Faith through diplomacy

The story of Lou Tseng Tsiang (Shanghai 1871–Bruges 1949) is very particular: Anglican like his father, as a boy he already sought his own path of faith by studying Confucius, emblem of Chinese wisdom. His intellectual gifts lead him to work at the Chinese embassy in Petersburg, he dreams of a future diplomatic career. But one scruple remains in him: how will he be able to help his now elderly parents while remaining in Russia? His superior at the embassy, Shu Kin Shen, intervenes: «We have duties towards society and our country. Who will be able to stop our homeland on the path to disaster? Take you and other young people the place of the elderly who will be overwhelmed, and make China an adequate construction". Lou stays.

And here is another challenge, even more important: «The strength of Europe is not found in its armaments, nor in its knowledge, it is found in its religion. You observe the Christian faith. When you have grasped her heart and her strength, take them and deliver them to China.' In Petersburg, Lou marries a Belgian Catholic teacher, with great scandal on the part of the two families. Meanwhile he becomes minister in Holland, then ambassador in Petersburg and finally foreign minister of his country but the thirst for truth does not abandon him. One day he asks his wife: what if I became a Catholic like you? The drama of Berthe's early death hastens his conversion, and immediately afterwards he enters the Benedictine novitiate. Now a monk, he moved to Bruges, where he died. He dreamed of returning to his homeland as a missionary: «I would like to say to my compatriots: read the Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Paul. Then you will ask yourself the question: does the living and true God, the only God, really live in the Catholic Church?


Annamaria Gobbato
NP November 2022