The Catholic Missionary Impulse. Roman Catholic missionary work in Asia dates to the arrival of the renowned Jesuit missionary Matthew Ricci (1552-1610) in China in 1583. After impressing the emperor with his clock-making skills, Ricci eventually secured permission to remain in the imperial capital, where he was able to establish a Christian base and introduce Christian literature to the Chinese people. Like all pioneer missionaries to the East, Ricci faced the challenge of finding Eastern equivalents for Christian terms and managed to introduce the Christian message in terms understandable to the Chinese world view. As long as Ricci's approaches to missionary outreach were followed, the Jesuit mission in China flourished. By the early eighteenth century, however, new missionaries to China reported to Rome that the converts of the Jesuits embraced a pagan form of Christianity. In a series of papal bulls, Rome ultimately...