ABSTRACT
Ritually, filiality is expressed through ancestor veneration offered by son to father, by scholar-gentry to Master K’ung as ancestor par excellence, and by emperor to his ancestors and to Tian for well-being of nation. The practice of ancestor veneration as a ritualization par excellence of filiality became defining characteristic of Chinese culture and cornerstone of the Chinese family. In the encounter between the Christian Gospel and East Asians, nothing was more explosive than the controversy surrounding the ancestor veneration rites that are traditionally associated with Master K’ung and his teaching on filiality. Rome’s prohibition against the practice of ancestor veneration rites by East Asian converts led to the prolonged persecution of East Asian Catholics in China, Korea, and Vietnam over their refusal to participate in these rituals. At the heart of this controversy are the different perspectives between Rome, which viewed the ancestor veneration rites through an orthodoxic lens, and East Asian Confucian societies, which are historically orthopraxic in orientation.
