ABSTRACT
The extraordinary role of the missionary order created by Ignatius of Loyola in Europe’s early encounter with non-European peoples, from the “savages” of Brazil, Canada and Paraguay to the Asian civilizations of India, Japan, China and elsewhere in Asia, has long been recognised. It seems difficult to reach consensus about the significance of the rites controversy in the light of all these possible threads. The development of a policy of accommodation in the Eastern missions and the subsequent explosion of the rites controversy can be roughly divided in three phases, one of experimentation and approval, a second of resistance to criticism, and a third one of collapse under massive assault. The rhetoric of early colonial expansion, in Spanish America as well as in Portuguese Asia, was based on the principle that Latin Christians would extend a universal religion of salvation which allowed for no alternatives, even within its own tradition.
