While China is in the news daily now, with more and more U.S. institutions of higher education becoming interested in China, it is interesting to note that the Benedictines were the first to establish a Catholic University in China and Saint Marin’s Abbey played a role.

According to Jerome Oetgen¹, the reason the Holy See had turned to the Benedictines was that the situation confronting the disintegrating Chinese Empire in the early 1900s was similar to that which confronted the Roman Empire at the beginning of the European Dark Ages. The Benedictines were the religious order best suited, by character and tradition, to take charge of the Church’s higher educational apostolate in China. In 1922, Pope Pius XI choose the American Benedictines for the task of establishing the first Catholic University in China. By 1925, Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, the first Benedictine monastery in the United States, established the first Catholic University – Fu Jen Catholic University in what is now Beijing.

It was opened originally as a single college under the name of Fu Jen Academy. In 1926 it was renamed Fu Jen Catholic University, and was officially recognized by the Ministry of Education as a university in 1929. By 1949, when the communists took control of China, the university had three colleges (Liberal Arts, Natural Sciences and Education), with twelve departments, two graduate schools (Chinese Literature and History), and a research center for typhus serum.

In 1925, a “call to arms” was issued to all the abbots and monks of the American Cassinese Congregation to assist in the endeavor with raising funds and recruiting personnel for the American Benedictine mission in China. Soon three Benedictines answered the call. One was Father Placidus Houtmeyers from Saint Martin’s Abbey. He brought back various items from his mission in China which are currently part of the Saint Martin’s Museum collection.

Saint Martin’s also has another connection to the original mission. Father Benedict Auer’s cousin, Sister Wibora Muehlenbein, was part of the first group of six Benedictine Sisters to also answer the call and to travel to China in 1930. She stayed in China until right before the Communist take over of 1949. She later returned to Taiwan to teach and stayed there until 1961. She wrote a book titled “Benedictine Mission to China” after her return to the United States.

Below is a map of the location of the Catholic University in Beijing from a 1949 edition of the National Geographic and a picture of the university from Sister Wibora Muehlenbein’s book. It is very close to the Forbidden City. The Communist took over the University in 1950 and it was annexed to the Normal Beijing University which is still in existence today.

In 1956, the Fu Jen Alumni Association proposed the reopening of Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan. In 1959, Pope John XXIII asked the then Archbishop Paul Pin Yu to reestablish the University. The university since then has grown and developed rapidly. At present, it has 8 colleges with 43 departments, 31 master's programs and 7 doctoral programs.

With China now once again allowing freedom of religion, is it time to revisit the reestablishing of a Catholic university in China? Again, Benedictines might be the best to lead the endeavor. Saint Martin’s has been in China for close to ten years now and President Astolfi was recently appointed to the board of directors for the U.S. Catholic China Bureau; so we might be in a position to lend assistance if there is a second “call to arms.”

Courtesy of Saint Martin's University's Lighthouse, a Campus Ministry publication.

¹ Author of “Mission to America: A History of Saint Vincent Archabbey, the First Benedictine Monastery in the United States.”