from the theological point of view it is defensible because missionary activity may be protected by international agreements. The theological foundations, as well as the limits and conditions of the protectorate, were established by Suárez in the treatise De fide against Sanchez, who wished for military intervention to convert China. The Holy See, while not excluding the protectorate (AAS, 18 [1926]), p. 306 ff.), has always sought to safeguard the national interests of non-Christian peoples and to protect missionary work from political interference, as may easily be seen from its efforts to secure its own representation for the establishment of a nunciature in Beijing in 1895 and 1918; for the formation of a national clergy and the introduction of an indigenous hierarchy (Message of Pius XI to China, in AAS, 20 [1928]), p. 245 ff.). In international law, the protection of the Christian religion, already in force earlier (cf. Acts of the Congo, 1895), was gradually replaced by the principle of freedom of conscience and religion (cf. Revision of the Acts of the Congo, 1919).
II. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
The foundation of the international law of the p. is found in the so-called capitulations between Christian states and Muslim princes, which date back to the Middle Ages. Through them, the state sovereignty of the country of residence was abolished in favor of the personal sovereignty of the representatives and citizens of the contracting state. They arose following the increase in commercial relations with the East after the Crusades. J. Dindinger, in Bibliotheca Missionum, XV (Fribourg in Br. 1951, pp. 74–79), provides a complete list of the capitulations for Africa. Pisa was the first state to conclude a pact (1133) with a Muslim prince (Morocco). It was followed by Venice (1217), Genoa (1236), France (1270), Aragon (1274), and Florence (1422). None of these capitulations speaks of missions in the strict sense, that is, of the right to propagate the Christian faith. Hence the term missionary p. must be understood in a broad sense, since these were mission territories. The persons protected by the pacts with the Italian cities and with Aragon were exclusively citizens of the contracting countries. The French pact, however, extended to all priests and religious. In modern times France made efforts to obtain, in the Near East and North Africa, a universal p. over all Christians. In the pact with Turkey (1604), it was stated clearly for the first time that all pilgrims to Jerusalem were to travel with the permission and under the protection of the King of France. In the pact between Louis XIV and Turkey (1673), the French consul was granted the right of precedence over all other consuls. In a subsequent treaty (1685), art. 19 established France’s right of p. over all Christian missionaries. France acted on its own initiative and not on commission from the H. See, which merely recognized the accomplished fact. As a token of recognition, Propaganda granted the French consuls of the Levant the so-called honors (procession before and after the solemn Mass at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost from the church door to the place of honor and back, and the honor of incense before the other faithful). Despite this, France never had exclusive missionary p. The Austrian p. of supranational character (1615), that of Russia over the Orthodox (1681, 1774), that of Prussia (1761), and that of Germany (1878) were also of great importance; the last two, however, only in favor of their own citizens. Missionary p. came to an end in the Near East in 1914 and, respectively, in 1923, with the abolition of the capitulations. In the Treaty of Peace of Lausanne (1923), Turkey assumed the protection of religious minorities under the supervision of the League of Nations. The liturgical honors, reorganized in two agreements of 4 Dec. 1926 (AAS, 19 [1927], p. 9 ff.), do not signify a return to the p. but are a free acknowledgment of the services rendered in the past.III. THE MISSIONARY PROTECTORATE IN CHINA
The first capitulation imposed upon China by a Christian power was the article of the Russo-Chinese Peace Treaty of 1727 in which the Russians were granted the right to erect a church in Beijing. In the Treaties of 1844, after the Opium War, the United States of America and France obtained the right to erect churches, hospitals, and cemeteries in the five treaty ports for their subjects. At the request of Lagrené, France’s extraordinary envoy, an imperial decree was issued on 20 February 1846 permitting the practice of the Catholic religion; Catholics were authorized to build places of worship throughout China, to pray, venerate crucifixes and images, and preach without any hindrance; it was ordered that the churches built under Kanghi be restored to worship; and that the local authorities who persecuted true Catholics should be punished. Foreigners, however, were forbidden to penetrate into the interior to preach outside the five treaty ports. The decree, nevertheless, was not published in the prescribed form, and France could not officially intervene in this matter. Thereafter the situation remained unchanged. In 1851 Russia obtained the same rights for its subjects in the commercial cities of the province of III. By the Treaties of Tientsin in 1858 between China and the United States, England, and France, religious freedom was extended into the interior, and the Chinese were permitted to embrace the Christian religion. Article 13 of the French treaty established that effective protection would be granted to missionaries who peacefully entered the interior of the country, bearing passports in accordance with Article 2. No obstacle could be placed by the Chinese authorities in the way of any Chinese person’s right freely to embrace Christianity, and no penalty was to be inflicted for this reason. This was followed by the formal revocation of all earlier anti-Christian laws. Since France was the only Catholic power among the signatories, it obtained the missionary protectorate, encompassing all Catholic missionaries bearing French passports, whatever their nationality. In the Treaty of Beijing (1860), France obtained the right for missionaries to own real property. One thing alone had been forgotten in all these agreements: the mission’s right to establish a school. France, however, did not obtain from the Holy See the extension of the liturgical honors to China as well. After the arrival of the first German missionaries in China (1882), the German government informed the French government that it itself would assume the protection of its own missionaries. After some hesitation, in 1889 Propaganda left the German missionaries free to choose between a passport and the French or German protectorate. In the Peace of Versailles (1919), Germany renounced all claims to a protectorate in China.At the same time as Germany, Italy too (1888) assumed the protectorate over its own missionaries. At first Propaganda did not agree (Letter from Propaganda of 11 February 1890 to the apostolic vicar of Hong Kong), but from 1902 it tacitly consented. In order to maintain its protectorate, France prevented, in 1881, 1885, and 1918, the attempts at diplomatic relations between China and the Holy See requested by China. The apostolic delegation established in 1922 had no diplomatic character and made no change in the existing state of the protectorate. In February 1943 China sent an ambassador to the Holy See.
The Holy See established an internunciature in China in 1946, France having renounced, on 28 February 1946 in the Chungking agreement, all rights deriving from the unequal treaties. This fact, together with the Holy See’s action, abolished the protectorate.